Omar Berrada would love Ruben Amorim to lead Manchester United into their new stadium, but the chief executive admits it is a “risk” to try to build a world-class team and venue at the same time.
The Premier League club announced on Tuesday they planned to build a new 100,000-seater ground on land adjacent to Old Trafford.
Berrada hopes the club can move into the £2billion stadium by the start of the 2030-31 season and said: “We’d love to open the new stadium with Ruben as head coach.”
But the Portuguese has dealt with more downs than ups since taking charge in November, with the Red Devils lying 14th in the Premier League and needing Europa League glory to save their season.
Failure to do so would would almost certainly see them miss out on European qualification, damaging their finances and rebuild under Amorim.
Berrada admits the cost of their new stadium could also have an impact, acknowledging that Arsenal and Tottenham both struggled to juggle building a ground and fighting at the top.
“That is a risk,” he said. “Clearly it’s something we want to avoid.
“We don’t want to inhibit our ability to invest in the team, for us to continue being competitive while we are building a new stadium.
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“There’s various ways around that and one of the things we are looking at is to shorten the construction timelines so we can have a new stadium within five years. That’s our ambition.
“In the meantime, by getting our finances back in order and becoming profitable, we believe that we can be very competitive.
“The big, big benefit that this club has is that it has the biggest fanbase in the world and therefore the ability to be the number one in terms of revenues that it generates.”