As well as the Ryder Cup, the mayor announced a bid for the golf’s Solheim Cup and the Women’s World Cup Final in the same year
Rory McIlroy celebrates during the Ryder Cup in New York – Greater Manchester wants similar crowds in Bolton(Image: Getty Images)
Greater Manchester could be in for ‘a major summer of sport’ with the World Cup final, Ryder Cup, and Solheim Cup, Andy Burnham has said.
The mayor announced a bid to host the Ryder Cup in 2035, golf’s largest men’s event, on Wednesday morning (March 18). It will be ‘submitted by the middle of next month’ ahead of an expected £240m construction of the Hulton Park golf resort in Bolton and completion of new infrastructure funded by the mayor’s Good Growth Fund.
Burnham confirmed later on Wednesday the bid includes a desire to host the Solheim Cup, often called the women’s Ryder Cup.
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He has previously said he wants a new Old Trafford stadium to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup final in the same year. The UK is the sole bidder to host the tournament, which will be the first Women’s World Cup with 48 teams.
“This is certainly in the top five biggest sporting events in the world. We’re looking at 2035 being a major summer of sport here in Greater Manchester because we’re hopeful the Women’s FIFA World Cup will come to England,” Burnham said.
England stars and best mates Ella Toone and Alessia Russo pose with the UEFA Women’s EURO trophy which they won last year(Image: Florencia Tan Jun – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
“And we want a new Old Trafford to host that final, and we will be working hard to land that alongside the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup. I haven’t really put that into the public domain yet, but this has got to be about women’s sport and men’s sport at the highest level, celebrating it all in the summer of 2035.”
Some £420m from the Good Growth Fund will go to 12 projects across the city, with £69.8m specifically for an M61 to M6 link road around the Bolton golf project.
However, some have questioned the rationale behind which projects secure backing after Burnham said a priority of the fund was to drive economic growth in areas outside the city centre. Funding varies dramatically between each borough.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham (Image: PA Wire)
While Trafford will receive £113m in this round of funding, neighbouring Salford will only receive less than a million pounds. But the mayor dismissed suggestions the funding makes rich boroughs richer and poor areas poorer.
He said: “I’m always open to being challenged about that. The whole concept of the good growth fund is breaking with the old trickle down model of growth in the past, waiting for the crumbs to fall off the table.
“We’re breaking with that. We are going into the places that deserve to be backed, deserve investment, and then creating a new market for investment in those places.
“The Ryder Cup actually is in a part of Greater Manchester or will be, that is in need of significant infrastructure investment. We’re confirming the first phase of the link road but as part of that, I will be writing to the chancellor to ask her to work with us to accelerate the tram-train through Atherton Station, Hagfold, Daisy Hill. That is absolutely taking investment to some of the more deprived parts of the city region.”
He has also pledged to scrutinise spending after it emerged £60m will be spent on a new tram stop on an existing Metrolink line in north Manchester. He added: “Transport for Greater Manchester does not have a record of goldplating or going over-budget. It’s a new piece of significant infrastructure because it’s serving a community that doesn’t have that infrastructure at the moment.
“But I will always challenge them to get the cost right down. It’s frustrating how much new public transport infrastructure costs at times.”
The Good Growth Funding allocations are expected to be approved by a meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on March 27.