Man Utd chief makes worrying transfer admission after new stadium plan | OneFootball

Manchester United chief executive Omar Berrada admitted that there is "a risk" the club's transfer spending will be impacted by building a new £2bn stadium.

The Red Devils triumphantly announced their grand plans to build a 100,000-seater venue on Tuesday which co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe predicted to be the "world's greatest football stadium".

The immediate reaction was largely positive - the club's current Old Trafford home is crumbling and in need of extensive renovations. However, concerns were quickly raised that this extravagant expenditure would take away from the club's transfer budget going forward - a fate which hampered Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in recent years.

"That is a risk," Berrada admitted. "Clearly it's something we want to avoid. We don't want to inhibit our ability to invest in the team, for us to continue being competitive while we are building a new stadium.

Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium could be on the way out / Copa/GettyImages

"There are various ways around that; one of the things we are looking at is to shorten the construction timelines so we can have a new stadium within five years, that's our ambition.

"In the meantime, by getting our finances back in order and becoming profitable, we believe that we can be very competitive. The big, big benefit that this club has is that it has the biggest fanbase in the world and therefore the ability to be the number one in terms of revenues that it generates."

Across the two years on either side of Arsenal's construction of the Emirates Stadium, their total transfer net spend was a measly £17m. As many as 17 different English clubs surpassed that figure over the same period. Spurs suffered a similar dip while the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was being built - 18 clubs across the globe outspent the Lilywhites.

One of Ratcliffe's key messages from his round of interviews this week was that the club would have run out of money by Christmas had they not undergone extreme cost-cutting measures. Berrada warned that this penny-pinching may seep into the recruitment department. "We are not necessarily going to be investing significant amounts," the CEO pointed out.

"But that is going to be out of choice because we want to manage our football costs more efficiently. Our number one goal is to get our teams winning and to get the men's team competing for all the titles consistently. We are not going to deviate from that."