Manchester United have appointed the same master planners who designed Tottenham's new stadium to redevelop Old Trafford.
Legends International and Populous, a management consultant company and architectural design firm, have been given the job of coming up with a design to modernise and potentially the club’s historic stadium
The two companies worked together to design Tottenham’s state of the art new stadium which opened in 2019 and the announcement that they have been officially appointed is the first concrete step in the redevelopment of Old Trafford.
What is going to happen?
United say work will begin immediately with the groups starting by studying the feasibility of a number of different options with the aim, the club say, of ‘significantly enhancing the fan experience.’
Fans will also be involved in the process and a meeting has been set up between the consultants and the Fans’ Advisory Board later this month.
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There are similar plans underway to improve the club’s training facilities at their Carrington with KSS, the company behind Tottenham, Leicester and Liverpool’s new training grounds, being tasked with the job of developing a new state-of-the-art facility for the men’s, women’s and academy teams.
The first stage of the redevelopment, which is already underway, is assessing the feasibility of their plan and club sources stress it is ‘too early’ to talk about timescales.
What could the Old Trafford development look like?
There are a number of proposals and options that the master planners will explore.
One of those is to knock down the 112 year-old stadium and build a new one on the same site. While that seems the most unlikely option, the club say they are keeping an open mind to all ideas and designs.
GOAL understands another proposal is a development similar to what Real Madrid have done where they have kept the core of their original stadium and built around it while the team continued to play in the stadium.
Sources say whatever design is selected the aim is to preserve the identity and heritage of the stadium while ‘upgrading the fan experience.’
Expanding the south stand to increase the capacity of the stadium is another option that is also being considered as is the option of building a whole new stadium on the same site while the first team continue to play at the current ground.