Man Utd want to move into new 100,000-seater, £2bn stadium by 2030-31 season | OneFootball

Manchester United have revealed eye-catching plans to replace Old Trafford with a new 100,000-seater stadium – and hope to move in by the start of the 2030-31 season.

The Premier League club had been examining whether to redevelop their current ground or build a new home in the same area and announced on Tuesday they had chosen the second option.

United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said this marked “the start of an incredibly exciting journey to the delivery of what will be the world’s greatest football stadium, at the centre of a regenerated Old Trafford”.

Architects Foster + Partners unveiled concept images of how the venue and surrounding area could look and revealed the ground would be made out of 160 pre-fabricated sections that would halve the build time to five years.

Asked if United were therefore targeting the 2030-31 campaign to move into the new stadium, chief executive Omar Berrada said: “Yes.”

Berrada confirmed the stadium, along with club areas like fan zones and a megastore, would cost around £2billion.

“We won’t be asking for taxpayer money to fund the stadium,” he said. “But, at the same time, the stadium, the new build in isolation does not make sense if there’s not an investment in the wider generation project.”

Berrada says “all the options are open” at this stage, including stadium naming rights, as United look at how to finance the project.

“It’s still quite early and also as a PLC we can’t speculate too much about the funding,” he said.

“But what I would say is the new stadium as the centrepiece of the wider regeneration project is a very attractive investment opportunity, so we’re quite confident and we’ll be able to find a way to finance the stadium.”

Revealing plans for a £2bn new home was quite the gear change after Ratcliffe said on Monday that United’s recent cost-cutting measures were necessary to stop the club running out money by Christmas.

“What you heard yesterday was about the need to do a course adjustment,” Berrada said.

“The way the club was tracking, with all the losses that have been accumulated – more than £300million in the last five years – was not sustainable.

“So all the plans we’ve been putting in place over the last months really address the short-term issue, which is that the club is losing money.

“Once we stop losing money, we then put ourselves in the best financial position to continue investing in our team and also to allow us to be able to have the ambition to build a new stadium.”

The new stadium plans have received the backing of former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.

“Manchester United should always strive for the best in everything it does, on and off the pitch, and that includes the stadium we play in,” he said.

“Old Trafford holds so many special memories for me personally, but we must be brave and seize this opportunity to build a new home, fit for the future, where new history can be made.”

United said the new stadium would be “the centrepiece of the regeneration of the Old Trafford area” as they throw their “support behind the Government’s growth agenda”.

Radcliffe added: “Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years, but it has fallen behind the best arenas in world sport.

“The Government has identified infrastructure investment as a strategic priority, particularly in the north of England, and we are proud to be supporting that mission with this project of national, as well as local, significance.”

Berrada admitted it was “unlikely” that Old Trafford would be kept after the club considered scaling it down, with the idea of perhaps using it for the women’s and youth teams.

“It’s clear that our ambition is to have the best team in the world with the best stadium, the most iconic stadium in the world,” he added.

“We want to have some of the best players in the world playing in front of our fans.

“Our fans deserve to see a team that they can be proud of, that they can connect with. And to be able to do that in an amazing venue, like the one that we’ve shown today.”