Man United and the promise of a 100,000-capacity stadium: What other projects tell us

When Manchester United unveiled their grand plans for a new 100,000-capacity stadium, they offered a first glimpse of what the ambitious £2billion ($2.6bn) project could look like.

“When you go to Paris, you visit the Eiffel Tower. Everybody who is interested in Manchester United — and football — will want to come and visit this stadium,” Sir Jim Ratcliffe, United’s co-owner, declared. “It will be the world’s greatest football stadium.”

The design includes three towers, inspired by the Red Devil’s trident on the club badge, a vast umbrella-style cover for the stadium and a public plaza outside that would be “twice the size of Trafalgar Square”.

United will hope to follow in the footsteps of fellow Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Everton, who have recently seen their new stadium designs brought to life.

However, this is not always the case. Such projects sometimes never become a reality — think Chelsea’s plan for a ground within the skeleton of Battersea Power Station or Liverpool’s ‘spaceship’ in Stanley Park. Others are built but end up looking very different to the original vision.

The Athletic gives a pictorial rundown of notable stadium proposals from over the years (our list is not exhaustive — we’ve chosen examples where images are available), detailing what got put forward and what, if anything, was ultimately delivered.

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Chelsea

Chelsea have been looking to either redevelop Stamford Bridge, their home stadium since they were founded in 1905, or move to a new site, for more than a decade.

The west London club know they need a bigger arena, as their 40,000 capacity means they are now playing catch-up with their rivals, with an envious eye cast towards Tottenham’s replacement for White Hart Lane in the north of the capital.

Under Roman Abramovich, their previous owner, Chelsea submitted a formal offer in 2012 to buy the Battersea Power Station site, a short distance from Stamford Bridge though on the other side of the River Thames. Plans were put forward for a 60,000-seater stadium that would have retained historical aspects of the decommissioned power station, which had ceased operation in the 1980s, including its four chimneys.

However, these artist impressions emerged only after a Malaysian consortium had been selected as the preferred bidders, and it later completed a £400million ($517m at the current exchange rate) purchase of the site, transforming it into what is now a new space with apartments, shops and restaurants.

After losing out on Battersea Power Station, Chelsea next submitted plans for a 60,000-seat “cathedral of football” on the Stamford Bridge site. The design, by architect firm Herzog & de Meuron, was said to be “inspired by the design of Westminster Abbey”.

Planning permission was secured but the project was put on hold in 2018, when Abramovich was not issued with a new visa by the UK government amid diplomatic tensions with his Russian homeland.

The club were subsequently sold to the Todd Boehly/Clearlake consortium in 2022, and the stadium remains an outstanding issue.

The big question for Chelsea’s new owners is whether to stay at Stamford Bridge or look to start afresh on a new site, such as the nearby one where the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre once stood. Both present major logistical challenges.

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Liverpool

Unlike Chelsea, Liverpool have successfully redeveloped their stadium.

Expansion first of the Main Stand and then the Anfield Road Stand has increased the capacity of Anfield from 45,276 to over 61,000 — without the team having to leave their historic home. However, the road to this point has been long, with several different stadium projects proposed, but ultimately shelved.

As detailed in this 2024 piece by The Athletic’s Phil Buckingham, the idea had been for Liverpool to move to a new site on nearby Stanley Park. In 2002, proposals were mocked up showing a 55,000-seater stadium dubbed the ‘Parry Bowl’ — after Rick Parry, the club’s chief executive at the time. Planning permission was granted the following year, with the hope Liverpool could be in their new home for the 2005-06 season.

However, opposition to the plans from Campaign for Protection of Rural England and the Anfield Regeneration Action Committee caused delays. At the same time, the idea of a groundshare with Merseyside rivals Everton was mooted, but with both sets of supporters against the proposal, this fell flat.

Yet Liverpool pressed on with plans to move from Anfield, and a 999-year lease on the Stanley Park site was given in 2006.

When new owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks arrived in 2007, Gillett bullishly declared that work on a new stadium would begin at once, saying: “The shovel needs to be in the ground in the next 60 days.”

Months later, planning permission was granted for a 60,000-seat venue called Stanley Park Stadium, the selling point of which was an 18,000-capacity single-tier Kop. This new design, drawn up by architects HKS, was nicknamed the ‘Spaceship’ and the plan was for Liverpool to move in by 2011.

However, the American pair left Liverpool laden with debt following their takeover. They were unable to produce the £300million needed to finance the project, and their plans were eventually scrapped when they sold up.

Shortly after buying the club in 2010, Fenway Sports Group announced plans to develop Anfield instead. However, that presented challenges of its own. As previously reported, the new Main Stand, which eventually opened in 2016, involved compulsory purchase orders, approved by Liverpool City Council, which forced local residents to give up their homes.

Then there were delays to the work on the Anfield Road Stand, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and then the collapse of the Buckingham Group, the construction firm overseeing the build.

Yet, with those works now complete, Liverpool boast the fourth-highest capacity in the Premier League, with the expansion boosting their revenue streams.

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Everton

Across the city from Anfield, Everton will move into their new, 52,888-capacity stadium on the waterfront at Bramley-Moore Dock, which has cost £760million, for the start of next season.

It will mean saying an emotional farewell to Goodison Park, their home of 133 years and one of England’s great football grounds.

Dan Meis, the American architect behind the project, previously told The Athletic he wanted to create the feeling of the arena having “emerged out of the dock”, drawing inspiration from the Oriole Park at Camden Yards baseball stadium in the U.S. city of Baltimore.

Everton’s new home includes a 14,000-capacity South Stand, a steep bank of seating that will house home supporters and which offers fans sweeping views across Liverpool from the concourse.

Their relocation will mark the end of a long, and often torturous, journey for the club that began almost 25 years ago.

First, there was a proposal for a 55,000-seater ground at King’s Dock — a short distance south from their new stadium and now the site of the M&S Bank Arena indoor venue. That was scrapped in 2003, when Everton failed to raise the necessary funding for the project.

What followed was an alternative plan to move to a 50,000-seater stadium in the Kirkby district on the north-eastern outskirts of the city, as part of a complex also including a Tesco superstore, yet that idea was never universally popular and was rejected by the UK government in 2009.

There was also a plan for a new ground at Walton Hall Park, a short distance north of Goodison, with designs drawn up by architects Idom. However, the idea was never seriously considered, as it was unpopular with residents and would also have relied on retail investment into the site. The proposals were shelved for good in 2016.

A few months later, with Everton now under the ownership of Farhad Moshiri, the Bramley-Moore dock site was identified, and planning permission was granted in 2021.

Even so, it has been far from smooth, with the project running into obstacles including the pandemic and Alisher Usmanov’s sanctioning by the UK government (a company linked to the Russian oligarch had paid £30million for the first option on naming rights to the new stadium, a deal that would have helped with funding construction), which meant they had to rejig their financial plans on multiple occasions.

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Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham moved into their new ground in April 2019, a state-of-the-art complex that is the envy of other Premier League club owners.

Spurs now bring in close to £6million every match, whereas their old White Hart Lane on largely the same site in north London would bring in on average £1m per home game, with a sizeable chunk of that from sales of food and drink. As previously reported by The Athletic, the new stadium has more bars — with speedily-poured pints where the beer enters through the bottom of the cup — than any other Premier League arena. There is a big emphasis placed on ‘dwell time’, the concept of fans arriving early pre-match and staying around after it’s over that is more typically associated with American sports venues.

The £1.2billion stadium also hosts concerts — including Beyonce this summer — and there is a 10-year agreement in place to host NFL games during football’s autumn international breaks, with Tottenham receiving a hire fee for every match.

Yet while their new ground has undoubtedly boosted their revenues and broadened their appeal to a wider demographic of fans, there has been anger from matchgoing supporters over rising ticket prices, with several protests staged last season. However, Spurs did last week announce a freeze on admission costs — which are already among the highest in the country — for next season.

Tottenham’s relocation was first earmarked in 2008, with an initial plan to move in for the 2012-13 season.

After a series of delays, changed plans and a failed bid for the stadium in east London built for the 2012 Olympics (which is now home to Premier League rivals West Ham United), Spurs pressed ahead and were granted planning permission for a new stadium in 2015, with designs drawn up by architects Populous.

Even then, however, it was not without its hitches. The cost of the project more than doubled, while delays led to Spurs playing almost two full seasons of home matches across the capital at Wembley Stadium — and on one occasion, with the national stadium unavailable on the date concerned due to a scheduling clash with a big night of boxing, a game was moved to Milton Keynes, almost 50 miles away.

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West Ham United

After seeing off the bid from rivals Spurs (who wanted to knock it down and build a whole new stadium on the site), West Ham United left Upton Park for the home of the London-hosted 2012 Olympic Games, now known as the London Stadium, in August 2016.

Artist’s impressions of the new stadium were released in March 2013, shortly after West Ham agreed a 99-year lease for the place. It cost more than £300million of public money to make it suitable for football while continuing to host track-and-field athletics events. It is also used for concerts in the summer months, when it sometimes stages Major League Baseball matches, too.

After the deal was struck, Boris Johnson, then London mayor and later the UK’s prime minister, bullishly declared in a press statement that “we are defying the gloomsters who predicted this landmark would become a dusty relic”.

However, there was plenty of controversy, with one local councillor describing it as the “bargain of the century” and fellow London side Arsenal’s then manager Arsene Wenger likening it West Ham to winning the lottery.

This is because while Arsenal had to find the money (almost £400million) themselves when they built the Emirates Stadium to replace Highbury in the previous decade, West Ham pay just £3m a year in rent to play their home matches at the London Stadium and do not have to put anything towards the running costs, which are picked up by the UK taxpayer. Yet they still keep all of the money from ticket sales, plus a cut of the catering revenue.

While the deal suits West Ham’s owners just fine, the fans have struggled to love their new home, with complaints about the inferior atmosphere compared to Upton Park, where the club played for 112 years, the acoustics of an arena built for athletics a problem and the distance from the pitch, as it used to have a running track around it, also an issue.

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Arsenal

Arsenal left Highbury, their home of 93 years, when they moved the short distance to the 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium in 2006.

According to the club’s website, proposals to relocate to a former industrial site at Ashburton Grove were first announced in 1999, planning permission was granted in 2002 and building work began two years later.

Costing £390million to build, it became the second-largest stadium in the Premier League behind Manchester United’s Old Trafford, although it is now the fifth, with Tottenham, West Ham and Liverpool having bigger capacities.

It was designed by HOK Sports, which became Populous after a buyout.

There have been recent internal discussions about expanding the Emirates but no concrete plans have yet been put forward.

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Brentford

Brentford left Griffin Park, their home of 116 years — and which famously had a pub just beyond each corner of the stadium — in May 2020.

They moved into a new 17,250-seat venue (scaled back from the original idea of 20,000) on Lionel Road, a 20-minute walk across west London from their old one, where they have played Premier League football since promotion at the end of that first season.

The ground, currently known as the Gtech Community Stadium due to a sponsorship deal, was designed by AFL Architects.

“We won a design competition in 2003 and developed a series of designs,” Rita Ochoa, the project’s lead architect, previously told The Athletic. “A few years later, the club’s ownership changed and the new owner (Matthew Benham) insisted on keeping us on board and developing a new design in line with a new business plan.”

In that same article, chief executive Jon Varney explained how there had been “all sorts of wacky plans over the years”.

He said: “The one that got quite a lot of momentum was to move out to the Western International Market, at Heathrow Airport. But thank goodness it didn’t happen, because we’ve moved less than one mile from our old home into our new home.”

Varney added how the club wanted to try to replicate the noise the crowd made at Griffin Park by having the stands as close to the pitch as possible.

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Fulham

Fulham played their first game at Craven Cottage, on the northern bank of the River Thames, in 1896.

Moves to redevelop its Riverside Stand started in 2019, with the hope it would open in 2021. However, delays related to Covid-19, problems with the construction company (Buckingham) and complexities due to building right alongside the river, saw that timeline pushed back.

The building work is now finished, with the seating areas open to fans on matchdays, along with the riverside walkway, general-admission interior spaces and some hospitality areas. However, it remains ongoing for several hospitality spaces.

The plans, drawn up by Populous — the architects behind Spurs’ stadium — created a splash, as it was the first stand that incorporated a swimming pool into the design, although you can’t actually watch the football going on down below while taking a dip. The pool is part of a health and leisure club located in the stand.

It also includes a rooftop ‘Sky Deck’, fine-dining restaurants, a hotel, and the chance to watch the games from directly behind the coaching staff. The project will raise the capacity of Craven Cottage by almost 5,000 to 29,600.

Shahid Khan, Fulham’s owner and chairman, claimed the project brings “a premium experience that will be unlike anything in football, here in London or elsewhere”.

However, prices to sit in the stand have caused controversy, with non-corporate season tickets costing as much as £3,000 — comfortably the most expensive in the country. Corporate tickets can cost as much as £12,000.

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Wolverhampton Wanderers

In 2019, Wolves announced plans to develop Molineux, their home since 1889, as part of a wider regeneration of that part of Wolverhampton.

This would have increased capacity to around 50,000 and included a huge single-tier South Bank, as well as revamped Steve Bull and Billy Wright stands. However, those proposals have since been put on ice and there are no immediate plans in the offing.

The last mention of any stadium refurbishments from the club came in 2022, when Russell Jones, general manager of marketing and commercial growth, told their official website: “The priority still remains in this order, which is number one: team, number two: training ground, and number three: stadium. But I want to reassure fans that that doesn’t mean to say we’ve downed tools on the stadium. We understand that actually this is home, and we want to keep improving it, we want our supporters to be proud of it, and we especially understand that the Steve Bull needs some work.”

The Steve Bull Stand was built in 1979 and its foundations date back to the Victorian age but Wolves have elected against any redevelopment in recent years, prioritising funds for the team. It was judged that replacing the stand would not offer a return on the necessary investment for 20 years.

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Manchester City

Premier League champions City are in the process of enlarging the North Stand of their Etihad Stadium to take capacity from 53,500 to 60,000.

The plans, mocked up by Populous, include a sky bar overlooking the pitch, a stadium roof-walk experience, a 3,000-capacity fan zone, a 400-bed hotel (part of the Radisson group), a new club shop and museum.

The improved North Stand will also have designated areas for younger fans, a family zone, 3,000 rail seats (allowing safe standing), a food hall, a workspace, religious rooms and alcohol-free areas. Test events for the new-look stand are planned to begin in January next year.

There was an earlier expansion of the Etihad, built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games as the City of Manchester Stadium, 10 years ago which added 6,000 seats.

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Crystal Palace

After toying in the past with the idea of returning to the club’s original home a couple of miles across south London in Crystal Palace Park, plans to redevelop Selhurst Park (an idea first floated by then chairman Ron Noades in the 1990s) were announced in 2017.

Central to this was a major revamp of the Main Stand, which was first built in 1924. Preliminary works began last summer, with a view to starting construction at the end of this season.

When complete, it will include three tiers of seating, a new club shop, museum and cafe, with a glass frontage that’s a nod to the original Crystal Palace building which gave the team their name in the 19th century. The capacity of Selhurst Park overall will increase from 26,000 to over 34,000, with the Main Stand itself going from holding 5,200 fans to 13,500.

It is hoped the project, designed by architect group KSS, will be finished by the start of the 2027-28 season.

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Aston Villa

In December, the club announced plans to spruce up the area outside Villa Park, creating a new fan zone dubbed The Warehouse that could be converted into a 3,500-seater multi-use venue throughout the year. The project also includes a bigger club shop, an improved plaza in the North Grounds and a new ticket office.

It is hoped The Warehouse, which the club say will become the largest beer hall in the Premier League, will open in December this year.

This all comes after Villa scaled back plans to expand the stadium itself. The initial proposal was to knock down the North Stand after a Foo Fighters gig in the summer of 2024 and rebuild it as part of a revamped hub known as ‘Villa Live’ which would have brought the current 42,000 capacity beyond 50,000.

The budget for that project was around £100million but, as the costs ticked up and amid concerns over transport links, Villa decided instead to focus on the area outside the ground.

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Nottingham Forest

Forest first announced plans to expand the City Ground in 2019, centring around redevelopment of the Peter Taylor Stand.

A series of delays, outlined by The Athletic’s Daniel Taylor last month, has already meant the cost of constructing a new three-tier, 10,000-seat stand has risen from £80million to £130m. During this time, the club toyed with the possibility of leaving a stadium that’s been their home since 1898 for a new purpose-built one in Toton, on the southern outskirts of the city.

However, they hope to iron out the last of the teething issues soon. In a club statement this month, Forest, who currently occupy a Champions League qualification spot, said there was a “material prospect” they could begin work on the stand next season.

The City Ground has a capacity of 30,400, after the club added more hospitality suites — built from shipping containers — last summer.

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Leicester City

Leicester were given the green light in 2023 to redevelop their King Power Stadium and increase capacity to 40,000. The centrepiece of this involved an expansion of the East Stand, adding 8,000 seats, which would be topped by a bubble-like roof. There were also plans for a 220-room hotel, an apartment block, a fan plaza and a retail store, plus a 6,000-capacity multi-purpose indoor arena.

In a 2021 video unveiling the project, the TV presenter, boyhood Leicester fan and former striker for the club Gary Lineker described it as a move “to preserve the legacy of one of the most defining periods in Leicester’s recent history.”

However, the project is on hold due to rising costs, the impact of the pandemic on the club’s Thailand-based owners’ core business interests in the travel retail industry, Leicester’s financial difficulties and the club currently fighting to stay in the Premier League.

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Newcastle United

Newcastle are weighing up whether to stay at their iconic St James’ Park and expand the 52,000-capacity stadium where they’ve played for 133 years or relocate, with nearby Leazes Park a possible destination.

In January, The Athletic detailed why this is such a complicated decision, with being able to obtain planning permission likely to be an obstacle for any Leazes Park project.

This is not the first time Newcastle have been here.

In 1997, Newcastle put forward plans for a 55,000-seater stadium at Castle Leazes, just north of the park, which included a roof and pitch that were both retractable and was nicknamed ‘the San Siro of the North’. The plan then was to convert St James’ Park into a 12,500-capacity indoor arena.

However, there was sizeable local opposition to building on a public city park and it did not progress any further.

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Queens Park Rangers

QPR have considered a move away from Loftus Road, their home since 1917, for more than a decade.

Their atmospheric ground has a capacity of 18,439, the fourth-smallest in the second-tier Championship, and is now dated as a venue. QPR have been overtaken by Fulham and Brentford on their own patch, and are now west London’s fourth-biggest football club, in terms of both league position and stadium size (also behind Chelsea). Their problem is the ground’s location in a tightly-packed residential district makes any redevelopment tricky because of the cost and planning logistics.

In 2013, QPR announced plans for a 40,000-seat stadium at Old Oak Common, a short distance to the north, as part of a regeneration of that area, including 24,000 new homes, a hotel, offices and restaurants.

“Loftus Road is — and always will be — a special place for the club and our supporters, but we need more than an 18,000 capacity,” said Tony Fernandes, the club’s chairman at the time.

However, they ran into difficulties purchasing the land concerned from Cargiant, an auto-sales company.

They then explored redeveloping the nearby Linford Christie Stadium, an athletics venue on the edge of the Wormwood Scrubs green space, into a 30,000-seat stadium. This was attractive to the club’s owners as it was just over half a mile from Loftus Road.

However, the large number of interested parties made discussions tricky and it has not progressed any further.

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Portsmouth

Similarly to QPR, fellow Championship side Portsmouth are still playing at their long-term stadium despite efforts to relocate.

Fratton Park, a 21,000-capacity ground with a terrific atmosphere when the team are doing well, has been their home since 1899.

Ambitious plans, drawn up in 2007 by architects Herzog & de Meuron, to move to a new 36,000-capacity stadium on the city’s docks in a project costing £600million never materialised into bricks and mortar following opposition from local councillors and the British Royal Navy, which has one of its major bases in the south-coast city.

The following year, another plan was put forward, this one for a “stadium on the water” at Horsea Island, also drawn up by Herzog & de Meuron, that it said would “allow the football stadium to become a visual icon at the gateway to the city”.

However, the club’s financial problems and the credit crunch that year meant it remained nothing more than a pipe dream.

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Luton Town

Luton are another EFL club who have long been searching for a new stadium.

A number of different sites locally have been identified as potential alternatives to 12,056-capacity Kenilworth Road, their famously quirky home for 120 years.

One idea, put forward by the club’s then chairman David Kohler in 1994, was for an indoor, multi-purpose 20,000-capacity stadium he called the ‘Kohlerdome’. To be built close to junction 10 of the M1 motorway for easy access by car, it was intended to have a removable grass pitch, which would have made Luton the first club to use such technology.

Inspired by the Pontiac Silverdome in the U.S. state of Michigan, Kohler said it was “a creation which will be a truly great symbol of progress and achievement for Luton”. However, the plans ran into trouble as they required a widening of the M1, which was not granted, and the club then also experienced financial problems.

Over 30 years later, Luton are still actively looking to leave Kenilworth Road and last September they released artist’s impressions of a new 25,000-capacity stadium at Power Court in the town centre, next to the railway station.

Planning permission was granted by the local council in December.

The plans, designed by architects Aecom, include an adjacent hotel and a new music venue.

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Oxford United

Championship side Oxford have plans to move to a new £100million stadium in Kidlington, a few miles north of the city, with the lease on their three-sided Kassam Stadium (where they have been since 2001) ending in summer 2026.

Oxford’s plans for the 16,000-capacity stadium also include a 180-bed hotel, restaurant, conference centre, gym and community plaza.

“The stadium is going to be a world-class venue,” chief executive Tim Williams previously told The Athletic.

Oxford are still waiting on planning permission for their new home, which is expected to be given in June.

(Top photos: Manchester United FC/Chelsea FC)