Football: Workers offered 80-hour weeks to finish Tottenham's new stadium

An aerial view from last month as work continues on Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium at White Hart Lane. Photo / Getty

Employees working on Tottenham's new stadium have been offered extra pay for longer hours with adverts also appearing for 80-hour weeks.

The £800m project, which is being built by Mace, is nearing its completion date in time for the club to play host Liverpool in their second home game of the upcoming Premier League season.

With the deadline looming, Construction News has obtained evidence of workers on the site being incentivised to undertake back-to-back 12-hour shifts.

The news outlet has seen an email from one subcontractor offering employees an extra four hours pay if they work four 12-hour shifts in a row.

They have also found a number of job adverts for roles that involved 16-hour days and 80-hour weeks, posted by recruitment agencies on a major UK site.

The ads are searching for workers capable of doing 'long hours' as the project 'has to be kept to extremely tight deadlines'.

A spokesman for Mace insisted that the contractor was 'aware of the risks of overworking on such a busy project', revealing that they had been carrying out random spot checks with subcontractors to ensure staff working longer hours were also being given the appropriate amount of rest time.

The new ground is nearing completion and the club have also announced that there will be two test matches held ahead of Liverpool's visit for the stadium's first Premier League game on September 15.

Those will held on August 27 and September 1 respectively before the club embark on their new season.

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy told the club's fans in May that 'contractors with a workforce approaching 3,000 are working around the clock'.

As well as Premier League games, the stadium will also host NFL fixtures, concerts and eSports. The first NFL game is due to take place in mid-October