Tottenham’s stadium set to double up with the NFL

TOTTENHAM are considering a state-of-the-art stadium with a retractable pitch that would enable them to become the home of an NFL London franchise. The bold design of the £400million stadium, due to be completed for the start of the 2018-19 season, could involve a ‘slide-out’ grass football pitch with an NFL-style synthetic surface underneath. The option of extra-large changing rooms, to accommodate NFL squad sizes that can amount to as many as 70 players at a game, is also being explored by architects. A spokesman for the north London club did not rule out the possibility this week, confirming that the club is ‘looking at options’ in order to ‘future-proof the design’. The NFL is said to be within five years of having a permanent franchise in London. Indeed, officials will be testing logistics when they stage their three games at Wembley this autumn,autu with teams lookingloo at how quickly theyt can have their playersp back in the USA and ready to play again. AsA an experiment, teamst will kick off at 1pm1p on a Sunday, enablingen them to take advantageadva of the time differencediffere and be back on American soil by Sunday night. If Tottenham build the proposed stadium design and secure the NFL franchise it would represent a significant blow to the FA, who see the NFL as a potentially lucrative partner for Wembley. But the NFL are keeping their options open in the knowledge that a new London stadium designed with American football requirements in mind would be hugely advantageous. Even filling the proposed capacity of 65,000 for the new White Hart Lane is a more realistic target for them than Wembley’s 90,000 seats.