In the midst of a sporting crisis, Manchester United is presenting its plans for a new stadium. It is a project of superlatives.
If the architecture that United presented to the world on Tuesday, graphically impressive, stretches exactly into the sky in the red part of Manchester in the future, one would rather expect the Champions League winner there than the fourteenth-placed team in the Premier League, given all the imposingness. There could be no clearer way to underline the historic size of the English record champions.
The renovation or abandonment of the legendary Old Trafford, United’s home since 1910, which has been in disrepair for years, has been under discussion for some time. Now, however, the world club, under co-ownership of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has finally made a move. The images and key data, presented in an image film by Lord Norman Foster, managing director of the responsible architecture firm, are truly futuristic.
United does not want to renovate its stadium, but rather build a new one in the immediate vicinity of Old Trafford. It will have a capacity of 100,000 – but that’s not all. The new facility, which would be the largest stadium in the UK, would be more like a “mini-city”.
The construction is expected to take five years
The new stadium will be visually similar to the Olympic Stadium in Munich, with an umbrella-like roof supported by three 200-meter-high masts. Below that, in addition to the stadium, a lot of public space is planned. For staying, gathering and, of course, consumption, twice the size of Trafalgar Square. Ultimately, Ratcliffe’s intention is to have “the greatest football stadium in the world”.
If all goes according to plan, the project will be completed in just five years and will cost the equivalent of around 2.5 billion euros. However, calculations for such projects rarely pan out.
Manchester United, which is billions in debt, has not yet announced how the stadium construction is to be financed. However, the club expects the stadium to create up to 17,000 new homes and up to 92,000 new jobs, with almost two million additional visitors per year and over eight billion euros in additional annual income for the British economy.
Ratcliffe, who has recently criticized several players in public, is looking forward to the “start of an incredibly exciting journey”.
