Expert blasts Wembley confusion

Cardiff will be the new Wembley for a while

Simon Inglis, an authority on stadia, tells BBC Sport Online's Saj Chowdhury about the confusion which has led the UK government to backtrack on its plan to exclude athletics from the new Wembley.

The saga of building a new Wembley has taken yet another twist.

Culture minister Chris Smith has announced he will have talks with project leader Sir Rodney Walker about building a running track on the new site for the 2005 World Athletics Championship.

It was originally decided that athletics would play no part at the new Wembley, and a different site, at Picketts Lock in North London, was proposed for the 2005 Games.

UK Athletics has precious little money

  Simon Inglis

Now the government insist that removable track must be installed into the new Wembley structure.

"There should have been a decision to include a running track months ago," said Inglis.

'Astronomical' costs

"If it hadn't been for Chris Smith, or whoever else was responsible for delaying the decision, then thousands of pounds could have been saved on drawing plans for the now, what appears to be, ill-fated Picketts Lock venture.

"UK Athletics has precious little money.

"They would always need need to ask the government for money, whether through lottery funding or through other ways, to keep any sort of purpose-built athletics stadium running.

"The venue would have been redundant most of the year."

Wembley, which could cost in excess of £600m, may now need to re-evaluate its plans resulting in an increase in the revenue required to fund the new venue.

Inglis believes that that would be a fraction of the cost of building two sports venues.

"The FA owns the land which Wembley is on - so there is no worry about having to buy the plot before the stadium is built.

"Can you imagine if UK Athletics had to buy their land and then build on it - the costs would have been astronomical."