Man United's £2bn 'UMBRELLA' stadium to feature a staggering 100,000-seat capacity

Manchester United will attempt to build a stunning, 100,000-capacity new Old Trafford under a vast 'umbrella' – complete with a public plaza twice the size of Trafalgar Square and their own version of Wembley Way in a breathtaking ‘city of the future’.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe will today vow to deliver ‘the world’s greatest football stadium’ and Mail Sport can share the staggering plans drawn up by renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster, which include a cheeky nod to Manchester’s infamous climate.

Three giant towers, inspired by the Red Devils’ trident, dominate the skyline and effectively hold up the ‘umbrella’ - a sweeping glass and steel canopy above that will keep fans dry inside and outside what would be comfortably Britain’s biggest stadium.

A huge wraparound scoreboard also features, along with a three-storey museum and canal-side restaurants as part of a vast fan village in a project Ratcliffe says will ‘preserve the essence of Old Trafford… while transforming the fan experience only footsteps from our existing home’. 

Man United have also ambitiously proposed that the stadium, which would become the largest covered space in the world, will be completed within a timeframe of just five years.

Foster himself declares that the imposing venue will bring fans ‘closer than ever to the pitch’ and focus on bringing the noise: ‘acoustically cultivating a huge roar’.

A series of spectacular drawings show that the new Old Trafford would be pushed back from the site of United’s existing, iconic home of more than a century. Their own, tree-lined version of Wembley Way would stretch from beyond the current Holy Trinity statue to well inside the existing Old Trafford with land currently used for a car park and freight terminal behind the Stretford End coming in to play. 

On one side the bowl-shaped venue would straddle the canal, with a series of sheltered bridges allowing fans to cross into a cavernous arena. 

One of the towers, which stretches high above a new, two-tiered Stretford End aimed at cranking up the volume, features a not-for-the-faint-hearted viewing platform suspended in the air. Along both sides are three tiers with a host of corporate offerings.

A video narrated by Gary Neville accompanies the images. ‘Where workers once grafted a new landmark will arise,’ the former captain states. ‘A new theatre, for dreams to come alive.’ 

As the video sweeps inside the stadium Neville adds: ‘100,000 fans, united as one… a sea of red, the loudest crowd. A majestic arena, where history and future collide.’

‘Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years,’ said petrochemicals billionaire Ratcliffe, who has made the project a priority since taking a 29 per cent share in his boyhood club a year ago.

‘But it has fallen behind the best arenas in world sport. By building next to the existing site, we will be able to preserve the essence of Old Trafford, while creating a truly state-of-the-art stadium that transforms the fan experience only footsteps from our historic home.’

United enlisted a report from economic experts who say the stadium – which would form the centrepiece of a vast regeneration project Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham today claims would be ‘bigger and better than London 2012’ – will deliver £7.3bn to the economy, could create 92,000 jobs and 17,000 new jobs while driving an additional 1.8m visitors per year to the area.