ENGLAND fans were singing "Football's Coming Home" in the summer when the England team defied all pre-Tournament expectations and reached the World Cup semi-finals.

Now Football Association bigwigs are proposing to sell the "home" of English football, Wembley Stadium, to an American billionaire, Shahid Khan.

If it goes through against growing opposition within the game, football won't have a "home" to go to anymore, and the England team will have to rent the stadium for International matches on a part-time basis from the new owner.

Khan owns Premier League newcomers, Fulham, and Jacksonville Jaguars of the American National Football League.

His bargain-basement bid of £600m for a stadium that cost £798m to build prior to opening in 2007 is being recommended to the FA's ten-member executive board.

If they give the thumbs up, it will then go before October's meeting of the 127-member FA Council, which includes representatives of grass-roots football, many of whom have expressed reservations about the deal.

Whether or not selling off "the family silver" to pay for unquantified "new investment" in grass-roots football is enough to get the deal past the FA Council is as unpredictable as football itself at the moment.

The track-record of previous privatisations in Britain - water, energy, rail, buses, and Royal Mail - does not offer happy omens.

James Roberts, Wallasey