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Manchester United on Friday annouced the formation of the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, a task force formed to spearhead plans to renovate The Theatre of Dreams.
Plans for a rebuild or renovation of the stadium are custom after a change of regime and Sir Jim certainly wasn’t messing around in this regard.
The mission objective for the task force as reported is “explore options for regenerating the Old Trafford area of Greater Manchester, with the development of a world-class football stadium at the heart of the project’. That area includes Old Trafford, and the nearby Wharfside, Salford Quays and MediaCity.”
The task force will be overseen and chaired by Lord Sebastian Coe, the brains behind the planning of the London 2012 Olympics and current World Athletics president.
More prominent names included are Andy Burnham who is the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Sara Todd who is the chief executive of Trafford Council.
Other members of the task force will be Duncan Drasdo who is a member of Manchester United Fans’ Advisory Board and Chief Executive of Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, Tom Ross, leader of Trafford Council, Eamonn Boylan, chief executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester, Anna Bensky, associate director of Peel Land, Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, Malcolm Press, vice-chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.
Manchester United legend Gary Neville will also be a part of the task force after the club approached him a few weeks ago.
New owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has previously spoken of building an iconic national stadium in the North West, ‘the Wembley of the North, if you will and it sure seems like he will do just that.
He is particularly excited about the project lamenting over how the region lacks a Nou Camp or Bernabau calibre of a stadium.
“The north-west of England has a greater concentration of major football clubs than anywhere else in the world, yet we don’t have a stadium on the scale of Wembley, the Nou Camp or Bernabeu. We will not be able to change that on our own, which is why this task force is so important to help us seize this once-in-a-century opportunity.” he stated.
