Empire Stadium & Wembley Stadium

The original Wembley Stadium, in use since 1923, was demolished from 30 September 2002, with its Twin Towers dismantled that December. Excavating the new pitch site, workers unearthed the concrete foundations of Watkin's Tower, an unfinished 19th-century rival to the Eiffel Tower that had been abandoned and demolished in 1907; the site was later used for the first Wembley Stadium.

Construction ran years behind schedule. Steel contractor Cleveland Bridge withdrew in 2003 after warning main contractor Multiplex about rising costs, and was replaced by Dutch firm Hollandia. In 2004 carpenter Patrick O'Sullivan was killed in an accident on site, for which contractor PC Harrington Contractors was fined £150,000 for breaches of health and safety law. By December 2005 builders admitted a "material risk" the stadium would miss the 2006 FA Cup Final, and in February 2006 the FA moved that game to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. The following month a steel roof rafter dropped by 46 centimetres, forcing 3,000 workers to evacuate, and underground sewers buckled from ground movement.

The finished stadium was handed over to the Football Association on 9 March 2007. It was officially opened on 19 May 2007 with the FA Cup Final, in which Chelsea beat Manchester United 1–0 through a Didier Drogba goal. Eight days earlier, a statue of England's 1966 World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore, sculpted by Philip Jackson, had been unveiled outside the stadium by his former teammate Sir Bobby Charlton.

Designed by Populous and Foster and Partners and built by the Australian firm Multiplex, the stadium cost £798 million to complete — equivalent to roughly £1.41 billion today — making it one of the most expensive stadiums ever built. Its signature arch, rising over 130 metres above the bowl, supports more than 75% of the roof's weight and has been described as the world's longest single-span roof structure. With 90,000 seats, Wembley is the largest stadium in the UK and, at the time of its completion, the second-largest in Europe after Barcelona's Camp Nou.

Multiplex's losses on the project led it to sue its own subcontractors and consultants. Its claim against structural engineers Mott MacDonald, for £253 million, was the largest construction claim in UK legal history; it was settled out of court in June 2010 on undisclosed terms. A separate case against former steel contractor Cleveland Bridge, over its 2003 withdrawal, was resolved in September 2008 when a court ordered Cleveland Bridge to pay Multiplex £6.1 million in damages plus 20% of costs.

Wembley is owned by the Football Association, English football's governing body, through its subsidiary Wembley National Stadium Ltd, and the FA's own headquarters are based inside the stadium. It hosts the majority of England national team home matches and the FA Cup Final, English football's primary domestic cup final, along with the FA Community Shield, the EFL Cup final and the promotion play-off finals of the English football league system.

The stadium hosted the men's and women's football finals of the 2012 London Olympics, and staged the UEFA Champions League final in 2011, 2013 and 2024. During the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament it hosted eight matches including both semi-finals and the final, and it hosted the final of UEFA Women's Euro 2022, when England beat Germany 2–1 in front of a record European Championship crowd of 87,192. The Rugby League Challenge Cup Final has been played there since the competition returned to Wembley in 2007, and the stadium has hosted NFL regular-season games since the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins there in October 2007, the first NFL regular-season game played outside North America. Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur played its home matches at Wembley between August 2017 and April 2019 while its own stadium was being rebuilt.

At the UEFA Euro 2020 final between England and Italy in July 2021, large numbers of ticketless supporters breached security cordons and entered the stadium. An independent review led by Baroness Casey described the disorder as "a source of national shame" and recommended stronger physical and operational safeguards. Brent Council subsequently approved plans to reinforce the security perimeter around the stadium, including a higher fence, to prevent similar incursions.