Wembley waits for pay day

The hot sun blazed on to the lush green turf of Wembley yesterday as gently sweating Football Association executives admired what the best part of £800 million had bought them. The job now is to “sweat the asset”, according to Brian Barwick, the FA's chief executive - in other words, turn what threatened to be a white elephant into a profitable monument to English football.

There will be short-term pain and Wembley is likely to announce a first-year deficit of about £22 million this month. Although there has been a shortage of big concerts to fill the 90,000-seat stadium between matches, there has been a steady stream of paying customers who could help to push Wembley towards an early profit. About 500 people go through the gates daily on stadium tours. The FA has set a target of 500,000 visitors annually, which will be more than achievable when development work around the stadium has been completed and a football museum added to the stadium, turning a dreary North London suburb into a holiday destination with Wembley a must-see attraction as much as the Tower of London or Big Ben.

Add to that a push to attract corporate clients using Wembley's enormous conference facilities, bringing in as much as £6 million a year, and the FA could have a profitable Wembley by 2010.

Long arm of the FIA

Max Mosley will not expect a walkover when Anthony Scrivener, QC, examines the Nazi sex orgy allegations hanging over the president of the FIA, Formula One's governing body. Scrivener has taken part in some of the most high-profile cases of recent times, such as those of the Guildford Four and the Billie-Jo Jenkins murder trial. He has also been widely exposed to sport, having represented Tottenham Hotspur and worked as an RAC steward.

Scrivener, who is a member of the FIA's International Court of Appeal, apparently does not suffer fools, either. He helped Tony Blair to win the 1997 general election and then resigned from the Labour Party with the backward blast: “Right now, I have no time for him [Blair] at all.”

Three Degrees of Leicester

Not exactly The Insider's vision of backing singers: George Chuter, Martin Corry and Ben Kay. The first burly and bearded, the other two the size of houses, but appearing last night for a good cause at a concert in Leicester for the Matt Hampson Trust. The headline act was the more svelte Leicester quartet of Dan Hipkiss, Ollie Smith, Sam Vesty and Ayoola Erinle in their band, Slo Progress. Buoyed by a £2,500 donation from Guinness, the band were aiming to make a tidy sum for Hampson, the former Leicester prop who was paralysed in a scrummaging accident three years ago.

Flushed with admiration

Chelsea's magnificent training headquarters at Cobham in leafy Surrey has drawn the admiration of the nation's architects, who have shortlisted it for the Royal Institute of British Architects Awards. But there is tough competition in the regional heats from London-based Plastik Architects, which has entered a toilet. Yes, its toilet block in a car park in Gravesend, Kent, could take the prize. Make up your own jokes, The Insider is off to spend a penny.