Green light at last for £757m Wembley

Demolition work will finally begin at 11am on Monday as part of the preparation to make the new Wembley Stadium, in the words of the Football Association, "the finest in the world". It will also be the most expensive.

The opening date, originally scheduled for next year, has now been set for early 2006, when two small-scale events will be staged to test safety equipment and emergency procedures before all three tiers of the 90,000-capacity venue are opened for the first time, probably for an England international.

If there is any further over-run on either the date or the £757m budget, the cost will be met by the construction company, Multiplex, the firm responsible for Stadium Australia in Sydney, whose most recent project in England was the new West Stand at Stamford Bridge.

"It's been a long, long wait in many ways," admitted Adam Crozier, the FA's chief executive. "But we believe we'll have the finest stadium in the world, one the whole country can be proud of, with a terrific atmosphere for players and fans. I don't think anyone would suggest that mistakes haven't been made. Now, though, all the finance is in place and guaranteed, all the pre-conditions set by the Government have been met, the contractor will bear any risk resulting from an over-run, and there are 20- and 30-year guarantees from the key event holders."

The FA led the way by committing all England matches and the FA Cup final to the new venue from 2006-2036. The Football League have promised the League Cup and end-of-season play-offs, and the Rugby League Challenge Cup final is certain to return after switching between Murrayfield, Twickenham and Cardiff. New technology will provide a prefabricated platform for athletics, though there is still no warm-up facility, and it is unclear if many events will be staged there unless London bids successfully for a World Championship, a European Championship or an Olympic Games.

Crucially, however, providing for athletics allows the FA and its subsidiary Wembley National Stadium Ltd to keep £120m of Lottery money contributed by Sport England.

The Government can also claim to have kept public money down to the additional £41m provided by the London Development Agency and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, after the FA had last year demanded some £300m to keep the project alive. Instead, a German bank came to the rescue.

It will take six months to demolish the existing ground, opened in 1923 at a cost of £750,000 and closed after England lost 1-0 to Germany there in October 2000. The distinctive steel arch should be in place by mid-2004, when up to 1,500 people will be working on changing-rooms, toilets (2,000 of them, believed to be more than any other building in the world) and restaurants. In 2005, the sliding roof will be on, and late that year the heating and drainage under the pitch, plus the turf itself, will be laid. That, at least, is the plan.