Harry Kane, star striker of Tottenham Hotspur FC, is one of the few English football players that also shares a love for American football. Now Kane may, sooner rather than later, be able to see his favored New England Patriots play on the same field that he calls home.
Tottenham and the NFL have announced a 10-year agreement that will see Tottenham’s new stadium, due open in 2018, host two NFL games every year. The stadium is projected to be built right next to Tottenham’s current stadium, White Hart Lane, in the North London Borough of Haringey. It is part of an overall construction project, dubbed the Northumberland Development Project. With this, Tottenham is planning to build a hotel, a community health center, an Extreme Sports building, 579 new homes, and other entertainment attractions. Tottenham aims to support 1,700 new jobs with the completion of the project.
The 61,000-seat stadium, what will be the second largest for a Premier League club next to Manchester United’s Old Trafford, has been specifically modified for use by NFL teams. Due to the slight difference in field sizes, Tottenham will have a fully retractable pitch, which will reveal an NFL field. So, there will be no awkward paint left over from previous events, and scheduling will be much more flexible, since the NFL’s season coincides with that of the Barclay’s Premier League.
The retractable field will also make it easier for fans to see the action on the artificial football turf. Wembley Stadium, which has been hosting NFL games in London since 2007, has to seal off the first 5,000 seats in the stadium, due to restricted vision in those seats.
According to The Telegraph’s Jeremy Wilson, the designs for the stadium will include two separate locker rooms—a smaller one in the West Stand for soccer and a larger one in the East End for football.
As of now, Wembley has no plans to stop hosting NFL games, so we are looking at perhaps three games every year played in London, starting in 2018.
Kane and the reported 13 million NFL fans in the UK will be ecstatic.