The Tottenham stadium delay is a huge headache for both the club and the FA

Tottenham Hotspur were supposed to start the 2018-19 Premier League season in their new, 62,000 seater stadium. However, construction has overrun both in time and money, with the project hundreds of millions of pounds over budget and not ready for use in time for Spurs' opening home game against Fulham on August 18th.

These monetary constraints are the main reason behind the remarkably complete lack of summer signings for a side that finished third in the Premier League last time out.

Citing safety concerns as the issue, chairman Daniel Levy has activated a clause with the FA allowing them to instead use Wembley for the first few fixtures of the season. At least one of their Champions League games will need to be played at Wembley, unless UEFA approve a change to the schedule which would allow away games to be played first.

However, both of these scenarios would be unprecedented in the history of the Champions League. So it is unclear whether or not they would be acceptable to the governing body.

An additional sticking point is Tottenham's home game against Manchester City on the 28th of October. Wembley is playing host to an NFL game on the same day, and it takes four days to convert the stadium from American football to regular football.

So basically, it would be impossible to double up in any circumstance (even if the game was switched to earlier on in the weekend). If the stadium isn't ready in time for that game, then they'll be left with one of three options:

1. Use another stadium as their 'home' stadium, for example Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, likely at a huge additional cost.

2. Reverse the fixture and play it in Manchester instead.

3. Postpone the game entirely.

It is unlikely the FA would be amenable to any of these suggestions. At the same time, just like with the Champions League, there is no precedent for this happening, so there is no indication of what punishment could be meted out, or if Tottenham would simply be allowed to exercise one of these options.

Either way, the Spurs face a tough race to get their stadium ready in order to stave off any further embarrassment and/or negative repercussions.