Wembley has lost that loving feeling, a corporate nirvana missing its soul | Jonathan Liew

Wembley is everywhere, and everywhere is Wembley. But the more bases it tries to cover, the less special it becomes

The Wembley Stadium lasagne had one major design flaw, and it’s not the one you think. You may remember – right at the start of the pandemic – the Football Association being forced to deny a viral WhatsApp story that the stadium was being used to bake a giant lasagne to feed a hungry nation. And no, if you gave it even a moment’s consideration, the undersoil pitch heating probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to recreate oven conditions. That’s before you even get to the issue of the roof not being fully retractable.

But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we could surmount these technical obstacles and get the thing cooked. Let’s imagine our national stadium is now a delicious, bubbling mess of layered pasta sheets, ragu, bechamel and melted cheese. Now to divide the thing up and get it to those who need it most. And this – hypothetically speaking – is where the problems begin.

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