Arsène Wenger Says Spurs Need New Stadium To Keep Up With Arsenal

 Tottenham Hotspur need a new stadium, says Arsène Wenger

Arsène Wenger believes that Tottenham Hotspur’s ownership want to sell the club. The Arsenal manager feels that Tottenham have to build a larger stadium if they are to avoid falling behind the Premier League’s leading clubs and he says that, at the very least, they will need outside financial help to do so.

Tottenham have denied that they are in takeover discussions but are seeking financial assistance for their proposed new 56,250-capacity stadium, which is to be built on the land adjacent to White Hart Lane. The project has been beset by complications and delays, and the club’s latest estimate is that the team will not be installed until the 2018-19 season, at the earliest.

Arsenal moved from Highbury to the 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium in 2006 – the entire project cost £390m – and Wenger has described the period surrounding the relocation as the “most sensitive in the club’s history”. Prices have since spiralled in London and Wenger cannot see how Tottenham could finance the new stadium themselves, using the same self-sustaining model as Arsenal did.

“It looks like they want to sell the club,” Wenger said, before Tottenham’s derby visit to the Emirates on Saturday. “If an owner comes in and says: ‘Look, I put £400m in to build the stadium,’ it is easy. I don’t know their financial plan well enough. But in the end, we built our stadium for [about] £400m. Today, it would cost £600m-£700m. Do Tottenham need outside help? Certainly, yes.”

Wenger was asked whether he thought Tottenham might have missed the boat on their new stadium. “It depends who comes in and buys the club,” he replied.

Wenger added: “The way we did it [build the Emirates], is the hardest way, because we had no outside financial help. We had to negotiate with the banks just to get the money at the start and let’s not forget, we paid £128m just for the ground and we helped to build a recycling centre in Islington.

“It is massively difficult to come through that period. When we were in a position where we had to be in the Champions League just financially, and you get into March or April and you are not in the top four, it is extremely difficult. The stress is terrible because you feel the future of the club is at stake and you have no margin for error. Every point you lose can be dramatic.”

Wenger spelled out to Tottenham the imperative of a successfully delivered new stadium. “Financially, for sure,” he said. “You cannot be in a business where you turn down 15,000 or 20,000 people every week. It looks like everybody makes this decision now because Liverpool and Everton want to increase their capacity and West Ham go to a bigger stadium [in 2016]. So if you stay in a smaller capacity, it’s even more difficult.

“I just think it’s much more difficult today, because we built our stadium at a price that you couldn’t afford anymore. We managed to build our stadium by subsidising it with our own resources. That is much more difficult today.”