The Manchester United women’s team will be moved into portable buildings at the club’s Carrington training complex this season to allow the men’s squad to use the women’s building while the men’s indoor facilities are being revamped.
Renovation work began on Monday on a £50m investment to modernise the men’s first-team building at Carrington, with the club announcing on 14 June that all areas of the men’s building were “being refurbished to deliver a world-class football facility with a positive culture to support future success”. The building works are expected to last for the duration of the 2024-25 campaign.
Last summer a £10m state‑of‑the‑art women’s and academy building opened on the Carrington site, but according to multiple sources the men’s team will have priority access to it throughout 2024-25.
It is understood portable buildings will house everyday zones such as the changing rooms, team meeting rooms, office spaces and communal areas for the women’s players and staff, but they will use the same pitches and canteen as before.
United are understood to have considered a wide range of options for where to house the women’s department for the coming season, and concluded that the women’s team being able to stay at Carrington and use the pitches there was preferable to relocating them to a different site where the quality of the training pitches and fitness and nutrition facilities would not have been as high.
Nonetheless, it is understood the news that they are going to be using portable buildings has left some of the women’s squad and staff disappointed, not least because the high calibre of the women’s building made training more enjoyable last season. One source close to the squad told the Guardian the decision added to a growing sense that the women’s team are not perceived as a priority within the club.
When announcing the £50m investment, the club stated: “Temporary adaptations will be made to the rest of the Carrington site to ensure players and staff from all our teams can continue to operate successfully next season.”
United believe the improvements made next season will deliver long-term benefits for all their teams.
The move for the women’s team comes after United’s co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is in charge of football policy, admitted that focusing on the men’s side meant he had not yet gone into detail on the women’s team.
“We’ve been pretty much focused on how do we resolve the first-team issues, in that environment, and that’s been pretty full-time for the first six months,” he said. Ratcliffe’s description of the men’s team as “the first team” has not been well received in some quarters.
