Manchester United have shown off images of what a new stadium could look like if plans are approved for redevelopment of Old Trafford and the surrounding area.
The club are working together with Trafford Council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to regenerate the wider Trafford Park region.
Club co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been eager to push on with stadium redevelopment since being onboarded early in 2024.
In an update on Monday evening, United announced an economic report by Oxford Economics had been commissioned to ‘explore the benefits’ of the project.
As part of a video explaining the findings, pictures of a new stadium and how it would fit into the area’s regeneration.
The stadium would act as the entertainment hub in an area which would also boast new housing, a commercial district, mixed-use zones and new transport links.
It is estimated that the project could bring £7.3bn-a-year to the British economy, with 92,000 new jobs and 17,000 new homes created. It would also attract an estimated 1.8m visitors per year.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham claimed the project “could be the biggest regeneration scheme ever seen in this country”.
Former United captain Gary Neville, who like Burnham is part of the task force overseeing the project, said: “A stadium that the whole of Greater Manchester can take pride in. A catalyst for for sustainable, cohesive growth.”
Fellow task force member Lord Sebastian Coe, current president of World Athletics, added: “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create something special.”
United’s hopes of building a new stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats would make it the largest stadium in the country, surpassing Wembley’s total of 90,000. It would only be beaten in Europe by Barcelona’s Camp Nou, which is expected to have a 105,000 capacity once ongoing redevelopment work there is complete later this decade.
Old Trafford currently houses 74,310 people, which makes it the largest club stadium in the UK.
Redeveloping the existing stadium has presented major engineering headaches that could be avoided with the build of a brand new venue elsewhere on the current site. United have toyed with the idea of keeping a scaled down version of the original Old Trafford with a 30,000 capcity, rather than demolishing it completely, for the permanent use of the women’s and academy sides. But it was recently reported that plan may not now go ahead due to the potential cost of such a transformation.
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