Jaguars owner offers $800M for Wembley
LONDON — The Jacksonville Jaguars’ billionaire owner, Shahid Khan, has offered to buy London’s iconic Wembley Stadium, a move that offers perhaps the clearest signal yet that the NFL is increasingly poised to establish a semi-permanent franchise in Britain after years of visits to the city.
Wembley, owned by England’s soccer association and home to its national team, the FA Cup final and many of Britain’s biggest sporting events, has staged regular NFL games for about a decade. The Jaguars are among the most regular participants in those games; the team debuted in London in 2013, the same year the Pakistan-born Khan acquired the Londonbased soccer club Fulham, and has played there annually ever since.
If the Jaguars wanted to play at Wembley more often, or pursue a permanent move, they would need the NFL’s approval. Relocating a franchise requires the consent of three-quarters of the league’s teams.
Khan has offered the current owner, the Football Association, 600 million pounds — more than $800 million — for the 90,000-seat arena, the latest version of which cost the equivalent of $1.5 billion when it was completed in 2007. Under the terms of the offer, the FA would retain the rights to lucrative club seats and hospitality facilities valued at 300 million pounds. The FA confirmed it had received an offer, without elaborating.
Khan, a self-made billionaire known for his extravagant mustache, promised in a statement that he would be a respectful custodian of Wembley should a deal go through, a nod to the arena’s importance within England’s sporting firmament but also an early salvo to assuage the likely critics of a deal to
transfer into foreign hands a stadium that many consider a national heritage site. England won its only World Cup in an earlier stadium on the site in 1966.
“Wembley Stadium is a very special place,” Khan said. “Our commitment to the FA is we will own and operate Wembley with the care and respect it deserves, always being mindful that it is — and will continue to be — the home of England’s national teams as well as the ultimate destination for the world’s top entertainment and sports event, including Jaguars and NFL games.”
The FA said earlier this year that it expected to pay off outstanding costs related to the stadium’s construction in 2024. Khan said that by selling the stadium, the soccer body would be able to invest in its core aims of developing talent for England’s national teams and enhancing the sport at grass-roots levels.
After details of Khan’s bid emerged Thursday, the FA chairman, Greg Clarke, wrote to the organization’s 92-member advisory group. In the letter, seen by The New York Times, Clarke noted that the FA did not own the stadium before 1999, and that there would be an “immediate and significant” cash influx that could be invested into facilities at all levels of the sport. He pointed out the sale would allow Wembley to “remain the home of the FA and English football,” while creating the option of taking the national men’s team on the road, something it has been unable to do because of the need to pay off construction costs.
“If we are to progress such a deal there would of course be many challenges, and I am well aware that it will be an emotive issue that will divide opinion,” he said. “It is, however, a unique opportunity.”
Further details will be discussed at the next FA council meeting in May.
Many challenges lie ahead, notably persuading the public and members of the FA’s notoriously old-fashioned council that a sale of Wembley is in the best interests of the game. One member of the council, contacted by The New York Times, said he was instinctively opposed to selling.
“Why would you sell it?” he said. “Everywhere you go in the world they talk about Wembley.” He insisted on anonymity because he did not want to appear to be speaking for the council.
Wembley has become a second home for the Jaguars. In 2015, Khan signed a deal to play at least one game a year there through 2020. Those London roots, and the Jaguars’ occupying one of the NFL’s smallest markets, have long created the suspicion that the team would one day pursue a move to London, becoming the first NFL team to be based outside of North America.
In a lengthy statement, Khan said the offer should be seen as an effort to strengthen the Jaguars’ fortunes in Jacksonville, rather than a harbinger of a permanent move away from Florida.
“For the Jaguars,” he said, acquiring Wembley “would deliver another — and very significant — asset and local revenue source that would further strengthen our investment in London, which as everyone knows is crucial to the Jaguars’ continued sustainability in Jacksonville. In every respect, the Jaguars’ standing in London would be improved and dramatically enhanced if we are fortunate to be approved as the new owner and steward of Wembley Stadium, and that’s good news for the Jaguars and all of Jacksonville.”
Khan said the potential acquisition would not affect his ownership of West London-based Fulham, which is battling for a return to the Premier League. If it advances in the promotion playoffs, it may even face a deciding match at Wembley at the end of the season.