The leaky roof at Old Trafford has for so long been viewed as symptomatic of the decline that has been seen over the last decade or so under the ownership of the Glazer family at Manchester United.
In a decade when the likes of Tottenham Hotspur made the move to a state-of-the-art new stadium, and rivals such as Liverpool spent hundreds of millions in revamping the iconic Anfield Stadium to bring it into the world-class bracket, the Glazers stood still at United, doing little to arrest the decline of their surroundings, the decaying stadium symbolic of all that ailed the football club.
Last week it was revealed that Manchester United were minded to pursue the building of a new stadium instead of the redevelopment of Old Trafford, with the plan core to part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s grand plan for the club, with the British billionaire wanting to build a ‘Wembley of the North’. READ MORE: Old Trafford NFL option, naming rights, £2bn bill - the finances behind Man United stadium plans READ MORE: Manchester United aiming to submit plans for new 100,000-seater Old Trafford stadium It won’t come cheap, however.
The cost of such a build, with a 100,000-capacity project mooted, would sail past the £2bn mark and likely be more than double the cost of Spurs’ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium given that development was done at a time of lower interest rates and less pressing macroeconomic factors.
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