Fulham and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan still open to buying Wembley Stadium if FA willing to sell

Fulham and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan’s door is still open to the FA if they want to sell Wembley Stadium to him.

Hussain Naqi, the NFL team’s London-based senior vice president of international development, also said the Jaguars are looking at extending their deal at the national stadium beyond the present contract, which runs until the 2020 season.

Khan first attempted to buy Wembley last October, but withdrew his £600m offer not long afterwards with FA chief executive Martin Glenn calling the plan “more divisive than expected”.
Nevertheless, the possibility remains that Khan could re-emerge as a candidate to buy the stadium.

“We’re interested if the FA is interested in engaging, but there’s nothing new to report,” Naqi said.

He also reaffirmed the team’s commitment to Wembley, where they will host the Houston Texans on 3 November. It will be their seventh successive season of playing a home game there.

“We love playing at Wembley,” Naqi said. “From a pitch and facilities perspective, we’re very comfortable.

“Negotiations are ongoing and they’re going well. I wouldn’t anticipate us taking a step back from the market.”

Naqi was speaking at the Jaguars’ playing academy at Brunel University in west London. The academy gives British and European players the chance to experience a typical NFL training camp, as well being coached by several ex-Jags’ players. It is just one grassroots scheme the team has in place, which also includes the JagTag non-contact schools programme, which started three and a half years ago and now reaches thousands of children in over 90 schools across the UK.

“One of the things we’ve seen is an explosion in participation,” Naqi said. “There are now 55,000 kids playing American football here on a weekly basis throughout London and the UK.” And all this is paying off in terms of the team’s popularity in Britain.

No relocation in the works

“When we started this we were 30th, 31st in terms of popularity and now we’re fourth,” Naqi said. “If you look at ticket sales, our game against the Philadelphia Eagles last year [at Wembley] was the most in-demand ticket across the NFL irrespective of geography.”

Read more: NFL Academy at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the latest attempt to turn Britain into American football’s 51st state

In terms of whether the Jaguars have a more permanent future in London, Naqi said the Jags were happy with their current set-up.

“Relocation is a question that’s decided at the ownership level – it’s not even a Jags decision, it’s done at the league level,” he said. “Our commitment is to playing the one game that we’re playing right now, and we’re really excited to be doing that, and we’re excited to be committed to the market and doing things like this.”