Wembley Dropped For FA Cup Final

This year's FA Cup final has been moved to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, says the company building the new Wembley Stadium.

In a statement to the Australian stock exchange, Multiplex said the Football Association wanted "100% certainty" the stadium would be ready by 13 May 2006.

England's World Cup warm-ups against Hungary on 30 May and Jamaica on 3 June will be moved to Old Trafford.

The Football League's end-of-season play-off finals are also now expected to take place in Cardiff.

It is claimed the decision was made after FA chief executive Brian Barwick visited the new stadium's site on Monday with Wembley chief executive Michael Cunnah before meeting Multiplex's UK managing director Martin Tidd.

The original completion date for the stadium had been autumn 2005, with the deadline first extended to the end of January and then the end of March.

Multiplex warned in January that there was only a 70% chance of the 90,000-seat stadium being ready to stage the FA Cup final.

It said then that it could not afford any further delays if it was to meet the delayed 31 March deadline to hand the £757m project to the FA.

Multiplex will be penalised £1m a week for over-running the deadline.

The firm issued six profit warnings between February and December last year, largely due to cost increases at the project, causing its shares to drop 42% in 2005.

Even if the work was finished by the end of March, the management of the new stadium would have had to train up hundreds of staff and satsify safety officials that they could stage major events.