Tottenham and Chelsea could ground-share Wembley Stadium in 2017-18

Already into the second half of the 2015-16 season, the day that Tottenham Hotspur vacates White Hart Lane for good is inching closer and closer. With Spurs new stadium not set to open until the beginning of the 2018-19 campaign, and next season slated to be the final year at White Hart Lane, it leaves Spurs without a home for the 2017-18 season. While there have been many options touted as potential suitors for Tottenham's single year vagabond dilemma, the two most likely options seemed to be MK Dons or Wembley Stadium. Wembley Stadium was always the preferred choice for Tottenham and there seems to be some positive developments in this story:

"Tottenham Hotspur have matched Chelsea's offer to make Wembley their temporary home in a bid that could result in the London rivals sharing the national stadium for one season. Chelsea were hopeful of securing exclusivity of Wembley while Stamford Bridge is redeveloped by submitting a four-year bid, thought to be worth around £15million-a-season, that would have left Spurs facing the prospect of moving to Milton Keynes for the 2017-18 campaign.

But Tottenham have responded by matching Chelsea's offer for one season and there is growing optimism that may be enough to convince the Football Association to inform the Blues that they will have to share Wembley if they need to relocate in the summer of 2017."

It looks as if Spurs matched Chelsea's proposed £15 million pound per year rent offer which swings the pendulum back in favor of a Wembley ground-share between the two clubs.

Chelsea's plans to renovate Stamford Bridge during Spurs awkward transition year did not bode well for Tottenham. Any stadium option that would benefit Spurs would seemingly aid the Blues as well. Neither club want to move out of London proper for any amount of time and both teams need sizable grounds to host their massive support. From an outside perspective this looked, well, Spursy for Tottenham. There are only a handful of clubs in the Premier League with more power and money than the Lilywhites and, sadly for Spurs, Chelsea was one of them.

Where Chelsea held the clear advantage over Tottenham was the length of their temporary residency in another venue. While Spurs only needed a one year lease, Chelsea are expected to be gone from Stamford Bridge for three, maybe even four years. Due to this, from the renter's perspective, a four year deal with the Blues is a significantly more lucrative contract than any one year deal with Tottenham. In this regard, it was hard to see how Chelsea wouldn't get the priority.

Yet there were two saving graces that held out hope from a Spurs perspective: the notion that the FA could not openly play favorites among supposedly equal parties and the idea that they could simply produce more total capital if they were open to a ground-share were two theories that seemed plausible towards Tottenham's case. And its hard to argue this from the FA's point of view. Denying Spurs, if they were willing to splash the cash to replicate Chelsea's offer, would be both a public relations nightmare and a dumb financial decision (£75 million is better than £60 million). That Daniel Levy has remained firm in his negotiations with the FA and put up the necessary funds to appease them is not only another feather in his cap, but also places Spurs in a promising position to officially name Wembley Stadium their home for the 2017-18 Premier League season.