English Premier league leaders Arsenal have secured funding for their new 357-million-pound ($673 million) stadium and said on Monday the Ashburton Grove ground would open for the start of the 2006/2007 season.

The 60,000-capacity stadium, a short distance from their 38,500-seat home at Highbury in north London, will allow Arsenal to compete on a more equal financial footing with the likes of champions Manchester United and Real Madrid.

Manager Arsene Wenger called the announcement "very exciting news" and said he hoped still to be in charge when the team played their first game at the new ground, for which a name has yet to be decided.

"It has been a big target of mine to participate in pushing the club forward and relocating to a new stadium is a necessity as it will enable us to become of one the biggest clubs in the world," Wenger said in a statement.

"Also, I love the fact that the new site is so close to Highbury, it's where our heart is," he said of the 372,000 square-metre development.

Arsenal, unbeaten in the Premier league this season and leading the division by seven points, has been at Highbury since 1913. The move had experienced planning and financing problems which led to a year's delay.

The club said they had obtained a 260-million-pounds loan facility from a banking group for the new stadium. Interest on the debt is set at a commercial fixed rate over a 14-year term.

Arsenal, league champions eight times, also have permission to build a residential development on the Highbury site.

ARSENAL GAMBLE

"The gamble we are taking is that Arsene continues to work the miracles he has worked over the past seven years and we are confident he will," chairman Peter Hill-Wood told a news conference on Monday.

"We believe we have the best in our manager, we have the best in our team who display the best and most glorious in football and now we will have that in our stadium."

Ashburton Grove had become a cause for concern for many fans who were worried that the costs of the project would prevent Wenger spending money on new players. Arsenal announced in September that net debt stood at 45.8 million pounds.

Wenger spent little in the close season but during the January transfer window he splashed out a club record 17 million pounds on Sevilla striker Jose Antonio Reyes.

Hill-Wood told fans the financing of the Arsenal group was "now complex" and it had two separate objectives -- to fund the stadium and continue investment in the squad.

He said that 285 million pounds was the most he expected Arsenal to be in debt, which would occur just before they opened the new stadium, and he did not expect that level of debt to affect Wenger's purchasing power.

Arsenal play Spain's Celta Vigo in the Champions League's first knockout round on Tuesday.