Tottenham owner Joe Lewis has flown in from the Bahamas to visit the club’s new stadium amid fears it will not be finished this season, according to Construction News.
The building magazine claim the billionaire majority shareholder of the London club has been at the £850million venue with chairman Daniel Levy in the last two weeks to make checks on the project following a series of setbacks.
Construction News quote one insider on the project as saying the stadium will not be ready until the first week of January and some suggested they would not be surprised if the club “wrote off the season” in anticipation of a summer completion date.
OPINION
With the cat out of the bag and Spurs making it clear they will not move into their 62,000-capacity new stadium until all critical safety systems are copper-bottomed, the doomsday scenario of a summer-2019 completion is now becoming reality. Interestingly, it is reported that the once breakneck pace of work on the stadium has slowed. The focus is now on perfection rather than speed. This comes from the top, where Levy has been spearheading the biggest and most complex project in the club’s history. The long-standing chairman does not call all the shots at White Hart Lane, however. He answers to reclusive billionaire Lewis, the man he calls ‘my boss’. The embarrassment is starting to fade for the Tottenham hierarchy over the stadium delays. The structure is a magnificent one and it will stand for generations. That’s not to say this is not an seriously anxious time at Spurs, who are waiting to move into their new home while the team have just suffered a third consecutive defeat for the first time in Mauricio Pochettino’s reign. The troubles are piling up.