Manchester United leaning towards building £2bn, 100,000-capacity stadium

United are drawing inspiration from Los Angeles’ SoFi arena, which has helped revitalise the Inglewood area

Manchester United are leaning towards the creation of a new 100,000 capacity stadium that could cost more than £2 billion and take six years to complete. However, they will not make a final decision until the end of the year following full consultation with supporters.
Although the prospect of redeveloping their existing Old Trafford ground is not off the table, the club’s stadium task force made an initial conclusion that a new build on the land around the current stadium would be the best way to truly transform the fan experience and surrounding community.
The Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, which is chaired by Lord Coe and includes former United captain Gary Neville and the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, has held four meetings since being convened in March by the club’s new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and is said to be making “great progress”.
Sub groups that feed into the task force have been set up to lead the consultation with fans and the local community before a final recommendation is made by December.
The task force are exploring an array of financing options with a new build project expected to take around six years to complete and cost more than £2 billion, which would include funding of the stadium itself plus what is dubbed the “stadium district”.
That could feature a hotel, other amenities and potentially an immersive entertainment centre like the Cosm in Los Angeles, which forms part of the £4.25 billion Hollywood Park complex that has the spectacular SoFi stadium – where United played Arsenal on Saturday – as its centrepiece.
United officials are drawing considerable inspiration from the sprawling 300-acre complex and how it has been the catalyst for regeneration in the once deprived city of Inglewood in LA County given the hope a new or redeveloped stadium could do something similar for the Old Trafford area of Manchester.
Collette Roche, United’s chief operating officer, has made three visits to Los Angeles and held a series of meetings with the brains behind the SoFi development to tap into their expertise and experience, in particular the campus element of the project.
Roche has also followed the Chicago Bears NFL team’s Burnham Park Project and their ambitious plans to use a new stadium as the springboard for regeneration of the wider area in what is considered a true public-private partnership similar to what Ratcliffe hopes to achieve with United’s venture.
She also visited the Bernabeu earlier in the year to learn from Real Madrid’s redevelopment project and has spent time with the brains behind the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley.
James T Butts Jr, the mayor of Inglewood, told Telegraph Sport that Hollywood Park, which also comprises the 6,000 capacity YouTube Theatre next door to the SoFi, is the “pre-eminent sports venue in the world”. The stadium itself cost around £2.3 billion.
Former United striker Andy Cole believes it represents the gold standard and is a project the club should be looking to emulate in Manchester.
“What left the biggest impression on me is how the stadium has been central to the rise of Inglewood,” said Cole, who was at the SoFi to watch United’s 2-1 defeat to Arsenal.
“I have been coming to LA for years and that area of the city was never previously somewhere you would choose to go as a visitor.
“To see how it has become such a thriving neighbourhood, with the SoFi at the heart of it, is an inspirational example of inner-city regeneration.
“I don’t draw this comparison lightly but you can see a parallel with the opportunity back home in Manchester.
“A new or redeveloped stadium at Old Trafford could be the focal point for revitalisation of the surrounding area.
“Manchester United fans and everyone in the north of England deserves a truly world-class stadium, and SoFi set the standard to aim for. This is the kind of arena the best players in the world want to be playing in and fans want to be experiencing.”
Old Trafford sources believe they have the fanbase and demand to regularly fill a 100,000 capacity stadium.
Although redeveloping Old Trafford would be estimated to cost between £1 billionn and £1.2 billion – around half the cost of a new build – there is an expectation it could take longer than six years to complete given the complexities of renovating a 1910 building.
It would also involve taking a major hit to matchday revenues given the need to play at a reduced capacity of 40,000 to 50,000 – down from 74,000 – and leave tens of thousands of fans unable to watch their team.
United could continue to play at Old Trafford while a new stadium was built on surrounding land, but there are not believed to be any viable alternative grounds where the team could play if the existing stadium was redeveloped.
The stadium task force are thought to have been paying particular attention to how any potential new build would look to ensure it talked to the heritage, history and “essence” of the club. Around 30,000 fans have been surveyed to date with opinion split over whether to redevelop or build a new stadium but the majority of questions have centred around what they want from the stadium in the future.
United have been buying up more land around Old Trafford over the past five years and are thought to own approximately 100 acres in total which is currently under-utilised and could be repurposed for housing, leisure, business and education, driving investment, jobs and environmental improvements.
The stadium task force feel the project has large-scale potential synergies with the adjacent Trafford Wharfside regeneration scheme that is being led by Trafford Council and which launched in February. It could prove 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 focused on sport, entertainment, media, technology and education.
Ratcliffe has called it a “once in a century” opportunity and Burnham believes it could be the biggest regeneration project the north of England has ever seen.
The Hollywood Park project was funded by the US billionaire Stan Kroenke, whose wife Ann is the daughter of the Walmart co-founder James Walton, one of the richest families in America.
It remains to be seen if Ratcliffe or the Glazers would contribute any of their personal fortunes to the United project – Ratcliffe has invested £235 million to date – but a variety of private funding sources are being explored.
Club officials are adamant they are not looking for government “handouts” but there is a view, shared by Burnham, that there could be opportunities for public-private partnership that could unlock significant benefits for the community, not least around transport infrastructure, amenities and mixed income housing.
Ratcliffe met with Sir Keir Starmer at Old Trafford in May in the weeks before he became Prime Minister and is thought to be open to conversations around government support for wider transport links.