Shortly Before Stevenage “Match Clash” With The Blues, Tom Wagner Spoke In Details About The 60,000-Mega Stadium And…

Manchester United are a year behind the Birmingham City timeframe even Tom Wagner thinks is ‘lunacy’

Birmingham City announced plans to build a new 60,000-seater stadium last year – now Man Utd are following suit

Manchester United have declared their intention to build a new 100,000-seater stadium which co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe boasts will be the ‘world’s greatest’.

The Premier League club have been examining whether to redevelop their Old Trafford home or build a new stadium in the same area in conjunction with the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force.

United have now confirmed their “intention to pursue a new 100,000-seater stadium as the centrepiece of the regeneration of the Old Trafford area” as they throw their “support behind the Government’s growth agenda”

According to Press Association, United hope the stadium can be built in five years, with sections to be constructed off site and transported along the Manchester Ship Canal.

The start date remains up in the air, and Ratcliffe said: “It depends how quickly the Government gets going with the regeneration programme. I think they want to get going quite quickly, they want to see progress in this term.”

Coincidentally, that is the same time-frame Tom Wagner has put on Birmingham City’s hopes to build their own new ground at the heart of a Sports Quarter.

At the time the announcement was made last April, as revealed by BirminghamLive, Wagner himself declared: “My time-frame is lunacy, but we’d like to get this completed in five years. That is the perfect world if everyone works with us at the same pace we’re willing to work.

“Five years from August and we could be in. I’m going to keep saying that even though it makes everyone around me sweat. A lot of it is outside our control, but that’s the goal.”

That was 12 months ago and Blues have continued to forge ahead with their plans for a 60,000 seater facility having now purchased another 12 acres to add to the 48 acres revealed in the initial announcement

as Wagner calls them – and hubs to socialise. Knighthead intend for match days to make up a fraction of the Sports Quarter’s revenue with NFL games and pop concerts just some of the revenue generating initiatives targeted by the Americans.

Another similarity between the schemes is Blues’ desire to take national and local government on the journey with them, accessing as much central funding as possible and tapping into regeneration and infrastructure investment.

Indeed, last month Wagner gave government officials a guided tour of the 60-acre site as Business and Trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds showed up to learn about the plans .

Discussing the meeting, CEO Jeremy Dale said: “It’s no secret that we hosted about 60 people who were from the council, the West Midlands combined authority and various departments for transport.

“They came in and we talked to them about where we were at and the requirements for transport. We took them to the Wheels site and showed them where the stadium is going to be built, with a fabulous view across our great city, and they all left inspired about the vision of it.

“There is some support around transport because there’s no point building a stadium for 60 to 70 thousand people if they can’t get out of the stadium

At United, scale models and conceptual images of how the new Old Trafford and surrounding area could look were revealed on Tuesday morning 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.

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

“By building next to the existing site, we will be able to preserve the essence of Old Trafford, while creating a truly state-of-the-art stadium that transforms the fan experience only footsteps from our historic home

“Just as important is the opportunity for a new stadium to be the catalyst for social and economic renewal of the Old Trafford area, creating jobs and investment not just during the construction phase but on a lasting basis when the stadium district is complete.

“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.”

Wagner will perhaps be interested in comments made by Lord Sebastian Coe, who chaired the task force and said Tuesday “marks an important step forward in what I firmly believe can be the biggest and most exciting urban regeneration project in the UK since the 2012 London Olympics”.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, formed part of the task force and believes a new stadium at the heart of the area’s regeneration can benefit the city, region and entire country.

He said: “If we get this right, the regeneration impact could be bigger and better than London 2012.”

United estimate the stadium and wider regeneration project has the potential to add an extra £7.3billion each year to the UK economy, with the possibility to create more than 17,000 homes and 92,000 jobs.

Ratcliffe added: “United is the world’s favourite football club and the biggest in my opinion, and it deserves a stadium befitting of its stature.

“It’s more challenging to build a stadium of 100,000 but I think the UK needs a stadium of that kind of presence, and the north of England I think is the best place to build it.”

Blues’ scheme could cost somewhere between £2bn and £3bn and create up to 3,000 jobs for the area.