Manchester United have confirmed their intentions to remain at Old Trafford by forming a “special task force” to explore all the options available to them.
New minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe had contemplated leaving Old Trafford, which is in desperate need of major modernisation, but United are now focusing their efforts on redeveloping their famous home.
The “Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force”, as the club have called it, will feature input from several prominent figures as United seek to evaluate how their work on the stadium can have a positive impact on the wider community.
Lord Sebastian Coe, former Chair of the organising committee for the 2012 London Olympics, will lead the task force, which also includes mayor Andy Burnham and former club captain Gary Neville, as United seek to create a stadium capable of hosting major international fixtures as a rival to Wembley.
“Throughout my career in sport, I have seen the potential for stadiums to become focal points for strong communities and catalysts for social and economic development,” Coe said. “That was certainly true of the venues we built in east London for the 2012 Olympics, and we are overdue a project of similar scale and ambition in the north of England. I am honoured to have this opportunity to share my experience in support of this tremendously exciting project.”
Neville added: “I’m incredibly fortunate to have had the privilege of playing hundreds of games at Old Trafford, and no one can take away those amazing memories. But Old Trafford has evolved throughout its history and it’s clear we are at a point where it has to change again to ensure that Manchester United has a world-class stadium befitting the world’s greatest club.
“While I want the best for Manchester United, I also want the same for the surrounding community. Old Trafford should be a stadium that the whole of Greater Manchester can take pride in, and be a catalyst for sustainable, cohesive growth in an area of the city that has been neglected for too long.”
Ratcliffe is keen to build a ‘Wembley of the North’ and has vowed to bring Manchester on par with London in terms of footballing importance.
“This can be a major regeneration project for an area of Greater Manchester which has played such a key role in British industrial history, but which today requires new investment to thrive again,” the INEOS chief explained.
“The north-west of England has a greater concentration of major football clubs than anywhere else in the world, yet we don’t have a stadium on the scale of Wembley, the Nou Camp or the Bernabeu. We will not be able to change that on our own, which is why this task force is so important to help us seize this once-in-a-century opportunity.”