Man Utd plan to build £2bn 100,000-capacity stadium

Manchester United Plc plans to build a new 100,000-seater stadium, in an attempt to catch up with modern facilities built by some of Europe's biggest clubs.

The Premier League team said it plans to build the new stadium next to its existing Old Trafford site. The historic venue has comfortably the league's highest capacity at over 74,000, but its leaky roof and other deteriorating facilities have aged badly compared to Premier League clubs including crosstown rivals Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in London.

"Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years, but it has fallen behind the best arenas in world sport,"  Manchester United's billionaire co-owner Jim Ratcliffe said in a statement Tuesday. It didn't give any details about costs or how it would be funded.

The decision comes just over a year after Ratcliffe spent about $1.5 billion to acquire almost a third of Manchester United. The team has struggled and currently ranks 14th of 20 teams in the highest tier of English football. Off the pitch, Ratcliffe has been cutting jobs as he tries to get costs under control, with Manchester United facing a looming debt cliff.

Manchester United's shares in New York are down just over 20% since the start of the year through Monday's close.

Manchester United has gone from being the second highest revenue-generating club in Europe in 2015, according to Deloitte, to the fourth largest, overtaken by Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, with Real Madrid still out in front.

While Manchester United remains one of the world's largest clubs in terms of commercial clout, rivals including Real Madrid and Barcelona FC have all committed significant sums to regenerate their famous stadiums in order to boost revenues.

Manchester United said its new stadium, combined with a wider regeneration of the local area, could create 92,000 jobs and deliver an additional Pound7.3 billion ($9.4 billion) a year to the economy.

Ratcliffe has previously talked of building a "Wembley of the North,"  a reference to the home of the England national team in northwest London. The club had also considered refurbishing its current stadium.