Dear Paul

Many thanks for your fax which my office received today. I am afraid however that I cannot agree with its content.

The terms of the Carter review were set by government and were embarked on by all the key stakeholders (government, Sport England and The F.A.) with an open mind. They were clear, to establish if the project could be funded and managed at Wembley or, if that proved impractical, at another location in England.

All the key stakeholders and the Carter review team were aware of The F.A. staging agreement with Wembley as it was very clearly part of the original lottery agreement which gave Sport England some security on the £120m grant.

In entering the review openly it was clear that should another location be the right way forward, the Wembley project would have to be closed down and all stakeholders would have to agree on how best to do this in the interests of seeing a new national stadium built.

However, the result of the Carter review was that Wembley emerged as The F.A.'s clearly favoured option for reasons that were made apparent in the review and supported by the Carter review team. It is for these reasons that it was decided by all parties to proceed with Wembley.

Nothing has changed since then and, as far as The F.A. is concerned, Birmingham would remain an option for the national stadium should the new Wembley not proceed. As has always been the case, this would of course be subject to discussions by all the stakeholders on how best to abort the current project and any agreements relating to it.

All parties have recognized that in the event that the Birmingham proposals were to be considered and proved viable that it would be necessary to conclude an event staging agreement in relation to the new stadium once the current legal commitments, relating to the national stadium project at Wembley, had been concluded in a way that satisfied all parties.

I am very clear therefore that Birmingham have not been misled by either the Carter review team, government or The F.A.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Crozier