Manchester United’s stadium needs urgent redevelopment – but plans remain in limbo

Room 400202 in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium is for the visiting team’s radio commentators. Split over two levels, it is large enough to hold a party in and equipped with enough screens to run a stock exchange.

The room next door is of a similar size and is dedicated to reviewing injuries during games.

There is space for all this and more when you build yourself a new stadium — which in this case is the home to NFL team Las Vegas Raiders, opened in 2020 and seats up to 65,000 people — at an approximate cost of $1.9billion (£1.5bn). It is the second-most expensive stadium built so far, after only Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, which was reportedly a $5billion project and began operations later that same year.

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It is therefore no wonder that Manchester United’s players and officials were deeply impressed when they faced Borussia Dortmund in the Vegas venue on their pre-season tour this summer.

They were also charmed on that trip by the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, a few miles west of Manhattan, the Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California and the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.

Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The stadium in Las Vegas is an indoor arena, and air-conditioned against the baking desert heat outside. There are sofas behind the goals for corporate guests and a gigantic window offering fans a view of some of the biggest hotels on the planet. On top of this, there are 35,000 parking spaces within a mile of the stadium. Kenilworth Road, it isn’t.

Meanwhile, at Old Trafford on Monday evening, when Premier League football returns from its summer holidays, the radio journalists covering the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers will squeeze into the press box and be forced to make polite apologies to their colleagues about the lack of space.

At least they will be to use the wi-fi now — Old Trafford was one of the last big stadiums in Europe to install a reliable internet connection, doing so only in 2018.

Of course, paying fans care little for the facilities available to media members who not only get in for free but are paid to attend. But regardless, supporters and journalists alike will be entering a stadium largely unchanged since 2006 (the year after the Glazer family bought the club).

And while United have invested tens of millions in partial improvements in recent years (mostly on executive areas, disabled facilities and installing safe-standing areas) and the paint job completed in 2022 gave the stadium a smarter appearance after years of looking at peeling girders, it cannot be ignored that 74,000-capacity Old Trafford needs enlarging to satisfy the demand for tickets as well as further upgrades to bring it into the modern era.

It has taken United too long to realise this.

In April 2022, the club belatedly appointed architects Populous and management firm Legends International as master planners and consultants for Old Trafford. They reported in to Collette Roche, who is United’s chief operating officer and was the most senior executive on that recent U.S. tour. Fans were pleased to hear it, but wondered how any redevelopment was going to be paid for, given the club’s existing debts.

Populous and Legends have designed some of the best stadiums in the world, including the one in Houston where United faced Real Madrid last month and which has hosted two NFL Super Bowls, the new Wembley, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Plans for Old Trafford were not made public but were presented to United’s fan advisory board last spring.

The master planners had been instructed to look at the feasibility of several different options, including raising the capacity through various means, building a completely new stadium next door to the current one and redevelopment centred around a new main stand.

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Different solutions had the new stadium at 80,000, 90,000 and 100,000 capacity (Anything over 90,000 would make Old Trafford the biggest stadium in the UK, topping Wembley, and going to 100,000 would make it the largest in Europe — although Barcelona’s revamped Camp Nou will apparently hold 105,000 when finished). One design depicted Old Trafford with a (massively expensive) new roof, which would improve the current poor acoustics and the aesthetics caused by the current one being too low.

Any redevelopment plans would involve expanding the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand, which is easily Old Trafford’s smallest, over the main Manchester-to-Liverpool rail line that runs alongside the stadium. There are height issues and considerations for the residents of Railway Road and other streets across the tracks, but these are not thought to be insurmountable, nor is the engineering.

Overall, legroom is tight at the stadium, with 666mm the figure between seats for almost all areas (most modern grounds have 700-850mm). This will be an issue that needs addressing in any redevelopment.

Old Trafford is poky behind the scenes, too. From the cooking spaces to the lounges, space is at a premium.

As Real Madrid and Barcelona currently redevelop their famous homes at the Bernabeu and Camp Nou, one of the key improvements at both venues is going to be more space everywhere — not just for football-related concerns but for money-making museums or hotels as well. United would be wise to do the same themselves.

The safe-standing area at Old Trafford (Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)

The club are adamant the overall fan experience will be a big factor in any plans and that whatever happens at Old Trafford should benefit everyone, not just those using the new stands or executive facilities.

However, there are downsides to what would be a lengthy redevelopment process.

United could continue playing at Old Trafford while it is rebuilt, but doing so would also exacerbate the stadium’s existing problems — from the crowd pinch-points in the north-east corner backing onto the Bridgewater canal to the single-level access to the entire stadium.

It is not a decision that will be taken lightly, and the planning will need to be exemplary.

All of the options discussed above were put forward at a fans’ advisory meeting in 2022. And since then… nothing. No preferred plans were chosen and no architects were contacted to add more detail, partly because the Glazers would struggle to afford an extensive redevelopment.

In August last year, United’s chief executive Richard Arnold admitted to fans that the club needed money and then in November the Glazers announced a strategic review as they sought investment or even a full sale. That has yet to be resolved, but United still require capital — chiefly for work on Old Trafford.

Club staff have been asked to present to seven different prospective buyers this year, most notably to INEOS and a Qatari bid. The other presentations have been to private-equity groups who could come up with money and and keep the Glazers in charge as they oversee an asset set to rise in value.

So United’s ownership needs fixing first, but then comes Old Trafford.

A lack of investment has gone on for too long and has resulted in a once world-beating ground regressing massively, something that was starkly highlighted by the American stadiums seen on this summer’s tour.

There is one upside, though. At least United won’t have to fork out on implementing absolutely all of the best aspects of those stadiums: the Manchester climate is quite capable of providing its own air-conditioning.

(Top photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)