Stefan Borson taken aback after £7bn+ Man United stadium reveal

Manchester United’s new stadium development is unlikely to inject several billions of pounds into the UK economy every year once it’s completed.

That is the view of former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider it’s difficult to project the potential figures as it remains unclear what the redevelopment of Old Trafford will look like.

The Premier League giants have set up an expert task force – which includes Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and ex-defender Gary Neville – as they look to either regenerate Old Trafford or build a new facility altogether.

The Telegraph reported on 29 July the task force has initially concluded the best option would be the creation of a new stadium, boasting a capacity of up to 100,000.

If United decide to push forward with the plans, the proposed development is expected to cost up to £2billion – double the £1billion expenditure of redeveloping Old Trafford – and take six years to complete.

The club revealed on 23 September a report by independent advisory firm Oxford Economics has suggested the project could deliver an additional £7.3billion per year to the UK economy.

Man United stadium projections unreliable after lack of information

But Borson insisted it’s hard to see how the development could generate such a significant amount of money.

“I think figures like that are generally unreliable shall we say,” Borson told Football Insider.

“These are modelled numbers on a spreadsheet, with various assumptions. It’s largely meaningless.

“It seems very hard to believe that enhancing a stadium that already exists in a city that’s already got and has had very substantial third-party investment and growth and development over the last 20 years is going to generate an incremental amount of money of that scale.

“We don’t even know anything about the stadium in terms of when it’s going to be built, what it’s going to look like and what additional use it is going to have above and beyond the facilities that Manchester has.

“There is the question of how many music or live performance venues a city of the size of Manchester can fill and use, and there is clearly a limit at some point.

“It could add incremental value to the city and probably will, but to try and model a precise number seems to be a bit of a mug’s game, especially when we don’t know how it’s going to be built or how long it’s going to take.”

In other news, Erik ten Hag “one defeat away from sack crisis”.

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