No home comforts for Fulham

Fulham FC's plans to build an all-seater stadium at Craven Cottage have been delayed by at least 12 months.

Ground-share
The FA Premiership club will play at Queen's Park Rangers FC's Loftus Road stadium for two years instead of the planned one season after confirmation that the Craven Cottage project would not be completed for the start of the 2003/04 season as was originally intended.

Opposition from residents
The delay has been forced on Fulham by a group of local residents who were granted an appeal today by the High Court as they bid to stop the development going ahead. Fulham had planned to begin work on the site immediately after the last home game of the season against Leicester City FC on Saturday.

Appeal process
But now the club must wait until after the ongoing appeal process has finished before starting work which could delay their plans to redevelop Craven Cottage beyond the start of the 2004/05 season. The projected six-month delay in commencing building work is estimated to cost Fulham a further €4.85m.

'Bitterly disappointed'
Fulham's acting managing director, Mark Collins, told the club's official website today: "On behalf of the club I want to apologise to our fans for this unavoidable and unacceptable delay. We are all bitterly disappointed. The chairman [Mohamed Al Fayed] and everyone associated with the running of the club are determined that Fulham will play in a state-of the art stadium fitting for the exciting brand of football that we play."