Manchester United announce members of major task force for Old Trafford regeneration

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has enlisted Lord Sebastian Coe and Gary Neville to join a task force to explore options for regenerating Old Trafford.

Coe, who headed the successful bid for the London 2012 Olympics, will chair the task force as United explore the possibility of building a new Old Trafford of "national significance".

Stratford was transformed to accommodate the 2012 Games at the London Stadium, home to West Ham United since 2016, and Ratcliffe wants United to have a modernised home that could host international matches and finals.

Ratcliffe expressed his preference to knock down Old Trafford, which he described as "run down and neglected in places" last month, and rebuild it on the existing site.

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Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Sara Todd, the chief executive of Trafford Council, will also be members of the task force.

Ratcliffe said: "This can be a major regeneration project for an area of Greater Manchester which has played such a key role in British industrial history, but which today requires new investment to thrive again.

"The north-west of England has a greater concentration of major football clubs than anywhere else in the world, yet we don’t have a stadium on the scale of Wembley, the Camp Nou or Bernabéu.

"We will not be able to change that on our own, which is why this task force is so important to help us seize this once-in-a-century opportunity.”

Coe, a Chelsea fan, said: “Throughout my career in sport, I have seen the potential for stadiums to become focal points for strong communities and catalysts for social and economic development.

"That was certainly true