Part 2: Team selection – choosing the right procurement route
Every football fan has witnessed the moment: a manager, under pressure and short of ideas, sends on a target man to rescue a match that was lost at team selection. It rarely works. The problem was never the substitution that was not made in the 80th minute; it was the starting eleven that was announced an hour before kick-off. Stadium construction presents a strikingly similar challenge. Long before the first excavator arrives on site, the delivery model chosen by the developer will shape how risk is allocated, how programme pressure is managed and, ultimately, whether the project team has the tools to respond when challenges inevitably arise. Get the selection wrong and, much like a manager who has gambled on an untested formation, no amount of touchline improvisation will rescue the result.
In the second instalment of our 'Building the beautiful game' series, we turn to procurement strategy: the team selection decision that underpins everything that follows. We consider the principal delivery models available to stadium developers, the legal architecture each demands and the practical trade-offs that determine which is right for a given project.
The stakeholder landscape
Before considering the procurement models themselves, it is worth recognising the environment in which that decision is made. Stadium construction rarely serves a single client with a single objective. Instead, it sits at the centre of a complex network of stakeholders, each with legitimate interests and competing priorities.
Governing body requirements, broadcaster specifications, planning conditions, transport and emergency services infrastructure, funder covenants and community expectations must all be accommodated within a single delivery structure. The procurement strategy must therefore do more than appoint a contractor. It must create a framework capable of balancing those competing interests while allowing decisions to be made quickly when priorities inevitably collide.
There are relatively few contractors with the experience, technical capability and financial strength to deliver major stadium projects. Delivery models that seek to transfer excessive risk tend to produce one of two outcomes: the strongest contractors choose not to bid, or those that do simply price the uncertainty into their tenders. Neither outcome represents good value.
The proven striker: design and build
Case studies: Wembley Stadium, Everton Stadium, StoneX Stadium
Every squad needs a reliable goalscorer: the player who may not produce moments of individual brilliance but who delivers, consistently, when it matters. Design and build occupies a similar position in the procurement landscape. It remains the most widely used delivery route on major UK construction projects and its appeal in a stadium context is obvious. Placing responsibility for both design and construction with a single contractor creates a clear chain of accountability and offers employers the comfort of a fixed price and a fixed completion date.
That certainty is attractive, but there is a certain irony in the fact that the procurement model chosen for its predictability is often the one that produces the most vigorously contested final accounts.
A contractor asked to absorb the consequences of design development, evolving commercial requirements and changing regulatory standards will inevitably reflect that exposure in its price. The challenge becomes even greater where governing body requirements evolve during construction. Amendments to FIFA or UEFA specifications after contract award are far from uncommon, and unless the contractual position has been carefully considered from the outset, those changes are likely to constitute variations giving rise to additional time and cost claims.
Careful legal drafting makes a material difference here. The definition of the employer's requirements, including how governing body standards are incorporated, can determine whether a mid-construction regulatory change is the employer's risk or the contractor's. Those mechanisms need to be built into the contract before the pressure is on, not negotiated in correspondence when it already is.
The transfer window: when to bring the contractor into the team
Whichever procurement route is ultimately selected, one of the most significant decisions is when the contractor should become involved.
Traditional single-stage tendering preserves competitive tension but sacrifices something equally valuable. It excludes contractor expertise during the stage of a project where programme risks can often be identified and resolved most efficiently. An experienced stadium contractor knows the ground better than anyone in the game and understands sequencing, specialist supply chains, logistics and buildability. That knowledge is most valuable while the design is still evolving, not after it has been finalised.
This explains the growing popularity of two-stage procurement, where contractors are appointed during design development to shape programming and logistics before a fixed construction price is agreed. The legal framework supporting that early involvement deserves just as much attention as the commercial benefits it promises. A well-drafted pre-construction services agreement should define the contractor's obligations, establish transparent pricing mechanisms and, critically, preserve a credible exit strategy if the parties cannot agree the construction contract.
An employer who has spent twelve months working exclusively with one contractor enters final negotiations from a very different position to one that has maintained genuine competitive leverage throughout. Getting that balance right is one of the conversations we have most regularly with clients at the outset of major projects.
Total football: construction management
Case Studies: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Emirates Stadium, SoFi Stadium, Mercedes-Benz Stadium
In 1974, the Netherlands demonstrated that a football team did not need to rely on a single striker if every outfield player could attack, defend and interchange position at will. The philosophy was called total football: fluid, versatile and capable of extraordinary results, but demanding of every player on the pitch. Construction management operates on a strikingly similar principle. Where programme flexibility takes precedence over early price certainty, it offers a fundamentally different approach.
Rather than appointing a single contractor to deliver the entire project, the employer appoints a construction manager to co-ordinate a series of specialist trade contractors. Individual packages can be procured as designs develop, allowing construction activity to overlap with ongoing design work.
For stadium projects operating against an immovable completion date, that flexibility can be invaluable. Groundworks and structural works may progress while specialist packages, including roofing systems, seating installations, technology infrastructure and broadcast facilities, continue to develop.
The trade-off is equally clear. Without a single contractor carrying overall delivery responsibility, interface risk increases significantly. The boundaries between packages need to be actively defined and managed in the contract documentation. In total football, if two players both assume the other is covering the channel, that is exactly where the opposition runs and the same can be said for construction management. Consider, for example, the interface between the structural frame and the cladding envelope. If the steelwork contractor's tolerances do not align with the cladding manufacturer's fixing requirements, the resulting remedial work does not simply cost money; it consumes programme time that cannot be recovered. Where responsibility for co-ordinating that interface is not clearly allocated, disputes about liability for mis-co-ordination are a predictable consequence. On a live stadium project with a fixed opening date, those disputes surface at precisely the moment when the project team can least afford the distraction.
Construction management also places significant demands on the employer's own project management resource. Rather than paying a contractor to absorb uncertainty, the employer manages it directly, with greater transparency and flexibility but with a level of internal capability and discipline that should be assessed honestly before this model is adopted. In our experience, the employers who achieve their aims with construction management are those who invest in their own project management capability and internal infrastructure, building an excellent client-side team of project managers, cost consultants and other 'coaching staff' around them before appointing the first trade contractor.
'One club' mentality: collaborative delivery
The difference between a squad of talented individuals and a genuinely great team is not ability; it is the integration into a cohesive unit. The best sides are not assembled by signing eleven outstanding players and hoping they coexist. They are built around a system: a shared understanding of how to play, a willingness to sacrifice individual recognition for collective success and, critically, a structure that makes collaboration the rational choice rather than merely the aspirational one. The growing use of collaborative procurement models in major infrastructure reflects precisely that philosophy.
Alliancing seeks to replace the traditional separation of project team members with shared processes and shared responsibility. For stadium projects, where the consequences of failure extend well beyond financial loss, that philosophy has obvious appeal. Shared risk and shared reward encourage developers, contractors, designers and specialist subcontractors to solve problems collectively, supported by transparent cost reporting, joint risk registers and early warning procedures.
However, talk of collaboration, is just a pre-match speech that nobody believes. Successful collaborative procurement depends upon sophisticated legal architecture: target cost mechanisms that align incentives around a shared financial outcome, pain-share and gain-share arrangements that give every participant a genuine stake in cost performance, and governance structures that enable collective decision-making without paralysing the project when speed is essential.
No-blame provisions, which limit the circumstances in which participants can pursue claims against one another, can encourage open reporting of problems rather than defensive position-taking, but they must be carefully calibrated to avoid removing accountability altogether. The work that we have been doing with the NEC, including in respect of their publication of the Framework Alliance Contract FAC-1 and their imminent publication of a new Project Alliance Contract, brings to the mainstream a systematic method to entrenching collaborative working and avoiding disputes. Where those ingredients exist, collaborative delivery can create powerful incentives to protect programme certainty.
Hybrid models of procurement
Case study: London Stadium / Olympic Stadium
In practice, few major stadium projects adopt a single procurement model in its purest form. Just as the most effective squads rely on utility players capable of operating across multiple positions, the most successful delivery strategies often combine elements of different procurement routes to suit the particular demands of the project.
The transformation of the London Stadium illustrates the point. Rather than appointing a single design and build contractor to deliver the entire £272 million conversion of the former Olympic Stadium, the Developer procured the works through a series of separate NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contracts, each awarded on a priced contract basis. Balfour Beatty delivered the main structural works, including the installation of the world's longest cantilevered roof. Alto/Sapa was engaged to design and install the retractable seating system, and Portview Fitout completed the hospitality areas.
The result was a model that borrowed the package-by-package flexibility of construction management while retaining the price certainty and single-point accountability of design and build within each individual contract. That hybrid approach proved particularly valuable when the programme required the project to pause mid-construction to host Rugby World Cup matches before resuming and completing in time for West Ham United's first fixture at the venue. A similar approach could be recommended for projects that require development on a stand-by-stand basis during a live sporting season over a period of years.
The legal lesson is that procurement models are tools, not ideologies. A strong case can be made that the most effective strategies are those that draw selectively from the available options, tailored to the project's specific risk profile, programme constraints and stakeholder requirements, rather than adopting any single model as an article of faith.
Conclusion
No manager selects a team without understanding the opposition, the conditions and the strengths of the players available. Procurement strategy demands the same discipline. It is not simply an administrative exercise to be completed before the real work of stadium construction begins. It is the foundation upon which every subsequent decision rests.
Every procurement model involves compromise. Some prioritise certainty, others flexibility. Some transfer risk, others encourage its shared management. The challenge is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to decide consciously where it should sit, informed by a clear understanding of the employer's objectives and an honest appraisal of what the contractor market will realistically accept.
That question of risk allocation, covering how it is structured, how it is documented and how it holds up under the pressures of a live project, sits at the heart of every procurement decision in stadium construction. It also extends well beyond the bilateral relationship between employer and contractor. In a sector where funders, governing bodies, local authorities, operators, broadcasters and community stakeholders all have legitimate expectations of the finished venue, creating a contractual framework that holds together under that weight is one of the most demanding legal challenges the sector presents. Get the team selection right, however, and the project gives itself the best possible chance of being fit and ready when the referee blows the whistle. Get it wrong, and no amount of shouting from the technical area will change the result, although, as we observed in Part 1, that has never stopped us sports fans hoping. In the next instalment of this series, we will turn to the question of how risk is allocated and managed once the procurement model has been chosen: the contractual mechanisms, governance structures and practical strategies that determine whether a delivery framework holds together when the programme comes under pressure.
