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Manchester United have appointed the same company who designed Tottenham Hotspur’s state-of-the-art stadium to help construct a “new 100,000-seater stadium for the Red Devils”.
Populous – one of the world’s leading architectural firms – have been responsible for many of the United Kingdom’s biggest sporting infrastructure projects over the past thirty years.
North London rivals, Tottenham and Arsenal, both employed Populous to lead the construction of their new grounds – the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Emirates. Similarly, the English and Welsh football associations used the company to build their national team’s new stadiums – Wembley and the Principality Stadium.
Populous were even the driving forces behind the Centre Court at Wimbledon and the grandstand at Ascot – the famed horseracing venue in Windsor.
Now the architecture firm have turned their attention to Manchester United, having already begun “overseeing designs for a new stadium” to replace Old Trafford at the request of the club.
As part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s £1.3 billion minority stake ownership bid to become co-owner of the club, which received ratification last month, the British billionaire agreed an additional £245 million infrastructure pledge to upgrade the facilities at United.
While the options to either improve Old Trafford or, as Ratcliffe has expressed a preference, construct a new stadium would cost far in excess of this figure, it signals the INEOS owner’s intention to improve a stadium allowed to grow into disrepair under the disinterested stewardship of the Glazer family.
A taskforce was appointed earlier this month to explore the different options available to the club, headed by Lord Sebastien Coe – the chair of the organising committee for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
These Games led to the construction of the world-class Olympic Stadium in Stratford, which was subsequently taken over by West Ham in 2016 as their new home ground, renamed as the London Stadium.
Coe was recently quoted as believing the north of England was “overdue a project of similar scale and ambition” to the one in east London when speaking on the taskforce’s creation. Greater Manchester major, Andy Burnham, and former United defender Gary Neville will also be a part of the group.
Ratcliffe wants the club’s new home to have a capacity of “90,000 or even 100,000” – a significant increase on Old Trafford. He has described his vision for the new stadium as being the “Wembley of the North“, contending he even wants the England national team to be able to play there.
And this ambition will certainly be helped by having the same firm responsible for building the actual Wembley stadium in charge of the process.
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