LONDON — It was for nights like this that Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was built. It was on nights like this — hosting a clash between Spurs and Manchester United, global soccer royalty, under the lights — that the arena would have been expected to be at its captivating best.
The coronavirus has changed all of that.
The pandemic has changed the way teams prepare, it has changed the way they travel and, certainly at Tottenham, it has changed the club’s best-laid plans. For as Spurs returned to the field against United on Friday, those changes also mean that the most expensive stadium in British sports — a state-of-the-art wonder, a building designed to be both a caldron of fanatical support and a money-spinning entertainment venue — has fallen silent.
The lights are on, but, for the foreseeable future at least, there is no one home.
The Premier League finally ended its 100-day hiatus this week, restarting with a mix of optimism, excitement and fear. But the circumstances of its return — and the uncertainty of what is to come — have hit particularly hard at Tottenham, a club loaded with the debt acquired to construct its billion-dollar glass-and-steel home.
Without paying customers filling its arena, Spurs have not only lost a source of inspiration to drive the team forward under Coach José Mourinho, but also a vital source of revenue for their owner Joe Lewis’s big stadium bet.
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