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Wembley Stadium is a Football Stadium in Wembley , located in the London Borough Of Brent in London , England . With 90,000 seats the stadium has the Second Largest capacity in Europe (after the Camp Nou ), and the largest in the world with every seat under cover. Following its opening, it has often been referred to as the "new Wembley Stadium" to distinguish it from the Original Stadium . The stadium is also the most expensive stadium ever built.1 The Previous Wembley Stadium (originally known as the Empire Stadium) was one of the world's most famous football stadia, being England 's National Stadium for football, and because of the geographical origins of the game was often referred to as "The Home of Football". It hosted the European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League ) final a record five times, and is one of seventeen stadia to have held a FIFA World Cup final. In 2003, the original structure was demolished and construction began on the new stadium, originally intended to open in 2006. This was later delayed until early 2007. The final completion date of the stadium came on 9 March 2007 , when the keys to the stadium were handed over to The Football Association . CONSTRUCTION Wembley was designed by architects HOK Sport and Foster And Partners with engineers Mott MacDonald , built by Multiplex and funded by Sport England , WNSL (Wembley National Stadium Limited), The Football Association , the Department For Culture Media And Sport and the London Development Agency . It is the most expensive stadium ever built2 at a cost of £798 million (roughly US$1.57 Billion) and has the largest roof-covered seating capacity in the world. The all-seater stadium is based around a bowl design with a capacity of 90,000, protected from the elements by a sliding roof. It can also be adapted as an athletic stadium by erecting a temporary platform over the lowest tier of seating. The stadium's signature feature is a circular section lattice arch of 7 m (23 ft) internal diameter with a 315 m (1,033 ft) span, erected some 22° off true, and rising to 140 m (459 ft) tall. It supports all the weight of the north roof and 60% of the weight of the retractable roof on the southern side. {Link without Title} The archway is the world's longest unsupported roof structure. Guinness World Records 2006 A "platform system" has been designed to convert the stadium for athletics use, but its use decreases the stadium's capacity to approximately 60,000. Instead of the 39 steps climbed, in the original stadium, to enter the Royal Box and collect a trophy, there are now 107. "A beautiful new home for the beautiful game" The stadium is linked to Wembley Park Station on the London Underground via Olympic Way , and Wembley Central via the White Horse Bridge . It also has a rail link - provided by the Wembley Stadium Railway Station - to London Marylebone and Birmingham . The initial plan for the reconstruction of Wembley was for demolition to begin before Christmas 2000, and for the new stadium to be completed some time during 2003, but this work was delayed by a succession of financial and legal difficulties. It was scheduled to open on 2007 , with the total cost of the project (including local transport infrastructure redevelopment and the cost of financing) estimated to be £1 billion (roughly US$1.97 billion). In October 2005, Sports Minister 's Millennium Stadium . , January 2007]] The delays started as far back as 2003. In December 2003, the constructors of the arch, subcontractors Cleveland Bridge, warned Multiplex about rising costs and a delay on the steel job of almost a year due to design changes which Multiplex rejected. Cleveland Bridge were removed from the project and replaced by Dutch firm Hollandia with all the attendant problems of starting over. On leader Steve Kelly said that the problem had been caused by the pipes not being properly laid, and that the repair would take months. A spokesman for developers Multiplex said that they did not believe this would "have any impact on the completion of the stadium", which was then scheduled to be completed on 31 March 2006 . On 2006 it was announced that the turf had been laid. On 19 October 2006 it was announced that the venue was now set to open in early 2007 after the dispute between The Football Association and Multiplex had finally been settled. WNSL, a Subsidiary of The Football Association , is expected to pay around £36m to Multiplex, as well as the amount of the original fixed-price contract. This meant that the Wembley Stadium was ready for the 2007 FA Cup Final on 19 May 2007 . The official Wembley Stadium website announced that the stadium would be open for public viewing for local residents of Brent on 3 March 2007 , however the event was delayed by two weeks and instead happened on 17 March . The keys to the new Wembley stadium were finally handed over to the owners on 9 March 2007 ready to be open and used for upcoming FA Cup football matches, concerts and other events. A short documentary of its redevelopment can be found on the ''Queen Live at Wembley 1986'' DVD . The reconstruction of the stadium is part of the wider Regeneration Of Wembley . Although not completed or opened at the time, EA Sports added Wembley Stadium into the video game FIFA 07 . A statue of Bobby Moore - the captain of the England National Football Team when they won the 1966 Football World Cup at Wembley - was unveiled outside the stadium on Friday May 11 2007 . Wembley's Moore statue unveiled - BBC News, May 11 2007 Structure
Pitch Roof The new 7,000 ton roof covers an area of over 11 acres, four acres of which are movable and rise to 170 feet above the pitch. With a span of 1040 feet, the arch is the longest single span roof structure in the world and is 440 feet above the level of the external concourse,8 which is designed not to cast a shadow on the pitch. 9 Seating There is more leg room in every seat than there was in the Royal Box of the old stadium. TENANTS The English National Football Team will be a major tenant of Wembley Stadium. Given the ownership by The Football Association as of March 10 2007 , the League Cup Final will move back to Wembley from Cardiff as the FA Cup Final has. Other showpiece football matches that were previously staged at Wembley, such as the Football League promotion play-offs and the Football League Trophy final, have returned to the stadium, as has the Nationwide Conference play-off final. Additionally, the Rugby League Challenge Cup final will return to Wembley Stadium beginning in 2007. The new Wembley is a significant part of the plan for the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London; the stadium will be the site of several games in both the men's and women's football tournaments, with the finals planned to be held there. A Guinness Premiership doubler-header, usually held at Twickenham , could be played at Wembley during the 2007-08 season.10 The double header involves four clubs, London Irish , Wasps , Saracens and Harlequins . On regular season game ever to be played outside North America . This event will be played between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins . The first 40,000 tickets sold out in 90 minutes.11 The Race Of Champions will also visit the stadium in December 2007. "Race of Champions" MUSIC held at Wembley on 7 July 2007 .]] Besides football, Wembley can be configured to hold many other events, particularly major concerts. Muse performed two concerts on 16 June and 17 June , completely selling out the new venue. The Concert For Diana , a memorial concert ten years after the Death of the Princess Of Wales , took place on July 1 2007 . Metallica performed at the stadium on July 8 as part of their Sick Of The Studio '07 tour as well as at live earth at Wembley.12 The London leg of the global movement concert Live Earth , modelled after the 1985 Live Aid concerts (one of which took place at the original Wembley Stadium), was also held at Wembley on 7 July 2007 .
FIRSTS AT THE NEW WEMBLEY STADIUM Football
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