Manchester United, of English soccer’s top-tier Premier League, have created a joint task force to explore options for building a new Old Trafford stadium.
The Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force will be chaired by Sebastian Coe, the former chair of the organizing committee for the 2012 London Olympics, and current president of the World Athletics governing body.
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The 10-person task force “will assess the feasibility of a new stadium of national significance equipped to host international games and finals, as well as providing a modernized home for Manchester United.”
Other members will include Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, chief executive of Trafford Council Sara Todd, former Manchester United captain Gary Neville, and representatives of the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, with 30,000 fans already consulted.
Jim Ratcliffe, who officially concluded his deal to become the Premier League club’s largest individual shareholder last month (February), is assessing the logistical challenges involved in building a new home for the team on the site where Old Trafford stands.
Since acquiring a minority stake in United, Ratcliffe has revealed his intentions to improve the club’s home stadium.
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By GlobalDataRatcliffe said: “This can be a major regeneration project for an area of Greater Manchester which has played such a key role in British industrial history, but which today requires new investment to thrive again.
“The north-west of England has a greater concentration of major football clubs than anywhere else in the world, yet we don’t have a stadium on the scale of Wembley, the Nou Camp or the Bernabéu.
“We will not be able to change that on our own, which is why this task force is so important to help us seize this once-in-a-century opportunity.”
The club will explore a wide range of options, including public-private partnerships, but will not seek grants.
Coe said: “Throughout my career in sport, I have seen the potential for stadiums to become focal points for strong communities and catalysts for social and economic development.
“That was certainly true of the venues we built in east London for the 2012 Olympics, and we are overdue a project of similar scale and ambition in the north of England. I am honored to have this opportunity to share my experience in support of this tremendously exciting project.”
The Glazer family, owners of Manchester United, have looked at ways to redevelop Old Trafford in recent years and appointed a team of consultants to create a master plan for this in 2022.
That team was led by premium experiences company Legends International and the renowned architectural design firm Populous, which specializes in sporting venues.
Legends were tasked with exploring different potential options for developing the stadium and assessing their feasibility but there has been little progress on this front since the Glazers put the club up for sale in late 2022 (a process which finally came to a conclusion when Ratcliffe acquired his stake in February).
Old Trafford, which has the largest capacity of any club-specific soccer venue in England at 76,000, was first built in 1910 and has not undergone significant renovation since 2006.
The last upgrades of any kind came in 2019 when United made improvements to accessibility facilities, security, and hospitality spaces.
However, there are still multiple aspects of the matchday experience that fans feel do not compare favorably to the overall experience at other premium soccer venues in the league.
