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As Fabio Capello's England team heads to Wembley tonight, the true cost to English football of the national stadium can be revealed at more than £85m a year. That was the astonishing black hole Wembley punched into the Football Association's accounts over the course of the 12 months to 31 December last year.

The FA's financial cycles can be measured in four-year blocks according to its broadcast and tournament commitments. In 2004, the most comparable year given it was also the culmination of a European Championship cycle, the FA's total turnover was £206m. Last year was the first full year of Wembley's operation yet the boost to total group turnover from 2004 levels amounted to only £55m. Nearly £7m of that could be attributed to a like-for-like increase in commercial, broadcasting and sponsorship income – although not qualifying for Euro 2008 affected that figure – meaning a £48m rise in turnover could effectively be attributed to Wembley.

But on the downside were debilitating costs associated with the stadium. Just holding events at the venue cost a total of £83.8m, but added to that was the burden of interest payments on the debt incurred in building Wembley, which reached £39m over the course of the year. With capital repayments of £11.8m thrown in, it means the total cost of running the stadium and satisfying lenders reached £134.6m in 2008, a net cost to the FA and English football's clubs and grassroots of £86.6m.

These figures, set out in the FA's 2008 accounts, show that far from providing the vast income the FA envisaged when it embarked on the rebuilding of Wembley at the turn of the millennium, the national stadium has become a huge millstone.

"At a time of considerable economic and financial uncertainty, the support of our commercial sponsors and broadcast partners is central to our ability to fund our investment in the management and development of the game and to support football at all levels," wrote the FA's chairman, Lord David Triesman.

"We are acutely aware of the wide-ranging impact of the economic downturn, and are taking action to control our own cost base as a prudent response to the current climate."

It could have been much worse going forward had the FA's chief operating officer, Alex Horne, and Wembley's then head of corporate affairs, Darren Berman, not arranged a successful refinancing of the senior loan last year.

That ensured the interest rate on the loan would be fixed at 6.922%, which gives the FA some breathing space, particularly as the requirement for repayment is reduced between 2010 and 2012.

But the total sum the FA must repay in interest and capital over the 15 years of the new Wembley loan can be estimated at more than £930m and it is almost unthinkable that it will be able to meet its obligations without going back to the banks for another expensive refinancing.

Critics will view the sums as evidence that the decision to rebuild Wembley was taken in vanity. The near-£1bn debt burden would not have resided with the FA if the well-received policy of taking England games around the nation to stadiums such as Old Trafford, the Stadium of Light and White Hart Lane during Wembley's reconstruction had been continued. Among cost-saving measures undertaken by the FA has been the relocation to Wembley from its previous Soho Square headquarters last month, which, though unpopular, could prove to be vital.

(Source: Guardian.co.uk)