At the recent fans’ forum he attended Joel Glazer promised improvements at Old Trafford and made the comparison with the stadium in Tampa.
Joel Glazer said: “You know we own an NFL team in the United States and we just went through that process two or three years ago in our stadium there. Our stands were 20 something years old and it was up to 16 years until we did a major renovation. We got a Super Bowl there last year and it’s a stadium that we’re very proud of. We expect to do the exact same thing now that we’re in a certain cycle with Old Trafford, so that when it’s all said and done, it is something that everyone will be proud of, but again we’re going to work with everybody, consult, make sure everyone has input into what they feel is important, and come up with something that, again, all of our supporters throughout the world can be proud of.”
Joel Glazer added: “With regard to Old Trafford, I think we can all agree Old Trafford is the heart and soul of the club. Over the last 10 years we’ve spent about £100 million on infrastructure at Old Trafford, but that was just annual upkeep and minor changes here and there. We’re now going to begin the process, and we had always planned going through a process, of a much more major development of Old Trafford. The thing I want to stress is these projects do take time. They’re big projects. And we want to make sure we end up with a result that everyone can be proud of. The same goes for the training ground. Work has been underway behind the scenes to update the training ground, and again, keep it as a world-class facility. The thing I want to point out about facilities and infrastructure is they all have a cycle. You do major work, you set a standard. You’re proud. Then others try and take it to the next level. And then, time goes on, and then the cycle starts over again then we go in and we do the major work. But we’re committed to ending with a project that is world-class, and something that all our supporters will be proud of because as I said, as we know, it’s the heart and soul of the club.”
For too long now it’s been allowed to fall below the standards it set when United were on the rise in the 1990s and Old Trafford was expanding at a significant rate. Speaking at the fans’ forum, where most present asked a question that related to facilities at Old Trafford in some shape or form, Glazer gave the impression United would be looking at the developments and inventions at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and elsewhere to see what best practice was out there.
Joel Glazer said: “There are future plans and everything does have a cycle, as I mentioned earlier, and what we have the benefit of now is we see what other people have done, what the latest is in different stadiums and we can take the best of what other people have done, consult and implement it at Old Trafford, and end up with a result we can be proud of. A lot of other stadiums have been built with a lot of new innovations. We’re going to go around, see what other people have done – bring those ideas back, discuss them, find out what people feel is important. And again, you’re [supporters] at Old Trafford every week, you live it. Behind the scenes, you know what you’re looking for, what you’re not happy about. And it all starts there to create an atmosphere and environment and a stadium that’s what we all hope and dream for.”
Building a winning team on the pitch isn’t as easy as throwing money at the solution, but the Glazers can prove their commitment to making United world-class again by making sure Old Trafford stands as a beacon of that ambition. They’ve done it in Tampa, now they have to do it in Manchester.
