The Observer:
After eight years of delays, rising costs and legal wrangles, the new Wembley Stadium will finally be completed within a few months - and will definitely host next year's FA Cup Final.
An announcement confirming the news will be made by the Football Association, which owns the venue, and by Multiplex, the Australian construction company which has spent the last four years rebuilding English football's spiritual home.
The development is a major surprise, as Multiplex recently warned that the ground might not be ready until 2010. Both sides had been preparing for a long and bitter High Court battle over hundreds of millions of pounds in disputed costs.
But last-ditch negotiations to resolve the situation have succeeded. The FA has agreed to pay Multiplex an additional £70 million on top of the original agreed fixed price of £458m for erecting the totally revamped 90,000-seat stadium. That will push Wembley's eventual price tag to an incredible £827m, once the cost of acquiring the land, paying stamp duty and other costs have been included.
However, in a complex set of interlocking agreements, the FA will immediately get £35m of the £70m back from Multiplex as late penalty compensation fees for the firm's role in the apparently unending series of setbacks which meant the FA had to scrap plans to reopen Wembley with this year's Cup Final.
Fans frustrated with the travel difficulties many experience with Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, where the Cup Final has been played since 2002, will welcome the news. However, the reopening - with the 2007 Cup Final on 19 May - will bring to an end the England team's four-year experiment of playing games in grounds across the country, which has proved hugely popular.
In footballing terms the compromise result being unveiled this week represents a high-scoring but fiercely contested draw between Multiplex and Wembley National Stadium Limited, the FA subsidiary which owns and runs the venue. Both will now save time, money and further embarrassment by avoiding a prolonged legal battle to establish who was to blame for each of the delays.