The new Wembley cost £798M — 2.4x the budget — and the roof doesn't work

The new Wembley Stadium, opened in March 2007, was intended to replace the iconic 1923 Wembley as England's national stadium. The original budget was £326 million. The final cost was £798 million — a 145% overrun — making it the most expensive stadium ever built at the time.

The project was plagued by delays, cost overruns and disputes between the Football Association and the contractor Multiplex. The iconic 133-meter arch, the stadium's defining feature, was a structural compromise: the original design called for a retractable roof, but the engineering challenges led to a fixed roof with a partial retractable section that has never worked reliably.

The stadium opened 14 months late, and the cost overruns left the FA with significant debt. The case illustrated how a national symbol's political imperative — 'we must have the best stadium in the world' — can override engineering and financial reality, and how the ambition to build an icon can produce a building that is both more expensive and less functional than planned.