FA pave the way for Chelsea and Tottenham to share Wembley Stadium in 2017

The FA are planning to strip out all their non-essential events at Wembley to allow Chelsea and Spurs to ground-share for one season at the National Stadium.

Chelsea have already agreed a £20million-per-year deal to relocate from Stamford Bridge for three seasons, starting in 2017-18 and they wanted to be the only football tenants.

But FA chief executive Martin Glenn and Wembley boss Julie Harrington believed there should be no favouritism shown to any one club provided equal terms can be negotiated.

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Chelsea and Tottenham are set to share Wembley for season 2017-18 

And Spurs are in talks with Wembley about matching Chelsea’s offer for the 2017-18 season when they have to move out of White Hart Lane.

Wembley would find room for both London clubs by limiting their music calendar to a brief summer window and not having any of the rugby union club games they now stage.

However, their long-term England, Football League, FA Cup, rugby league and NFL contracts would still have to be honoured.

But the non-League FA Vase and FA Trophy finals would be staged elsewhere as well as the occasional England game.

Tottenham celebrate during their win over Norwich and could be playing at Wembley next year

Chelsea have yet to be granted planning permission for their new stadium by Hammersmith Council and the hard-bargaining Spurs chairman Daniel Levy will have to pay as much as Chelsea for the use of Wembley.

Raheem Sterling, who is having an impressive season with Manchester City, is close to agreeing a big endorsement deal with the headphones firm Beats by Dr Dre. But no doubt Sterling will be made aware that wearing headphones while going through the interview mixed zone after England matches is banned in the players’ own code of conduct.

John Terry has a contract in place for his official autobiography — to be ghosted by The Mail on Sunday’s chief sportswriter Oliver Holt — from the two-book agreement signed with publishers Harper Collins a decade ago.

John Terry is due to release his autobiography but Harper Collins have disbanded their sports department

But now the prime time for the book has arrived with Terry due to leave Chelsea at the end of the season, Harper Collins have seemingly lost interest after disbanding their sports department.

Terry’s literary agent Chris Nathaniel, who negotiated a seven-figure advance, said: ‘We’ll know more next week but Harper Collins will have a consultant handling the book.’

The increasingly close two-horse race for the FIFA presidency between Sheik Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa and Gianni Infantino will see both of them in Africa this week, where pivotal votes will be gained. Infantino has momentum on his side but Bahrain’s Sheik Salman, said to be personally funding his campaign, will be boosted by the close links between the Asian Football Confederation and the Confederation of African Football. And, CAF’s Moroccan general secretary Hicham El Amrani used to work for the AFC.

Reduced BBC Games

BBC Sport have won back the TV rights to the Olympics in 2022 and 2024 — but at a major cost to their normal blanket coverage.

Rights holders Discovery, who also received significant interest from ITV, have agreed a sub-licence deal with the BBC for around £150m for the two winter and summer Games.

But the terms demand that from the 2018 winter Games onwards, BBC will be restricted to showing the action on one terrestrial channel with the rest of the coverage on digital via the BBC website or on Discovery’s network, Eurosport, who are the real winners as the BBC’s new partners.

Usain Bolt will likely have retired but the BBC have won back the TV rights to the 2022 and 2024 Olympics

It means Rio this year will be the last Olympics to be broadcast in 24/7 detail by the cash-strapped BBC. Ironically the former BBC sports rights negotiator Dominic Coles, who bought the Rio Games for the Beeb, agreed this contract as Discovery’s chief operating officer.

The NFL, with staging agreements at Wembley, Spurs and Twickenham, are right on course for a London franchise by 2022. 

But the word at their London party to launch Super Bowl 50 week, held at the top of the Shard, is they may delay until American Football attracts not only sell-out crowds in London but is talked about over here as much as other major sports — so they have a long way to go.