Extra time for Wembley but it might lose on penalties

One way or the other, it is nearly all over for Wembley. Within the next fortnight the plans to rebuild the stadium will either be given the go-ahead or finally kicked into touch.

Although the Football Association would prefer to leave the issue unresolved until their chief executive, Adam Crozier – a notable absentee from last week's rigorous quizzing by members of a parliamentary select committee – returns from the World Cup, it is clear the Government have run out of patience. The Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, has made it clear the project is now in the last-chance saloon.

The new Wembley board say they hope to sign a heads of agreement note with a German bank this week which would secure outstanding funding for the £715 million stadium. But after the damning revelations of earlier corporate mismanagement, the deal is very much in the balance. Should satisfactory terms not be reached, the new chairman of the FA-owned Wembley National Stadium Ltd, Michael Jeffries, has admitted he will advise all concerned to "walk away".

This would leave the FA with the option of re-opening the derelict stadium or abandoning it to the housing developers. The former seems a non-runner, because Wembley would need more than a lick of paint and a few tufts of turf to make it rehabitable and playable. Tarting it up would, in the end, cost more than the £120m the FA must repay to Sport England if there is no new stadium. The probability is they would cut their losses rather than re-open negotiations with Birmingham, which is what the Government want.

The situation is even more critical for Sport England, who apparently blithely rubber-stamped the original proposals, than it is for the FA. Last week the Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, called for sackings at the Government quango, which he had accused of dereliction of duty in their "cavalier approach in flinging £10m at this project and then not lifting a finger to monitor how it is being used".

In particular he targeted Brigid Simmons, who is the acting chairman of Sport England's Lottery Panel. "She seems to take pride in the neglect shown by Sport England," he declared. Poor Mrs Simmons, a mother of three, former WRAC Army officer and a Leicester City plc non-executive director, bore the brunt of Kaufman's renowned wrath when she sharply answered him back during the parliamentary inquiry by suggesting they were all wasting their time and that they should simply get on with building the stadium instead of having to sit through endless inquisitions. Kaufman, the master of the miff, was outraged: "It is the most deplorable statement I have ever heard in my 10 years as chairman."

While it is unlikely Simmons will be ousted from her Government-appointed post – Jowell believes that the new Australian chief executive, David Moffett, who also clashed with Kaufman, should be left to knock Sport England into shape – by blowing her top she surely has also blown any chance of succeeding Trevor Brooking as Sport England's chairman, a post for which, as a sporting businesswoman, she was a front-runner.

The absence of both Crozier and Brooking angered MPs, who believed the top men should have been there to take their lumps. Brooking had been on holiday in Dubai before taking up his BBC World Cup commitments, and doubtless was relieved to escape another roasting from Kaufman.

Many believe Brooking was naïve in his dealings with Ken Bates and that Sport England's role in the Wembley fiasco may now cost him the knighthood he could otherwise have expected when he steps down in October.

So Wembley sees extra time being played. But there will be no golden goal.