The exhibition hall at the Labour Party’s annual conference is a curious collection of stands. There have been blue-chip giants pitched up next to charities inside Liverpool’s vast ACC complex this week, utility companies placed alongside unions.
Each has come with the same motivations as every other year: to lobby and find political friends, to chase influence and visibility. The National Farmers Union (NFU) even brought a sparkling Massey Ferguson tractor — in Labour red, of course — to make themselves known.
And if visitors made it that far, to the depths of the hall next to the auditorium where party leader Sir Keir Starmer gave his first conference speech as prime minister of the United Kingdom yesterday, then it would have been hard to miss a newcomer to this political setting.
Stand H14, right next door to public-service trade union Unison, has been home to the Old Trafford Regeneration project this week.
It is Manchester United working with Trafford Council and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), displaying what they wish to achieve together in the next decade. “This is more than a stadium,” it tells attendees on a giant screen. “This is urban regeneration.”
United are part of a group seeking support for a regeneration project (Philip Buckingham/The Athletic)
This is also something close to a sales pitch.
A two-minute promotional video is played on a loop throughout the day, with two scale models showing Old Trafford and its surroundings as they are now and how they might look in the future. The push of a button illuminates the centrepieces of both and draws passers-by in for a closer look.
It is stressed that the futuristic red design shown on the model is not part of the eventual plans — merely a placeholder, to use the language of architects — but there is obvious intent to project how different things could look in United’s corner of Manchester. “A 100,000-seat world-class stadium at the heart of a thriving mixed-use neighbourhood,” it promises is possible to deliver to Trafford Wharfside.
Events such as these are all part of orchestrated plans to push ambitions forward in the closing months of 2024.
United — or Old Trafford Regeneration — will also attend the Conservative Party conference at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre next week and will hope by the end of it all there is a willingness from political office to help fund what is being called a “once-in-a-century opportunity” by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, United’s minority shareholder and head of the club’s sporting operations.
As reported by The Athletic last week, Old Trafford Regeneration could also attend the International Investment Summit in London on October 14, an invitation-only event bringing together around 300 business leaders from around the world.
Ratcliffe, the one-time Brexiteer, has not made it to Liverpool this week but United’s message has been laid out by others in its task force first assembled in March.
Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, spoke at the Old Trafford Regeneration stand on Monday, alongside former United defender and vocal Labour supporter Gary Neville, who also attended a fringe event with culture secretary Lisa Nandy.
Burnham and Neville’s appearances drew a sizeable crowd and it was made clear to those listening that taxpayers’ money would not be used on a rebuilt or relocated Old Trafford. The focus was instead placed on public investment into the surrounding areas, including the relocation of a nearby rail-freight terminal to Merseyside.
United and their partners, they are not afraid to admit, need help if opportunities are to be grasped.
The promises carried on the big screen this week are almost as grand as the plans for a phased project that could stretch as far as the year 2040. As well as 92,000 permanent jobs being created, a preliminary study from Oxford Economics, a quantitative analysis group, claimed there could be an “extra £7.3billion ($9.8bn) in GVA (gross value added) to the UK economy each year”.
(Philip Buckingham/The Athletic)
United have obvious skin in this game.
Transforming the industrial landscape that currently surrounds Old Trafford and adding the transport links necessary to raise capacity from 74,000 to 100,000 will attract visitors and widen revenue streams. It is why Collette Roche, United’s chief operating officer, was in attendance at the Labour conference on Monday and why other club staff helped staff the stand all week alongside those from INEOS, Ratcliffe’s chemical giant, and Foster + Partners, the architects tasked with developing a masterplan for the Old Trafford district last week.
The Athletic revealed last week that the final decision on whether to redevelop Old Trafford or start again from scratch on neighbouring club-owned land is due to come before the end of December but a very public canvassing of support has already begun. Significant investment, in the tens of thousands, has been necessary to secure prominent pitches at both the Labour and Conservative conferences. United have paid to have their vision seen, as well as heard.
It has fused football and politics together in Liverpool — and United were not the only example of that.
As well as the Professional Footballers’ Association joining the long list of unions running a stand all week, the Premier League have paid for one of its own. The richest league in the world told of all the good it does and offered people the chance to play on a VR headset, keeping a high score leaderboard for Labour’s members of parliament.
It, too, staged a fringe event on Monday evening, with a splash of conversation on the independent regulator promised in the Football Governance Bill. Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive who has consistently warned against the risks of regulation, was among those in attendance.
Political games have been played all week at the new UK government’s annual gathering and United, as their stand has made clear since Sunday, remain in the hunt for a big home win.
(Top photo: Philip Buckingham/The Athletic)
