Man United’s £2billion super stadium plans thrown into DOUBT – as industry insiders call into question Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s bold statements

Manchester United’s grand plans for a £2billion super stadium have raised the eyebrows of industry experts who doubt key aspects of the eye-popping proposal unveiled this week.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe insisted he wants to build the world’s best football arena in what the club hope will be a five-year project.

The 100,000-capacity home will, Ratcliffe said, become an iconic tourist attraction akin to the Eiffel Tower as they push for completion for the 2030-31 season.

But industry insiders have questioned the logistics of United’s plans, the announcement of which came less than 24 hours after Ratcliffe claimed the club could have run out of money by the end of the current year had they not made rounds of redundancies and spending cuts.

Sources have suggested that Tuesday’s glossy release of concepts was to build a sense of momentum for the project while searching for funding. Chief executive Omar Berrada was among executives who jetted off to Cannes for a conference with investors as they look to secure finance.

Those with knowledge of huge infrastructural projects told Mail Sport of an industry-wide scepticism of the £2bn price – flagging up the £1.5bn spent by Real Madrid on renovating rather than redeveloping the Santiago Bernabeu.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe outlined the bold proposals on Tuesday, expressing United’s desire to build a state-of-the-art 100,000 seater ground, before claiming the project would take just five years

Several sources questioned many different aspects of the plans, including United’s ability to follow through with the tented design over the bowl of the stadium (pictured above)

Tottenham’s new stadium came in at £750million and £1.1bn for the overall development, built before spiralling cost of materials from Covid and the war in Ukraine. United are asking for public funding for the wider regeneration of the area, which would include improved transport links.

Intriguingly, sources cast doubt on United’s ability to follow through with the tented design over the bowl of the stadium – the cornerstone of the plans – given limited space on the footprint of the new stadium at the back of the existing Stretford End.

Those space constraints may make the design – one mocked by home and rival fans – difficult to fulfil, while the five-year timeline has been described as optimistic, largely down to the prefabrication techniques United are planning to utilise.

Architect Lord Norman Foster claimed that the timeframe can be halved from 10 years owing to the use of the Manchester Ship Canal to transport parts of the build to site.

Foster said 160 components of the structure will be shipped in, Meccano-style, to accelerate construction but experienced industry experts are sceptical about the viability of the idea and the wild predictions have been heavily debated since United’s unveiling.