Manchester United’s bold vision for a new £2 billion, 100,000-capacity stadium is nothing if not eye-catching and Ratcliffe expects football fans from across the world − not to mention the club’s purported one billion followers globally − to flock to a venue set to replace their historic Old Trafford home of 115 years.
Ratcliffe wants the stadium to be more than a place where United play football, but a landmark tourist destination and shining beacon for England’s North. The plans drawn up by renowned British architect Lord Foster − and unveiled for the first time on Tuesday − certainly talk to that.
Three giant masts inspired by the Red Devils’ trident on the club’s crest − the tallest of which stands 200 metres high and would be visible from 37.4 kilometres away − dominate the skyline and effectively pin up a sweeping, 104-square-metre glass and steel canopy that will keep fans dry whether they are inside or out.
Given it rains for 132 days on average per year in Manchester, fans will doubtless be grateful for the protection afforded by this vast, green-friendly “umbrella” that Foster says will “harness solar energy and rainwater” and enclose “arguably the largest public space in the world”.
Manchester United's new 100,000-seater stadium will take five years to build and will be pieced together like Meccano.
Manchester United's new 100,000-seater stadium will take five years to build and will be pieced together like Meccano.
With a huge wraparound scoreboard and a sunken pitch, 15.9 metres below ground level, United have drawn considerable inspiration from the remarkable SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, where the club played Arsenal on their pre-season tour of the United States last summer. The SoFi forms the centrepiece of the sprawling Hollywood Park development and United clearly envisage their new stadium doing something similar in the Old Trafford area.
Foster talks about bringing fans “close to the pitch” and maximising the atmosphere so “acoustically it cultivates the roar”. The main concourse would be at ground level.
With a public plaza twice the size of Trafalgar Square and their own version of Wembley Way, no one could accuse United of not thinking big on what would be a stunning, reimagined 260-acre site, all told.
A tree-lined route would stretch from a rebuilt rail terminal past the site of the Holy Trinity statue of Bobby Charlton, George Best and Denis Law, all the way to the new stadium on land adjacent to their current Old Trafford home. “That becomes the pivot, the processional way to the stadium,” Foster said.
Currently, around 65 per cent of United fans travel to games by car. United plan to make the new stadium far more accessible by public transport or on foot, with a series of new sheltered bridges also likely to be built, linking the site to other parts of the city.
A three-storey museum and enormous megastore could form part of a huge fan village with the potential for canal-side restaurants, community facilities, recreation space, retail outlets and new homes and businesses.
Foster is the son of a factory worker at Metropolitan-Vickers in Trafford Park, a former heavy electrical engineering company. He calls the stadium plans “a mixed use, mini city” that will talk to Manchester’s industrial past at the same time as looking to the future.
Inside Manchester United's new 100,000-seater stadium.
Inside Manchester United's new 100,000-seater stadium.
“It’s a bit more than a new stadium,” Ratcliffe said. “It’s obvious that the more iconic or more extraordinary that the stadium is, the more successful the regeneration scheme will be.
“I think a really good example is the Eiffel Tower. Everybody around the world knows the Eiffel Tower and I’m sure that many people here who have visited Paris − you stay in a hotel, you go to the Eiffel Tower.
“We have one billion people around the world who follow Manchester United. They will all want to visit this stadium. You can see the design and take your own view on how iconic you think it is but I think everybody in the world who is interested in Manchester United − and football − will want to come and visit this stadium.”
A project of this scale and ambition would ordinarily be expected to take 10 years to build. United hope to complete it in half that time, with a view to moving in at the start of the 2030-31 season, in large part because of plans to build most parts of the stadium off site. It would then involve transporting all the myriad components − “160 of them, Meccano-like” according to Foster − using the Manchester Ship Canal, another nod to the city’s industrial past. A number of the stadiums at the Qatar World Cup in 2022 − such as Stadium 974 − were constructed in a similar way through so-called “pre-fabrication”.
That is one way United hope to keep costs down, even if with soaring inflation and rising energy and material costs the stadium could cost twice what Tottenham Hotspur spent delivering their new £1 billion home and Real Madrid spent redeveloping the Bernabéu.
According to an economic study, United expect the project to deliver an additional £7.3 billion per year to the UK economy, create up to 92,000 new jobs, more than 17,000 new homes and drive an additional 1.8 million visitors annually.
All of which is very well but it still does not answer the burning question: how do a club that Ratcliffe said could have gone “bust by Christmas” but for the brutal cost-cutting drive he has implemented, including 450 jobs being axed, go about building a new £2 billion home?
Ratcliffe and United chief executive Omar Berrada are due to be part of a delegation heading to Cannes on Wednesday for the MIPIM, an international real estate and trade show, where they will be showing off their new stadium plans as they bid to drum up investment opportunities.
Foster + Partners' conceptual image of what the new Manchester United stadium and surrounding area could look like. Manchester United has thrown its support behind the Government’s growth agenda by announcing its intention to pursue a new 100,000-seater stadium as the centrepiece of the regeneration of the Old Trafford area.
Foster + Partners' conceptual image of what the new Manchester United stadium and surrounding area could look like. Manchester United has thrown its support behind the Government’s growth agenda by announcing its intention to pursue a new 100,000-seater stadium as the centrepiece of the regeneration of the Old Trafford area.
Man Utd unveil plans to build new 100,000-seater stadium to replace Old Trafford
Arsenal and Spurs both found the burden of financing new stadiums affected what they could invest in the squad and, unlike those clubs, United are already saddled with high annual interest payments − a legacy of the Glazers’ hostile takeover 20 years ago.
With Ratcliffe’s core petrochemicals business Ineos also feeling the pinch of what he calls “the deindustrialisation of Europe”, the challenges financially for United as they pursue such an ambitious stadium are obvious. Equally, will the contract for the project go out to tender? Foster + Partners currently has the deal to develop the “stadium district” and Ratcliffe’s friendship with Lord Foster would make it the logical candidate for the full stadium project, not least given it has already come up with its design. But United’s shareholders will also want to ensure the club are getting the best value for money, something Berrada acknowledged.
Assuming United can get the project off the ground, and the British government’s support is a considerable boon, the shorter-term pain may well be worth the considerable long-term gains.
In all likelihood, United will sell naming rights to the stadium and there are expected to be a host of sponsorship opportunities, perhaps even including around the fan village and canopy. There would be 25,000 extra paying fans and 15.5 per cent of seats have been earmarked for hospitality so it is easy to see why Berrada believes EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) could rocket by an additional £130 million annually.
United hope they will be in a position to commence work this year and it may reassure fans nervous about leaving Old Trafford that Alex Ferguson has thrown his support behind the plans.
“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,” the former United manager 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.”
In Ratcliffe’s eyes that is the Eiffel Tower of football.