Football News Roundup: Manchester United Stadium Plans, Liverpool Protests, and BBC Changes

Manchester United: Sebastian Coe, the chair of the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, has admitted that the timeline on the project is “slightly uncertain” but believes that the work to build Manchester United’s new stadium is ‘moving in the right direction.’

Speaking on The Sports Agents podcast, Lord Coe admits he was pleased to be brought into the Old Trafford regeneration project by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Andy Burnham. “Look, I love regeneration projects, and I was really pleased to be asked to get involved in that,” he says. “I do actually believe in good locally funded projects to make lives easier for local people. And I also saw from the London model that if you build it around sport, the multiplier impact of getting other stuff done is far quicker than it would have been.

“Land acquisition is always complicated. I know that from London. So, at this moment, it’s just putting the stuff together sequentially and incrementally and using a world class stadium to be a catalyst for so many other things, including inward investment,” he says. “So, it’s about jobs, it’s about housing, it’s about educational aspiration. And I’ve seen sport so often used properly, changing local landscapes, and this is an exciting project.

“It’s slightly uncertain at the moment. The stadium is being scoped and being improperly scaled. But again, that is also dependent on the purchasing and the acquisition of various other parcels of land in that space,” he says. “That’s all taking place at the moment, and I won’t maintain a running commentary on that. But we’re moving in the right direction.”

Liverpool ticket price protests: There are more protests planned over the Liverpool ticket price rises this weekend. A van was parked outside the AXA Training Centre this morning for the press conference bearing the messages “caution: Anfield’s soul at risk” and “no to three years of price rises”.

Via the Spirit of Shankly website: “On Saturday we are asking every supporter to “Show FSG The Yellow Card” over the decision to make Liverpool FC the first club to lock in THREE YEARS of price rises. Not only is this a tone-deaf and worrying decision in terms of the price of tickets, it is also closing down the conversation with supporters, and ending yearly accountability and scrutiny through the Liverpool Supporters’ Board.”

BBC cancels Football Focus: The former presenter Bob Wilson feels it is “crazy” the BBC has decided to take Football Focus off the air after more than half a century. The Saturday lunchtime programme was first broadcast in 1974. On Thursday, the BBC said in a press release “changing audience behaviours” had prompted it to act, bringing to an end the show’s run of 52 years when it finishes at the end of the season.

Millwall receive apology: Millwall have received an apology from Westminster City Council for the “insensitive” use of the club’s official logo to “illustrate the historic problem of racism within football” in a children’s education booklet. Images shared on social media show the badge of the Championship club printed on the clothing of a member of a white supremacist hate group. Westminster City Council confirmed the booklet had been removed from circulation.