FA resists Manchester United lobbying for rebuilt Old Trafford to host 2035 World Cup final

United’s New Stadium Development wants showpiece
The FA is resisting lobbying from Manchester United to nominate a rebuilt Old Trafford as the venue for the 2035 Women’s World Cup final.

The chief executive of United’s New Stadium Development, Collette Roche, went public with the club’s aspirations to host the 2035 final for the first time on Tuesday but the FA is committed to staging the showpiece occasion at Wembley.

The Guardian has learned that the FA named Wembley as its preferred venue for the final when submitting its official bid for the tournament to Fifa last November, a position that will not change even if United succeed in building a new 100,000-seat stadium before the finals.

The current Old Trafford is one of 22 proposed stadiums in the bid book – 16 in England, three in Wales, two in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland – but will be replaced by the new stadium if it is built on time.

United are still in the process of securing funding for a project that could cost over £2bn , while the club also need to purchase land from the haulage company Freightliner, but in a series of interviews on Tuesday Roche insisted the project would be delivered on time.

“We’ve not named a date for opening, but we are on track within those timescales,” she said.

“Our plan is to be able to host other international sporting events and entertainment events.

Andy Burnham, the mayor, said his ambition would be for us to host the final for the Women’s World Cup in 2035, so if we could pull that off, that would be incredible.”
The FA’s bid is unopposed although the Fifa council last week put back the date for officially awarding the 2031 and 2035 World Cups from their annual congress in Vancouver next month until later in the year.

Fifa will now hold an extraordinary congress to confirm those hosting decisions with the US, Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica bidding jointly for 2031, but the FA is unconcerned.