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What could happen to Old Trafford?

Old Trafford is looking a bit tired like Manchester United, but talk of demolishing it and redeveloping it wholesale is OTT.  United may be a disappointing side at the moment but home games still sell out and there’s still a waiting list for season tickets.  

It also remains attractive as a football tourist destination, a market that will hopefully start to revive after Covid-19 diminishes in impact, although clearly the war in Ukraine creates new uncertainties.

The South Stand — the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand — is the last unexpanded area at Old Trafford. It’s sandwiched in a fairly narrow strip of land between the pitch and the main Manchester to Liverpool railway. There’s not much space on either side of the stand, meaning that it’s a complex engineering challenge.

Even if a new stand is smaller than the one opposite, the capacity could rise to 88,000.

The club feel a development, previously considered impossible, could be done around the stand. It might not even need to be a new tunnel. The back-row seats in the South Stand are 15 metres from the rail line. A new stand could go in above.   It's probably a less challenging site than Stamford Bridge.

Others argue that the ownership of land next door presents an opportunity to build an entirely new stadium, but one can't see the Glazers funding that.

Old Trafford already has a very substantial 9,000 executive seats. It isn’t Goodison Park or Anfield, where there are far fewer of such facilities, hence one reason for the imperative for Everton to move, although Liverpool settled for redevelopment.   

Indeed, Anfield will have hospitality on three sides of the ground from next year when the Anfield Road stand is completed. Only the Kop will be hospitality free which arguably should always be the case.

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