Manchester United have announced plans to build the UK’s biggest stadium, a new £2bn, 100,000-seater ground on land to the south-west behind Old Trafford, close to their current home.
Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said he wanted to build the “world’s greatest football stadium” which the club hopes could be finished in five years.
United’s decision followed an extensive consultation process around whether to develop the dilapidated existing stadium, which has housed the club since 1910, or build a brand new one.
Architects at Foster and Partners, who will design the project, said the stadium would feature an umbrella design and a new public plaza that is “twice the size of Trafalgar Square.” Foster and Partners were also the architects for the new Wembley Stadium, which opened in 2007, and the Lusail Stadium, the venue for the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.
The design will feature three masts described as “the trident”, which the architects say will be 200 metres high and visible from 25 miles away.
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The new stadium will form part of a wider regeneration of the Old Trafford area, predicted to be the biggest such project in the United Kingdom since the transformation of the Stratford area that accompanied the 2012 London Olympics. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already given government backing to the plans.
United say the whole project could create 92,000 new jobs. It will involve the construction of 17,000 homes and bring an additional 1.8 million visitors to the area annually. They add that the project will be worth an additional £7.3bn per year to the UK economy.
“Today marks the start of an incredibly exciting journey to the delivery of what will be the world’s greatest stadium,” said Ratcliffe. “Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years but it has fallen behind the arenas in world sport.
“I think we may well finish up with the most iconic football stadium in the world.”
The stadium will be built using pre-fabrication, shipped in 160 components along the neighbouring Manchester Ship Canal.
Old Trafford – already England’s biggest club ground with a 74,140 capacity – has fallen out of favour with fans in recent years, with issues including leaks from the roof of the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand which can frequently be seen causing waterfalls in the stadium on rainy match days. The stadium has had no significant repair or development since 2006, just after current majority shareholders the Glazier Family’s debt-leveraged £790m takeover in June 2005.
United have reportedly spoken to senior people involved in recent large-scale stadium developments, such as the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and the rebuild of Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium, as part of their background work.
They also spoke to local residents and conducted a fan survey to establish whether supporters would prefer a new build or extensive improvements to the present stadium, which was thought likely to cost £1.5bn.
Former manager Alex Ferguson was one high-profile backer of a new venue: “Manchester United should always strive for the best in everything it does, on and off the pitch, and that includes the stadium we play in,” he said. “Old Trafford holds so many special memories for me personally, but we must be brave and seize this opportunity to build a new home, fit for the future, where new history can be made.”
It is not yet known what the plan will be for the present stadium, although senior club sources have previously said it would not be cost effective to shrink it for use as a home for United’s women’s and youth teams.
Omar Berrada, chief executive of Manchester United, said: “Our long-term objective as a club is to have the world’s best football team playing in the world’s best stadium. We are grateful for the feasibility work done by the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force exploring options for the future of Old Trafford.
“We have carefully considered its findings, together with the views of thousands of fans and local residents and concluded that a new stadium is the right way forward for Manchester United and our surrounding community. We will now embark on further consultation to ensure that fans and residents continue to be heard as we move towards final decisions.”
Greater Manchester mayor and Everton fan Andy Burnham is another key backer of the plans, although he did reference recent fan complaints about current ticket prices in his response to todays’s announcement: “If we get this right, the regeneration impact could be bigger and better than London 2012. Manchester United could, and indeed should, have the best football stadium in the world,” he said. “To me, that means a stadium that is true to the traditions of the club, affordable to all, with nobody priced out.”
Image courtesy Foster and Partners