{"id":682756,"date":"2026-07-09T18:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682756\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:05:10","slug":"manchester-united-insist-new-stadium-not-vanity-project-despite-prospect-of-more-debt-manchester-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682756\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United insist new stadium \u2018not vanity project\u2019 despite prospect of more debt | Manchester United"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester United have said their proposed new 100,000-capacity \u00adstadium<\/a> may lead to further debt being loaded on the club but insisted it would be \u201ca sanity, not vanity project\u201d.<\/p>\n

Plans for United\u2019s new home were unveiled on Thursday and showed it would be built 350 metres north-west of the current Old Trafford. The club are about \u00a31.3bn in debt and in March 2025 Omar Berrada, United\u2019s chief executive, said \u00a32bn was the working cost of the stadium.<\/p>\n

Manchester United\u2019s stadium project is part of a plan to redevelop the local area. Photograph: Allies and Morrison<\/p>\n

Collette Roche, the chief executive of the stadium project, said of whether the cost would change: \u201cThat is the $2bn question. We can look at what other stadiums cost but we\u2019re going to be building a very different stadium, bigger than any other: 100,000 seats. So there is not a price I can go to. We\u2019ve still got all funding options available: we can have debt, equity, shares, other investors. We\u2019ve had a lot of approaches. People saying: \u2018Can I be part of this?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis needs to be a sanity project, not a vanity project. You\u2019ve seen from the way we now run the club, having control of our costs is really important. You\u2019ve seen where we are financially, which we are improving. It will be on us to deliver to the time and budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought into United two years ago the club have been on a finance-tightening drive, a major part of this being about 450 redundancies.<\/p>\n

Roche said: \u201cI know things can go out of control. People said that with me on Carrington [the training ground development]: \u2018You\u2019re never going to do it in that time, for that price [\u00a350m].\u2019 We did because we were disciplined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the cost may be sourced via branding rights. Roche said: \u201cI really don\u2019t know what the stadium will be called. What I will say is we are going to potentially sell the naming rights to the stadium. Everybody realises affordable accessible ticket prices are really important. To do that, we need to generate revenue streams in other places as well to build the stadium that everyone said is going to be really expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

United have said the initial stadium design may not be the final version. Photograph: Foster + Partners\/PA<\/p>\n

A sizeable constituency of supporters are concerned regarding more debt being potentially loaded on the club. Roche said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of fans who want to watch the match and can\u2019t, so we need a bigger \u00adstadium. In terms of how we then fund it [and any] debt, it\u2019s not about putting debt on the club, if indeed that is the route we go. We\u2019ve got other funding options.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn and around the matches, people stay for longer. We\u2019ll have all the facilities, other experiences. That\u2019s going to generate a lot more revenue. That\u2019ll go back into the club, the team, growing our football.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst we can get over-obsessed with debt and borrowing, there is no stadium where you would not have some form of borrowing. I am sure all of you haven\u2019t paid for your houses out of your own pocket. We need to make sure it\u2019s sensible and generates income for the future of the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

An impression of how the area around the new stadium could look if approved. Photograph: Allies and Morrison<\/p>\n

The proposed design of the stadium drew criticism from those who compared it to a circus tent. Roche stated this could be changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it set in stone? No, is the first thing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going through the process. We\u2019re not ripping things up so to speak but now we know where it\u2019s going to be, we need to make sure it fits in the right place.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes it look right from different angles? We\u2019ve launched a concept of a new stadium and everyone gets excited and then they all decide what the stadium\u2019s going to be, even though I don\u2019t, and I\u2019m running the stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stadium plans were unveiled as part of the draft wharfside strategic master plan for the wider area\u2019s development. On 20 July Trafford council\u2019s executive committee will decide whether to approve the master plan. If it does, an eight-week consultation period will start on 28 July.<\/p>\n

Roche reiterated the aim is to have the new stadium open by 2035.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United have said their proposed new 100,000-capacity \u00adstadium may lead to further debt being loaded on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-682756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}