Man United stand to earn as much as £600million over the course of a single financial fair play assessment window if they press on with plans to build a new stadium.
The scenes at Old Trafford following the club’s 1-0 defeat to Arsenal yesterday were emblematic of years of chronic underinvestment under the Glazers’ ownership.
Water poured in through the roof during a deluge in south Manchester and footage also later emerged showing that the away dressing room had flooded.
In March, one month after controversial billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe became United’s largest individual shareholder by acquiring a 25 per cent stake, United announced that a taskforce had been established to explore the financial and practical dimensions of constructing a new stadium.
That now appears to be the favoured approach, ahead of revamping the existing ground.
As relayed by The Telegraph, Ratcliffe and other members of the taskforce were pictured meeting with Labour leader Kier Starmer at the Arsenal match amid ongoing talks about the regeneration project.
How much will Man United earn from a new stadium?
The Red Devils are believed to be keen to build a stadium with a capacity of at least 90,000.
With a current capacity of 75,000, United are already comfortably the highest earning Premier League side in terms of matchday income. They earned £136m through the turnstiles in 2022-23 alone.
For context, second-place Tottenham earned £117.6m over the same period in a 62,500-seater, which is widely recognised as one of the best in the world.
That equates to £1,881.60 per fan, per season. United would be able to charge similar prices, which in a 90,000 arena would give them matchday income of £169.3m.
Sponsorship opportunities, hospitality packages and the potential to host non-football events at the stadium could easily top that figure up to £200m annually.
That means United would generate £600m every three years, the length over which financial fair play (now called Profit and Sustainability Rules) is assessed.
Effectively, that is an extra £66m every season for the playing budget – transfers, wages and agent fees.
When will the new stadium be built?
A new stadium would cost in the region of £2billion and Ratcliffe has admitted that the club would need to seek external funds to see the project to completion.
That part of the process in and of itself will take a significant amount of time, and that is before the ground has even been broken on the would-be construction site.
After that, work at the site could take anything from three to six years to complete, with United forced to find a new home in the meantime.