Manchester United to leave Old Trafford for new 100,000-seat stadium

LONDON: Manchester United on Tuesday announced plans to build a new 100,000-capacity stadium close to their historic Old Trafford home, with co-owner Jim Ratcliffe promising it would be the “world´s greatest” football ground.

The momentous decision by the Premier League club comes after an extensive consultation process on whether to develop their creaking current ground or move. The stadium, which will be built on land surrounding Old Trafford, will cost around £2 billion ($2.6 billion) and the timescale for the project is five years.

United, 20-time English league champions, are one of the world´s most iconic football clubs but have fallen behind rivals such as Manchester City and Liverpool over the past decade. They are having a dismal season under current manager Ruben Amorim, languishing 14th in the Premier League table and knocked out of both domestic cup competitions.

British billionaire Ratcliffe himself this week told the BBC some of the club´s players are “not good enough” and some are “overpaid”. Scaled models and conceptual images for United´s new stadium were revealed on Tuesday at the London headquarters of architects Foster + Partners, appointed in September to design the stadium district.

“Today marks 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,” Ratcliffe said in a club statement.

“Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years, but it has fallen behind the best arenas in world sport.” United said the stadium and a wider regeneration project had the potential to deliver an additional £7.3 billion per year to the UK economy, including the possible creation of 92,000 new jobs. A joint task force was created last year to explore options for regenerating the Old Trafford area of Greater Manchester, with the stadium development at its heart.