Manchester United plan to give women’s team’s training base to men during £50m revamp of Carrington
Irene Guerrero, Lucia Garcia, Mary Earps, Safia Middleton-Patel and Phallon Tullis-Joyce of Manchester United Women at their Carrington training base. Photo: Getty
Manchester United’s women’s team will have to use portable buildings as changing rooms and for team meetings because their facility at the club’s training ground will be taken over by the men’s side.
United have decided to modernise the men’s first-team building at Carrington in a £50m revamp.
Jim Ratcliffe, who bought a minority stake on behalf of his company Ineos earlier this year to take control of the football side of the business, said the project would “create a world-class environment for our teams to win”.
But, in the short term, it is the women’s team who will be hardest hit during the renovation work.
With the building work expected to last for the entire 2024-25 season, the women’s players have been told they will have to move out of their own purpose-built facility, which opened only last year.
Today's Sports News in 90 Seconds - 26th June
Instead, with the men using their facilities, the women will be housed in portable buildings for players and staff, although they will still be able to use the same training pitches and canteen.
The United hierarchy thought that it was better to keep the women’s team on the same site rather than ask them to move away and use pitches of a lower standard, as well as deprive them of the same access to medical facilities.
The women’s squad and staff is also smaller in number than the men’s so it was felt that it would be easier to move them to portable buildings.
In the long term, it is believed all teams will feel the benefit of the renovation work being carried out.
However, in the same week that England goalkeeper Mary Earps rejected a new contract offer from the club − and is on the verge of signing for Paris St-Germain − there is mounting criticism of the way the women’s operation is being run.
There is a perceived lack of ambition for a club that won the FA Cup last season but finished fifth in the Women’s Super League. There are also doubts about whether another England international, Nikita Parris, will still be at the club next season.
That perception was not helped by a recent interview with Ratcliffe, who admitted that Ineos had not looked into the way the women’s team is being run in detail because they were concentrating on the men’s team.
“We’ve been pretty much focused on how do we resolve the first-team [men’s] issues, in that environment,” he told Bloomberg. “That’s been pretty full-time for the first six months.”
