According to reports, rebuilding Manchester United's Old Trafford could cost nearly £2.5 billion. This is a major blow to Sir Jim Ratcliffe's plan to upgrade the "Theatre of Dreams".
The "Red Devils" must consider renovating the stadium after a series of problems arose at this 75,000-seat stadium. These include a leaky dome and old stands as the last major renovation took place in 2006.
The stadium project is one of Ratcliffe's most important tasks since becoming a minority shareholder of Man United. The British billionaire announced that he wants to build the "Wembley of the North" and hopes this plan can be publicly funded.
However, Man United will have to spend a huge amount of money to bring fans a new stadium with a capacity of up to 90,000 seats. According to Mail Sport, the final figure could be up to 2.5 billion pounds.
The "Red Devils" hope to inaugurate the new Old Trafford stadium in 2030 and the initial figure given is about 2 billion pounds. However, rising construction and material prices could increase costs even further.
This means that Man United may have to spend twice as much money as what Tottenham has invested, with a stadium with a capacity of 62,000 seats. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium opened in 2019, causing the north London team to suffer losses of £1 billion.
West Ham's London Stadium and Arsenal's Emirates Stadium also have expensive construction costs, about 500 million pounds.
Speaking in May, Ratcliffe said the North of England needed a large stadium similar to Wembley to demonstrate the success local football teams had achieved. He said that such a stadium would be the "nuclear" for the region and create "motivation".
Ratcliffe told Sky Sports: "The North West of England is home to more big football clubs than anywhere else in the world. However, we don't have stadiums on the scale of Wembley or Nou Camp." or Bernabeu".
INEOS, the Group that controls Man United, believes that the plan to build a new stadium next to Old Trafford, with an expected cost of 2 billion pounds, will bring more benefits to the team.
Instead of renovating Old Trafford and having to play in another location, Man United will create a new, more majestic stadium project.
