'Cringeworthy' Opening Ceremony for £1Bln Stadium Mocked by UK Football Fans

Tottenham Hotspur — known as the Spurs — posted a world-record net profit of £113 million on Thursday, 4 April, only hours after hosting their first home game at their fancy new stadium.

Spurs opened their state-of-the-art stadium, which can hold up to 62,000 people, on Wednesday, 3 April with a 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace under the floodlights.

​South Korean striker Son Heung-min scored the first ever goal at the stadium, followed by another by Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen.

Gary Lineker, who scored 67 goals in 107 appearances for Spurs between 1989 and 1992, tweeted about Tottenham being the only team in the country who had never lost a home match.

​​But social media was in uproar about the over-the-top opening ceremony before the game, which was more in keeping with the start of an Olympic Games.

​Twitter users — many of them fans of the club's arch-rivals Arsenal — mocked the decision to use opera tenor Wynne Evans, who is better known as the star of a cheesy TV ad by insurance comparison site Go Compare.

​Several Arsenal fans also tweeted about the club's new slogan — To Dare Is To Do — which is scrawled all over the new stadium.

​Tottenham's old ground, White Hart Lane, was knocked down in 2017. It dated back to 1899 but had a capacity of only 36,000.

​The new stadium — which is as yet unnamed because the club are currently negotiating the naming rights — is in a deprived area of north London, with high knife crime.