I think we are ready to make a start. Good morning everyone, first off I'd like to extend a warm welcome to you all this Tuesday morning here at Foster and Partners. Thank you for being here. It's wonderful to have you all with us, and I'm really confident that you will enjoy everything we have in store for you over the next hour. Before we start, I have to say that we're not expecting any fire alarms, so if there is an emergency, exits are at the rear and the left of the room. On behalf of Manchester United, I want to thank everyone for their contribution to this exciting project. I know we have members of the task force in the room alongside local and national government representatives and many people who have made this possible. A year ago, Manchester United made an announcement that it was exploring the future of Old Trafford, and the club appointed a task force of local leaders and national experts to help shape the project. A year on, more than 50,000 people have been consulted, and hours and hours of meetings have been held in attempts to maximize the opportunity for the local community and the club. But for Manchester United, this project is much more than creating a fantastic arena; it is all about supporting the government's ambitious growth agenda and maximizing the opportunities for regeneration of the Manchester area. Today is a landmark day in the club's history. So without further ado, I would like to welcome on stage Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, to share the vision.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. Fairly short from me. We're obviously going to talk about a new stadium, and I think you'll find the next hour fascinating. I certainly found this process over the last three or four months fascinating and enjoyable. But if I can set the scene first: in January, the government announced its growth plans for this term, of which there were three main pillars: the new runway at Heathrow, the Oxford Cambridge Silicon Valley Corridor, and thirdly, the regeneration of Southern Manchester, Old Trafford, which was the origins of the Industrial Revolution a couple hundred years ago. That regeneration scheme, if it proceeds, will be the largest regeneration scheme in Europe. Rachel Reeves described it as a shining example of our growth plans for the country. Past governments have sponsored a number of these regeneration schemes, but they've all predominantly been in and around London: the Olympic Village, Canary Wharf, King's Cross, Wembley, the O2, a whole series. Nothing really of this scale in the north. This will be the first of this scale in the north of England. With a project of this scale, it needs to have a catalyst or a nucleus, otherwise it just becomes a new housing estate with a shopping center. The reason we're here today is that the club, Manchester United, will underpin the government's growth plans with a new stadium. But it's not just a new stadium; it's a bit more than that. The more iconic or extraordinary the stadium, the more successful the regeneration scheme will be. A really good example is the Eiffel Tower. Everyone around the world knows the Eiffel Tower. You go to Paris, you stay in a hotel, you spend money. We have 1 billion people around the world who follow Manchester United, and they will all want to visit this stadium. You will see the design in a moment, and you can take your own view as to how iconic you think it is, but I think everybody in the world who's interested in football, who's interested in Manchester United, will want to come and visit this stadium. I think it will create enormous value for the north of England and for Manchester. Oxford Economics, who've done a study on it, reckon that would be in the region of 7 billion pounds per annum. United is the world's favorite football club in my view, arguably the biggest, and it deserves a stadium befitting of its stature. The Premier League is indisputably the best football league in the world, maybe the best sports league in the world, and it must have a stadium that's at least the equal of the best in Europe. Today it has some great stadiums, but it doesn't have a Bernabéu, it doesn't have a Camp Nou; they're bigger and more impressive than the stadiums we have in the Premier League today. The north of England has won 10 Champions League medals, and London has won two, but London has Wembley, Twickenham, Wimbledon, and the Olympic Village. I think the north of England deserves to have a stadium where England can play football, where we can hold the Champions League final, and it should be a stadium that's befitting of Manchester United's stature. If the government really gets behind this regeneration scheme, then we, with Norman Foster's vision—normally my view is the greatest architect in the world—we will build an iconic football stadium. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jim. I think we can all agree that it's incredibly exciting and, as you said, will bring huge benefits not just for Manchester but the entire region. To speak more about that and the work of the task force over the last year, we will now welcome on stage Seb Coe.
Thank you, and Jim thank you for setting the scene. When I received the phone call from Jim getting on for about a year ago, it was one of those globe-wobbling moments. As a current holder of four Chelsea season tickets, somebody who had been supporting the club since 1967, it was really one of those moments. I know that actually I'm not the only one on the task force with a few affiliate challenges, because the supremely talented, hardworking mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, is of course a Toffee. That's my slightly tongue-in-cheek segue into a more important point: the extraordinary and borderless nature of this project. People from all affiliations, all walks of life have come together, particularly in the guise of the task force which I'm very honored to be chairing, to really drive a project that has value way beyond the curtilage of a football ground or even a small element of a city. I will go to my grave knowing the most potent social worker in all our communities is sport, but I will also know that if you create around a sporting hub the infrastructure and the ambition to think big, you really can transform a neighborhood. I don't want to belabor the London story, but Jim mentioned it, and it is just worth pondering on what was achieved in East London on exactly the same premise. This was 520 hectares of land that was in large part devoid of economic activity for the best part of 60 or 70 years, and around sporting infrastructure we created a landscape where we built a new city inside an old city in seven years. Attached to that are homes, jobs, businesses, educational establishments, and the largest retail development anywhere in Europe for 25 years. This project in Manchester, built around the reconstruction of a football stadium, has the potential to be bigger. That recognition was dawning on all of us as members of the task force. I'm delighted that we've got many of those members here today. When we recognized that this really did have the potential to be what we believe it will be—currently the most potent and largest driving force around regeneration and sport anywhere in Europe—we are all going to be in the south of France tomorrow at MIPIM talking in exactly those terms. The challenge here is extraordinary, and the consultation that has taken place—Jim knows he's going to talk a little bit more about the work we've done with the fans—but the consultation around local communities is also really extraordinary. Of the 12,200 people we have consulted and spoken to, the overwhelming positive nature of what they see can be the changes to that community, to jobs, to houses, to visitor values, to the very nature of ambition particularly amongst young people in what we know to be one of the hardest-pressed areas. This project is an extraordinary project, based around sport, which gives me great satisfaction because the biggest and most powerful regeneration projects I've witnessed in the last 30 or 40 years are built around sport. I will be forever proud that sport is the real catalyst for this. The challenges are profound; we don't sit there thinking that we've anywhere near scoped the full project, but it will be in concert with local communities because the most important client group you ever have is those communities that you are looking to create greater and further opportunities. Through sport, it's open, applicable, and people understand it. So I can tell you as chair of the task force, I'm delighted to be working with some of the most visionary people that really do understand the Manchester landscape and are driving an ambition that sits in the bucket called big, and that's the way it should be. Manchester United is one of the biggest sporting properties in the world; it deserves a stadium that befits that status. It is really important, as somebody that was brought up in the north of England, that we absolutely drive those opportunities. It's not about the economics of displacement; it is simply about what we can do through sport to help engage local communities and forever drive up those ambitions. Jim, thank you for giving me that opportunity, and I'm delighted to be here today. Thank you to the task force for being here as well.
I think it's probably a good time to show you this video at this moment. Proud Mancunian and world-renowned architect has recorded this, Lord Foster for us. Have a little look.
This has to be one of the most exciting projects in the world today. It starts with the most famous football club in the world, a billion followers globally, so it starts with the fans. It starts with the idea of making something which is so intense it brings you close to the pitch, acoustically it cultivates the roar. As you move away from the stadium, it's not a fortress surrounded by a sea of cars; it's open and contained by an umbrella that harvests solar energy, harvests rainwater, but it's protective and encloses arguably the largest public space in the world. It's welcoming, it's open, it's at the very heart of a new neighborhood, and then it's part of the city of Manchester, the fastest growing city in the United Kingdom, a city again like no other. It's a powerhouse. Speak and history: Trafford Park was the industrial heartland of the nation, a heritage which I have a personal connection to. My father was a factory worker at Metropolitan Vickers. Then the three masts, the Trident, visible from 40 km, 200 m high. This becomes a global destination. Normally a stadium would take 10 years to build; we halve that time: 5 years. How do we do that? By prefabrication, by using the network of Manchester Ship Canal, bringing it back to a new life, shipping in components, 160 of them, module-like. Then we rebuild the Old Trafford station, and that becomes the pivot, the processional way to the stadium, welcoming and at the heart of a new sports-led neighborhood. It's walkable, well served by public transport, endowed by nature. It learns from the past, it creates streets, it's a mixed-use mini city. So what makes a global destination? What makes something so special? It's teamwork: the best brains, the civic leaders, the owners, the consultants, the engineers, the architects, the fans. The list is so long. It's a team effort that is at the heart of the success of this project.
Thank you very much to Norm Foster for that video. What an inspiring film that is, and clearly shows the size and scale of this project. The ambition and vision is clear. After watching that and listening to both Jim and Seb, I'm sure everyone in the room is excited about what can be achieved in this next phase. To hear more about how we can deliver this ambition, I would like to welcome Sir Jim back up onto stage along with Seb and Manchester United CEO Omar Berrada.
Welcome Omar as well. Thank you guys for joining me up on stage. Well, that's the best place to start, Jim. That is incredible. I'm sure you've seen it so many times, that video, but it's still inspiring every time you do see it. It has been a journey to get to this point. Tell us more in detail how you arrived at this decision.
Well, it started from the point that we needed a stadium which befitted the stature of Manchester United. I was brought up in Manchester, I've always been a fan of Manchester United, but I think it is the greatest football club in the world, certainly the most well-known, and it needs a stadium of that stature. It's more challenging to build a stadium of 100,000, but I think the UK needs a stadium of that sort of presence, and the north of England is the best place to build it. It will become recognized throughout the world, and at the end of the day that would also help Manchester United. The design is absolutely incredible.
Seb, of course you've mentioned it before. You led the task force on the project and produced a detailed options report to the club and to local government executives. Can you talk us through the process of that and how you arrived at the conclusions of the report?
In simple terms, the task force represents all that is good in Manchester. It's across the business community, clearly the political leadership of Manchester and the executive teams. We've got two vice chancellors from the local universities, people who are really steeped in urban planning but have also held us all and the club to a very high set of standards. The one thing that is often overlooked is that the most important group of people you are ultimately responsible to are, yes, the fan base of any sporting organization, but also the community that you're putting that in. Neighborhoods, people, networks. So we did a lot of work with the fans, and the chair of the Manchester United fan group is on the board, Duncan. But we also went out of our way to really understand what local communities were saying. We surveyed over 1,200 people in different groups, very carefully identified as people that this project would have an impact on. The overwhelming response was everything from carbon footprint to green spaces to meaningful sustainable jobs, housing, the creativity around a second and third generation business base, and the recognition that the area could really be turbocharged through the focal point being the football club and the ambition of the task force. I think every one of us would agree that we just got more excited as the project developed and the ambition got bigger, and the recognition that we had a real responsibility to create and carve out some options that would survive when the rubber hit the road. It looks amazing, as I said.
It looks amazing, as I said. And Omar, thank you for joining us on stage. How important is this project for the future that you and your team are building at Manchester United?
Very important. Clearly, our ambition as you heard is to have the best football teams, men's and women's, playing in the best stadium, and I would add the most iconic football stadium. As you know, we're working very hard to get our finances in order and in the best position possible so that we can invest both on the talent on the pitch as well as our infrastructure. We started that with the project in Carrington, which will be open this summer, a state-of-the-art training facility. But back to the stadium: a new stadium as part of the wider regeneration project for us would be a game changer. As you know, we have the biggest stadium in the Premier League, but we still can't accommodate all the fans that want to come in because we have the most demand. So we'd like to build a 100,000 capacity stadium to accommodate all the fans, give them the best experience, create the best atmosphere for our fans and players, and also give opportunities to our partners to integrate their brands and products in a meaningful way. All in all, I think this will make a massive difference for the club. Very excited about it.
Certainly. Thank you, Omar. Jim, do you have an idea of timeline at this stage? Lord Foster speculated that it could be halved. How do you achieve that? How's it done?
