Man United “ New Ground” (with Poll)

Just because there places in the borough of Trafford that are affluent doesn't mean Trafford itself is though. And you seemed to produce a list that ignores the fact that most of the boroughs have affluent areas. If you look at the borough of Stockport for example you have the likes of Cheadle Hulme but we still see City who pay a ridiculously low amount of rent on the City of Manchester Stadium and get full commercialisation of the stadium, the council get nothing from things like naming rights, putting on events, the beverage sales etc etc even from non-footballing events. West Ham pay more in Rent than City (£7mill to £5.5mill last financial year) and don't receive full commercialisation of the stadium. And unlike City West Ham have to pick up the bill for football related improvements, which cost more as any improvements has to keep it viable for multi-use. The council pick up part of the bill for any improvements to The City of Manchester Stadium. And the surrounding area has got and still gets plenty of improvements picked up by the local and central government.

Obviously the Olympic Stadium got alot of governmental investment both for the Olympics and further to accommodate the needs for West Ham and to support the rejuvenation of the area that was hoped would happen after the Olympics and that West Ham moving to the stadium has allowed. There was governmental help in improving the area around Ashburton Grove when Arsenal moved there, White Hart Lanes redevelopment also came with governmental investment in the area. I imagine if we look at Liverpool there is investment around the area of Everton's new ground as well. Government has a duty to work with commercial entities to improve areas surrounding them to better them for the benefit of everyone. The plans for example are going to create 18,000 new homes which is obviously something that is needed, especially with Manchester being one of the fastest growing Cities in Europe. It's also predicted to create 92,000 new jobs which is also a benefit to everyone, not just those in Manchester but the whole country as more people in work tbe better.

As for getting back to the transport question. The train station obviously is the main one but especially on Match days the area becomes hellish. There absolutely isn't enough car parking in the area, the road closures that usually happen on match days make both parking and travel even harder. It also seems from the plans that actually alot of the car parking that exists now is being turned over to things like commercial space, green space etc most likely because Trafford Council has talked about the possibility of copying the bus service that we see serve the etihad when there are matches and events on that allow for parking to be located where it causes less congestion and then allows people to be ferried to the stadium

The Trafford Line tram line was planned to be longer than it is which would open up a larger area and additional travel options if that was competed. Anything that reduced the need for people to have to go into central Manchester by offering more alternative routes from different directions would obviously help with congestion

Also the bike infrastructure is a bit of a patchwork system no matter what direction you are coming and a more joined up cycle network starting at the rejuvenated area and expanding out in multiple directs to eventually give a joined up cycle network that not only aids travel to Trafford but connects large areas of greater Manchester better would be beneficial especially when we should be trying to reduce car traffic especially in City's that just were never designed for as much traffic as there is plus for both environmental and health reasons we should be encouraging more people to cycle. Just have a look at the national cycle routes in the area and you will see how you are frequently jumping from busy main roads, to dedicated cycle paths, to canal paths to gravel paths etc etc. When you are cycling you generally want consistent surfaces that keep you away from heavy traffic (or even on less busy roads that have cards parked along it)


At the end of the day if a single penny of taxpayers money was going directly into the stadium or on the commercial uses of United owned land then there is a justification for being against it but when it's using the stadium as a catalyst to develop the area surrounding it that ultimately benefits the taxpayers especially in areas that have got royally screwed by the cancellation of HS2 then its a good thing no matter which football clubs new ground is the catalyst for it. If Bradford City decided to build a new ground and that could lead to rejuvenation of an area of Bradford so it brought in new homes, new jobs, better transport links etc etc then that would also be a great thing for example and well worth some taxpayers money to ensure that happens. And I'm sure you would be in support of that as well

 

With Sir Alex (or any of the ex-players who get paid a decent amount for ambassadorial work) I guess it comes down to are they doing enough to justify that payment. It's like Bryan Robson for example works pretty hard for his, he is always jetting off to various supporters clubs around the world and doing other promotional work both in the UK and aborad for United. Sir Alex I believe was never doing that much on the ambassadorial role anyway but since his health issues that reduced massively despite getting paid more than anyone else. I don't believe they have fully cut his ambassadorial payments, just reduced it to a more suitable amount for what he does and he still gets his full salary for other services he provides to the club.I believe he still gets high six figures in total.

As for the £40k taken from the Association of Former players. Billionaires aren't the fountain of all knowledge, they are billionaires largely because they have the sense to listen to others and I suspect the idea of maybe having the likes of Bruno attend an event to raise the £40k just wasn't brought up or if it was it got lost amongst everything else. I wouldn't be surprised that Neville having floated the idea that.

Also I have to say having looked into what they do it mostly seems to be fundraising so its not so much that the £40k is helping the former players especially those from pre-1980. Tthe argument could be made that that £40k can be used more effectively directly via the United foundation. I had a quick look at the accounts and for starters they have failed to submit their account for the last 3 accounting periods but the last one they did they in total they brought in £73k so if United give £40k then over half comes from the club. £71k was spent on 'Trading Activities' so I can only assume thats mainly wages for those working for it and £13k was spent on charity which isn't alot. You could put half of the £40k into United Foundation and as the running costs are already sunk costs more of it would still end up helping charity.

 

As Tony mentioned its being built on land adjacent to Old Trafford so the ground can be continued to be used while the new one is being built. That was always the sticking point with extending Old Trafford, the Glazers commissioned reports of how it could be done but the problem was always the Train Line behind the south stand that not only was going to mean it cost around a £1bn to extend but would have required the ground to be closed for Multiple years and there just isn't a valid place for United to relocate. Even if City would agree to temp ground sharing the police are unlikely to allow that, the other big ground in the area is Anfield which would get the same police complaints even if the clubs could agree. Even then those two grounds are simply no where near big enough anyway and any other in the area is even smaller and even less suitable. It's certainly easier for Southern club, especially those in London to do such work as we saw with Spurs as Wembley is sitting there empty for most match days that can be a temp home. The North doesn't really have such an option. I suspect thats also why they are favouring a new stadium as well rather than redevelop Old Trafford as that issue would come up if they did.

Old Trafford is my biggest concern with the plans personally. The ground may not be modern but its one of these grounds that is just iconic and we just keep losing them as clubs move to new grounds and we lose some of the legacy that surrounds them and it seems based on the plans thats what is going to happen with Old Trafford as its not on the plans, it seems once the new stadium is ready it will be demolished. Personally I would have liked to see it remain with some improvements being made, maybe even take a tier off each of the 3 Tier stands as it maybe doesn't need to be 75k and then use that for the Womens and Youth teams while also providing an option for other clubs if they need to move out of their grounds while they are redeveloped. As its not the active first team stadium that would potentially come at a little less risk, Liverpool or Leeds using it while they develop their grounds might not be suitable but it would most likely be suitable for most of the other Northern teams

 

The problem is more PSR; unfortunately, many of these things end up coming under 'football operations' and are included under PSR. And the PSR issue largely comes from ETH. ETH demanded complete control of transfers which is actually why Ralf Rangnick never took up his intended role (They tried to claim it was for him to take up the Austrian National team role but DoF and national team manager aren't mutually exclusive, they somewhat complement each other). His clause in his contract allowed him to force the club's hand, for example, the budget had already been used when he wanted Antony so the club ended up using the next season's budget and then the next season he overspent again so they had to borrow from next seasons budget again. It's why they were so eager to try and get him tied to a new contract in the summer when they finally decided to stick with him to get that clause removed, he refused to sign a new deal though, what happened is United just activated his option. When Radcliffe talks about running at a loss its the 3 years under ETH he mentions. Before there were some clear transfer mistakes but it was much more controlled, the manager and scouting team could identify targets, and they each could veto the others targets so both sides had to be on the same page and then the negotiating team knew their overall budget and the manager & scouts provided what they thought were fair valuations. If the targets were over budget then they weren't just pushing to go over budget (even though Jose consistently wanted to, like wanting to pay £40mill for 30+ year old defenders who struggled to stay fit for even 20 games a season)

So 40K might not be a massive amount but when the clubs are so close to breaking PSR and where by the looks of it almost all that £40k is going on running costs there might be better ways to still provide the same amount of charity in a way that works better financially for PSR I can see why they might deem even a fairly small amount of £40k to be important to the bigger picture

 

I think it's probably more that he has seen a solution to the Ex-Players charity where as the staffing is less clear as in many areas United are overstaffed especially when it comes to staff who don't directly generate an income but are in roles where they get included in the PSR calculation. This is actually a wide array of jobs so without all the data it's harder to make a simple statement about it and also a fix that would prevent the jobs being lost is much more complex. Unless the tea-ladies start generating income but count in PSR if there is say 20 of them when only 10 are needed it's hard to justify the excess staff when PSR is being butted up against because while those 10 tea-ladies are maybe fairly minor when you have all the other departments in the same boat it adds up