Spectacular plans for replacing Wembley Stadium with a £160m “arena of the future” were unveiled yesterday as London and Manchester continued to fight for the right to build a new national stadium with lottery money.
The new stadium will seat 80,000 spectators without the need for view-restriciting columns. It will have a retractable transparent roof and undulating upper tiers of seats described as a “Wembley wave”.
The plan involves the demolition of everything except the the twin towers, which would be moved to create a new “gateway” for spectators arriving via the Olympic Way. Construction could start the day after the 1998 FA Cup Final and be ready for the final in the year 2000.
- The Daily Telegraph 28/6/96 page 6
- Financial Times 28/6/96 page 9
- The Guardian 28/6/96 page 10
