Tottenham Hotspur have been hit with fresh allegations over their delayed new stadium that workers on-site have been drinking and drug-taking and that the problems with the 60,062-capacity project have in part been caused by chaotic management of a workforce that peaked at 4,000.

Industry magazine Construction News levelled a range of allegations against Mace, who have managed the building of Spurs’ new home which was originally scheduled to open last Saturday for the Premier League game against Liverpool. It was alleged by one unnamed source that when the site was at capacity “there were people off their heads, drinking cans first thing in the morning before going on to site and snorting coke in the toilets”.

It is alleged that Mace’s role as a construction manager, with subcontractors dealing directly with the club rather than answering to Mace themselves has contributed to a lack of co-ordination on the site of the stadium, currently estimated to cost £850 million. This led to one Construction News source alleging “what should take a week normally takes a month, because of the sheer scale of it, but also because the communication is horrendous”.

The club will continue to play at Wembley for the foreseeable future, a decision announced on Aug 13 by chairman Daniel Levy and one which required changes to the fixture list as well as the moving of the NFL game scheduled to be played there on Oct 14. At the time the club said that testing at the new stadium revealed “issues with the critical safety systems”.