Football Special Report: How the Old Trafford Stadium has played its part in Manchester United's success
Manchester United fans all over the world believe that their club is rich because of their on-field achievements and the culture of success that is associated with them.
In the 1990, before the advent of the Premier League, United were behind Liverpool and Arsenal in terms of silverware won but since the Premier League came into being, they have not looked back.
With the Premier League, came the TV rights and with the TV rights came massive pay outs in profits, bonuses plus royalty money being paid to different clubs. Call it lucky or anything you want, but when Manchester United won the first edition of the Premier League, it poured so much money into the club that club just built on its own success.
Over the decade of 1990, United made their financial superiority well established and enjoyed a period of unprecedented success. They overtook Arsenal’s haul of League title wins and just last year equalled Liverpool’s tally. United fans all over, many of them are just glory hunters, argue that their success preceded money but that is perhaps not true.
Manchester United became the first English club in 1991 to be floated on the London Stock Exchange, a feat that immediately raised around 7 million pounds. It was just the floating of the club in the Stock Exchange that lead to Manchester United’s unmatched success over the next decade and a half.
United were a Public Limited Company and were able to take money out of the stocks and invest it directly into the first team, allowing them to spend more and more on player transfers, offer higher wages and most important of all invest in expansion of their stadium. The counter argument would be that any club in English football could have done the same, which is very true but the only difference that set apart rivals and Manchester United was – Old Trafford.
The grand stadium was built in 1909, with an original capacity of 80,000. Old Trafford has the second-largest capacity of any English football stadium after Wembley Stadium, the third-largest of any stadium in the United Kingdom, and the eleventh-largest in Europe.
When the Taylor report came in 1990, the club capacity was 44,000 persons and Rather than needing to build a new stadium because of the security demands of the report, United only refurbished their stadium and were able to redevelop their home.
That is why Manchester United PLC has always remained a hugely attractive investment for people, and why the likes of Everton, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City were not. All those clubs would have to build their stadiums anew rather than expanding/modifying existing ones, which in turn means far lesser return on investment than their rivals Manchester United.
These clubs were not able to expand their stadiums, as they were built in areas that could not have accounted for the safety and transportation requirements of modern day football keeping in touch with the Taylor report – some considerations that didn’t even existed when most of these grounds were purchased / built in the 1900s.
In simpler words it was just a mere fortunate coincidence that Old Trafford was so ripe for expansions and thus making Manchester United such an attractive investment and this making the club as lucrative as it is today and a financial behemoth.
All this is by no means disparaging Manchester United who have played their part in their success but it’s just saying that they were dealt a fantastic hand and all they did was to play it to full efficacy.
It was more a stroke of luck than anything else.
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