Manchester United will aim to build a 100,000-seater stadium should the club press ahead with plans to move to a new Old Trafford.
The six-figure capacity is seen as a realistic number designed to future-proof the ground given high demand for tickets.
The joint task force set up to explore options for Old Trafford has assessed redevelopment but is currently focusing attentions on what a new build might look like and how it could be financed, having concluded — initially at this stage — that is the best way to transform the fan experience.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s preference is also for a stadium built from scratch, rather than renovation, and United believe doing so on land owned by the club adjacent to the current ground is feasible, meaning the team could continue to play at Old Trafford through the construction work.
The alternative, improving stand by stand, would mean a reduction of capacity at different points and headaches over how to house 51,000 season ticket holders should the number of available seats fall below that figure.
There is a major difference in cost, with a new build expected to surpass £2billion and internal acknowledgment costs could rise, while renovation is around half that amount. But the work being done now by the task force, which is chaired by Lord Sebastian Coe, and includes mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham, Gary Neville, and Sara Todd, Trafford Council’s CEO, among others, is centred on the more expensive option.
The group has met four times, with the latest being last week, when Neville raised the subject of how a new Old Trafford would appear architecturally.
There is a consensus among the task force that the heritage of the stadium that has hosted United games for 114 years should be maintained. The characteristic red bricks and distinctive roofing are aspects that might be incorporated to carry through an industrial feel that aligns with United’s history and Manchester’s roots as a city.
United are conscious of avoiding a new stadium having too modern a finish. It is projected that breaking ground to completion could take six years.
A crucial question to answer remains on financing. All possibilities are being considered, including Ratcliffe providing funding, naming rights for sponsorship, and the club borrowing money, albeit United are aware of the toxicity around debt after years of Glazer ownership.
Ratcliffe wants a full recommendation, with detail, by the end of the year, and a sub task force is being established to focus on consultation with fans, which will feature Duncan Drasdo, CEO of Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST). There will be community engagement too on a project that United believe can regenerate the wider area.
United figures including chief executive Omar Berrada and chief operating officer Collette Roche, who is on the task force and has been leading on stadium plans for the last two years, are in Los Angeles and getting a firsthand view of how a new stadium can provide the catalyst for further development.
The SoFi Stadium, opened to the public in 2021 after beginning construction in 2016, has helped transform Inglewood, with several restaurants and retail outlets opening up as well as a theatre and other attractions, and United feel the same can happen in Trafford. Ratcliffe wants to create at Old Trafford the kind of campus that surrounds the SoFi Stadium.
United believe there is also an opportunity to link Old Trafford and Wharfside with MediaCity on the other side of Salford Quays to create a major economic and social hub.
Stan Kronke, who owns Arsenal, paid for the $5.5billion cost of building the stadium and the surrounding Hollywood Park area so the LA Rams, his NFL team, could play there.
Inglewood’s local authorities have also signed off on plans to increase transport links, including a monorail connecting to the metro system, and United are looking at whether there is merit for similar public-private partnerships in their proposals. Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister, was open to conversations around that when he visited Old Trafford in May.
As well as the SoFi Stadium, Roche has visited the Bernabeu to learn from Real Madrid’s redevelopment project. Figures at Real believe United have a unique opportunity to start afresh on the same patch of land.
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