Tottenham have been given permission to continue playing their home matches at Wembley until their new stadium is ready – but at a reduced capacity.
Spurs were due to move into their new White Hart Lane stadium in September but the project has suffered a number of construction delays.
The club initially agreed to continue playing at Wembley until the end of the year.
They can now play there indefinitely but with a reduced capacity of 51,000.
A planning application to Brent Council is required to increase the capacity to 62,000 with “additional limited exceptions” at 90,000.
The council had granted special dispensation to allow Tottenham to play the entire 2017-18 season at Wembley at full capacity.
The club had hoped to be in their new 62,062-seater stadium by the start of the current campaign. During the summer, this was changed to the 15 September meeting with Liverpool.
Just over a month before that game, Tottenham said that because of “issues with the critical safety systems” their move had been delayed. On 26 October, they confirmed all remaining games in 2018 would be played at Wembley, with chairman Daniel Levy saying it was still not possible to “confirm an exact opening date and fixture”.
Now that deadline has been extended indefinitely, with the stadium not expected to open until January 2019 at the earliest. The club say they will provide a further update on the stadium’s progress in December.
Tottenham’s next match at Wembley is against Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday, November 24. That will be the final game, pending any further appeal to Brent Council, that Spurs will be allowed to use the stadium at its full capacity.
(BBC Sport)
