The reporter reported coldly A day earlier, Ratcliffe had been alarmist in front of the TV cameras, saying that if it weren't for his ruthless efforts to cut costs and increase efficiency, Manchester United, the world's most influential giant, would have gone bankrupt by the end of the year. But a day later, Lord La was in London with an impassioned presentation of Manchester United's new stadium project, which will cost £2 billion.

While cutting staff and reducing expenditure, while making huge and lengthy plans for new stadiums, Ra Jue's "Mewtwo" is somewhat divided.

How can a down-and-out club with debts of £750 million and no major trophies for many years complete this "revival" project in 5-10 years, which costs three times the annual income? Due to the difficulties of Manchester United's new stadium project, such as financing pressure, construction difficulty and sluggish results, the British media and fans have to have deep doubts about the "Mewtwo Theater" plan.

Construction funding is the most realistic problem

Planned to cost £2 billion, Manchester United's new stadium is the UK's most expensive single sports facility investment, costing twice as much as Tottenham Hotspur, 2.5 times as much as Wembley Stadium, three times as much as the London 2012 Olympic stadium and five times as much as Arsenal's Emirates. But as soon as the new stadium plan was announced, it was widely questioned by people in the UK's infrastructure and financing industry.

The high-profile release of the design concept for United's new stadium last week was just a gimmick to find investment. Manchester United CEO Berada and other senior executives flew to Cannes to lobby investors interested in Manchester United. But insiders with knowledge of major infrastructure projects believe the £2bn price is far from enough. After all, Real Madrid's £1.5 billion was only spent on renovating the Bernabeu Stadium rather than rebuilding it, and the stadium's capacity has not yet increased.

Industry insiders are also skeptical about the possibility of achieving a tent-like design on the bowl-shaped structure of the course, which is the basis of the design concept. However, the limited space for the new stadium site made it difficult to fully present the design effect.

The modular structure, which requires 160 prefabricated structural components, is also considered by the construction industry to be unfeasible by the construction industry. Because the traffic situation around Manchester United's new stadium is not optimistic, it will affect the construction period to a large extent.

In order to seek government support, La Grande defined Manchester United's new stadium project as a modern sports precinct that would extend over a large area of land on both sides of Manchester's canal, connecting to the BBC's 'Media City', in line with the local government's urban modernisation plan. In this way, Lord La persuaded Mayor Burnham to support the project, and Burnham hoped to persuade British Chancellor of the Exchequer Reeves to spend £300 million in public funds to move the rail freight hub behind the old stadium to make more room for the construction of the new stadium.

In this way, Manchester United's new stadium project will not have to bear the cost of relocating the cargo hub, and the cost of building capacity will also be reduced. This move could significantly shorten the construction period to a certain extent, in addition to the cost of dissolving the contract of hundreds of millions of pounds.

However, this can only be said to alleviate part of the problem, after all, the 2 billion pound cost of the construction of the new stadium will be borne by Manchester United Club alone. Like Real Madrid and Barcelona, seeking North American capital loans, naming new stadiums or selling the commercial development rights of the public spaces around the new stadiums is almost the only way to raise funds, but this will obviously increase the club's debt burden and bring long-term pressure on the club's operation and team strength.

The "Arsenal trap" is hard to avoid

After the announcement of Manchester United's new stadium plan, another focus of British media attention is how Manchester United, which is now heavily indebted, can avoid the "Arsenal paradox cycle".

When Arsenal built a new stadium with a capacity of 60,000 people, the loan was only 470 million pounds, and the construction period was only three years, but it affected the club's finances for 15 years. The period from 2004 to 2013 was particularly difficult, as clubs had to operate at the lowest cost to pay off their debts, while at the same time having to maintain results in order to earn a steady income, a paradoxical cycle known as the "Arsenal Trap". At that time, Arsenal relied on Arsene Wenger's careful calculations, selling high and buying low + internal potential, and obtained a net profit of 120 million pounds from the ball market during the long 9-year debt repayment period, while continuing to qualify for the Champions League, ensuring an average annual stable income of at least 40 million pounds, which allowed Arsenal to climb out of the nightmare trap in 2013.

Compared with Arsenal back then, Manchester United is unlikely to avoid the above paradox during the construction period of the new stadium and the debt repayment period.

Manchester United have to repay the £50 million debt borrowed by the Glazer family every year and raise a further £2 billion to build a new stadium. Even according to the high-profile plan released by Lord La, it will take up to 17 years to pay off the loan. After Ferguson's retirement, Manchester United has fallen into a trough for more than 12 years, and even if the new stadium project starts this year, there will be more than 10 years of "Arsenal trap" period, but Manchester United does not have a shrewd coach and sporting director like Arsene Wenger, how to reconcile the paradox between low cost and performance?

With Manchester United's current situation, there will be more headwinds to finance the construction costs of the new stadium, naming rights and even the sale of commercial development rights around some stadiums like Barcelona. After all, Manchester United had missed the Champions League in the second half of last year, and its commercial income plummeted by 15%. And Amorim and the sports management team that has been reorganized for the second time will find it difficult to create a long-term win-win miracle for Wenger in Arsenal's ball market + stadium. What's more, compared with Arsenal's "debt repayment cycle" back then, the competitive environment in the Premier League is now more miserable, which has greatly increased the difficulty for Manchester United to steadily qualify for the Champions League.

Although "the skinny camel is bigger than the horse", Manchester United has experienced more than 10 years of low results, and can still generate 600 million pounds of revenue per year, but the brand value dividend of the giant clubs in the Ferguson era is close to being exhausted, and without a new heavyweight trophy, the decline in Manchester United's commercial value will be an irreversible trend. Manchester United's new world-class stadium will have to build on enough trophies to match its commercial value. Unfortunately, the current Manchester United will not be able to secure Champions League qualification before the completion of the new stadium, and the "foundation" of the new stadium project will not be stable.