Britain’s worst-kept secret is out. Manchester United have announced plans to build that “Wembley of the North” they promised, in double quick time.
There was always going to be a lot of bluster, given the names involved in the project – Seb Coe, Andy Burnham, Sir Jim Ratcliffe – all of whom revel in PR speak.
But there is no doubting, certainly in a sporting sense, there has never been a project to touch the ambition of what Ratcliffe and co unveiled in London on Tuesday – elements of a design that have already proved divisive. Here are seven of its most striking elements:
It’s not a circus tent, honest
Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
“You can take your own view on how iconic you think it is but everybody in the world who is interested in Manchester United – and football – will want to come and visit this stadium.”
Ratcliffe clearly cannot see it, but given the embarrassment United have become on the pitch since Ineos came to power, the fact that the stadium design resembles an enlarged circus tent seems somewhat fitting.
Several United executives in attendance admitted, off the record, they were the initially sceptical about the shape of the new arena and its canopy, but once they had seen the extravagant plans for what is inside, they had been won over.
Architects Fosters and Partners, led by Mancunian Norman Foster – admitted the final designs are changeable, if fans voice their discontent.
Rain? No pain
Creating this modern, entertainment city surrounding the stadium, that designers hope will drastically “alter how long supporters dwell around the stadium for”, will take into account the one thing that continues to hold Manchester back when it comes to drawing the big tourism numbers – the weather.
“The procession down here [walkway to stadium] to arrive in this huge covered space, we felt that was different and new,” Nigel Dancey, also of Fosters and Partners, tells The i Paper.
A trident to be seen for 40km
To hold up this canopy that is “one of the biggest undercover outdoor spaces in the world”, three towers will be erected that can be seen for 40km around, from the Peak District and, most importantly, from the outskirts of Liverpool.
Designers had finalised plans for the final design without the three masts, the tallest of which will measure 200m in height. Ratcliffe is understood to be behind the last-minute change.
The pitch itself will be laid 16 metres below ground, meaning the stadium will not completely dwarf everything in the surrounding area.
Shipped in bit by bit, like ‘Meccano’
The initial plans to rebuild Old Trafford estimated a timescale of 10 years. Even that seemed ambitious.
Ratcliffe and Foster have come up with a solution that cuts that timescale in half, using the transportation options into the surrounding area.
“Normally a stadium would take 10 years to build,” Foster said, via video link. “We half that time – to five years.
“How do we do that? By pre-fabrication. By using the network of Manchester Ship Canal. By bringing it back to a new life. Shipping in components, 160 of them, Meccano-like.”
The location of these construction sites is yet to be decided, but Ratcliffe admitted they could come from as far as Asia.
Old Trafford stays until New Trafford is built
One huge advantage of rebuilding rather than remodelling is that the designers insist United will not play in a reduced capacity venue at any point.
Old Trafford as we know it will be flattened, to make way for more regeneration of the surrounding area. That will only take place once the new stadium is built.
At no point will part of the new stadium require the old one to make way, despite the prxomity to the new one.
An arena for concerts… and the NFL
United need this new stadium, given the state of the club’s finances, to make money, quickly.
One of the many areas they have fallen behind rivals is the fact Old Trafford is very rarely used for anything other than football, while the Etihad has hosted some of the world’s leading music stars.
There will not be a retractable pitch instilled like some modern super stadiums, but plans are afoot to get more use out of the planned facilities.
Plans to start building by the end of the year, pending Government nod
Despite insisting they remain at the beginning of the planning process, it is understood the club plan to begin building this 100,000-seater mega complex by the end of the year.
The Carrington renovation project, which is also overseen by Fosters and Partners, is set to be completed in July, making it a “leading training venue”.
There is no reason why the next project, once funding is sorted, cannot begin in earnest, too.
Ratcliffe had already issued a challenge to Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Government. The stadium “underpins” this wider project to regenerate a large area in South Manchester.
That wider project will be funded by the taxpayer, with the stadium Ratcliffe and United’s responsibility. But Ratcliffe needs Reeves to give the go-ahead.
Ratcliffe’s claim Man Utd would ‘run out of cash’, explained by a finance expert
By James Gray, sports news correspondent
Manchester United are unlikely to have “run out of cash” despite Sir Jim Ratcliffe claiming the club were in dire straits before his regime of cost-cutting, experts say.
Ratcliffe, who took a minority stake in the club at the beginning of 2024, said the “financial difficulty” had been brewing at United for years before he became involved, and could have reached a crisis point as soon as December this year.
“Manchester United would have run out of cash by the end of this year, after having me put $300m [£232.72m] in and if we buy no new players in the summer, if we hadn’t have implemented the cost programmes and restructuring that we have done over the last 12 months,” Ratcliffe told the BBC on Monday.
In the club’s most recent financial report, detailing activities in the second quarter of the financial year up to the end of December 2024, United revised their projected Ebitda profits up closer to £160m for the fiscal year, and assured investors of “strong ticket demand, hospitality and record memberships”.
United also recorded quarterly revenues of nearly £200m, seemingly at odds with Ratcliffe’s explosive claim.
“Whenever somebody says something like that, you basically mean you’re going to run out of cash, and cash is the day-to-day thing that funds the business, so it’s vitally important,” Dr Dan Plumley, an expert in football finance at Sheffield Hallam University, told The i Paper.
“You can talk about revenue and profit, but cash is critical to the organisation.
“The legitimacy of the claim is difficult from the outside looking in, because in terms of what we can see from the cash, you can only see the figure at the year’s end in the accounts. We don’t see the movement day-to-day, because that’s in the management accounts, which are internal to the organisation.
“Now if you look at the cash for Manchester United in the accounts, it’s £73.5m at end of the season in 2024. It was £76m the year before. It was £122m the year before that. So it’s taken a hit over the last couple of years, but so too have other clubs around them as well.
“United’s cash reserves in the accounts are still higher than Arsenal’s, they’re higher than Liverpool’s, they’re higher than Manchester City.”
Ratcliffe’s claim was simply that United would have run out of money rather than completely “go bust”. In all likelihood, even with the club’s debt total of close to £1bn, it would not have been the end of United altogether.
And just hours after revealing United were on track to “run out of money”, the Ineos billionaire announced ambitious plans to build “the world’s greatest football stadium” for £2bn on the site of Old Trafford.
“United would be able to activate some form of credit facility if they needed to,” Plumley added.
“We’ve seen other clubs do that in the past through various means. Even lower down the Football League, you see almost like payday lender type loans, which have crazy high interest rates attached, but there is always an ability to borrow.
“And I think Manchester United would be in a strong position, should they choose to do that. And ironically, of course, they will have to borrow fairly substantially to fund the new stadium.”
Ratcliffe also bemoaned injudicious transfer and player wage spending for damaging the club’s financial position. It may surprise fans to learn that United have another £17m to pay this summer towards the fee of Jadon Sancho, signed back in 2021, but it would not have been a shock to Ratcliffe.
“As part of a due diligence process, if done properly, and there’s no reason to suggest it wasn’t, you would get access to the full data book,” Plumley said.
“You would get all the information: you would get the finances, you’d get the management accounts, you’d get the [transfer] plans. The books are open.
“That’s part of the non-disclosure agreement [NDA]. And without that NDA, people don’t even come to the table and start discussing these things.
“If it’s been done in that regard, and as it would normally happen, you would get full access to the finances and the plans and be able to ask all the questions that you wanted to.”
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