It seems that the bank financing most of the deal, the Royal Bank of Scotland, agreed to finance the deal on a "best efforts" basis only. This means that if other banks pull out of the deal, RBS holds its own right to also pull out of the deal.

French bank SG has already pulled out.

It was initially thought that the strength of the Arsenal name within the City - and the fact that chairman Peter Hill-Wood is now seeking a bank loan when Arsenal are in good financial health, as opposed to other chairmen seeking loans when their clubs are in debt - would be enough to secure an appropriate loan deal to finance the project.

That is now looking increasingly difficult.

Rupe adds...
We should add that there has been a lot of scurrilous anti-Ashburton rumour in the press ever since the project was first mooted. The story that Ashburrn links to refers to that "speculation" but doesn't mention that none of it has come to anything, or that work has continued on the site. Arsenal remain fairly tight-lipped, but they always do.

Please note that the NIMBY objectors have plenty of contacts in the media, who are always happy to stir things up anyway. So please don't panic when your Spurs-fan mates go on about the rumours of ground-sharing Wembley with Tottenham and that kind of thing. They're just clutching at straws, and trying to wind you up.

Remember: the Ashburton Grove stadium project is an unusually complex one, involving work on several different sites. There will be inevitably be complications along the way.