Manchester City Plans For Etihad Stadium Expansion Include A Workforce Of The Future

Manchester City Football Club manager Pep Guardiola has an idea about who might succeed him in the boss’s seat sometime down the line. He believes Vincent Kompany, the former City defender and current manager at Burnley, is destined for the position. Whether it is Kompany or someone else at the helm, that person will be one part of a broader vision focused on preparing the community’s workforce of the future now taking shape at the club’s Etihad Stadium home ground.

City recently revealed a concept to renovate and expand parts of the Etihad campus. The proposed revamp is about more than creating a state-of-the-art fan experience and year-round entertainment and leisure destination. Its larger aim is to advance the role of the Etihad, which is owned by Manchester City Council and leased by the football club, as an anchor for the greater community. One key way of seeing that through is by growing tomorrow’s workforce, today.

The project would increase the stadium capacity to over 60,000. It would also add a covered City Square fan zone and entertainment space that could accommodate up to 3,000 people, concessions areas, a club shop, a museum, and a hotel. Should City’s new concept advance to construction, the project would develop over a three-year period.

The approach takes an overall trend in major league professional sports facilities design one step further.

Stadium owners and operators have been increasingly developing venues and surrounding areas to host greater numbers of events and programming beyond the games that home teams play. But as much as financial interests are encouraging clubs to build or renovate stadiums that maximize use of the facilities, considerations about community benefits are motivating them in equal measure—if not more so.

In City’s case, the needs of the community are driving the form of the infrastructure. The concept for the Etihad exhibits the value that a stadium can bring to a city, its communities, and its citizens.

Many football fans are aware of City’s ownership—City Football Group—having embarked on building a global network of clubs, including New York City Football Club in the United States, Melbourne City Football Club in Australia, Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan, Montevideo City Torque in Uruguay, Girona FC in Spain, Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne in France, Mumbai City FC in India, Sichuan Jiuniu in China, Lommel SK in Belgium, and Club Bolívar FC in Bolivia. CFG’s strategy is to develop talent across its network and provide opportunities for young players to progress their careers and gain valuable experience. But talent development off the pitch has also been a priority of City’s Abu Dhabi-based ownership since its takeover in 2008.

During that span of time, ownership has invested upwards of £700-million (about $835-million) into the Etihad campus. The products of those investments have supported thousands of job opportunities for Manchester residents in both football and non-football facilities. The next phase planned for the Etihad would continue in that direction, including with attention to the service sector in general and hospitality industry in particular.

City executives foresee a growing number of event and facilities management, food-and-beverage, hotel, and related jobs within the updated stadium campus. They envision connecting with the Manchester City Council on a service sector training academy that would provide formal education and practical experience for local residents interested in working in hospitality. The Etihad transformation plan also includes a 4,000-square meter workspace intended to draw startups and medium-sized organizations to co-locate and collaborate with City, CFG, stadium partners, and businesses in the surrounding neighborhood. Attracting, retaining, developing, and integrating a workforce of talented people can contribute to supporting both the Etihad campus and greater Manchester.

The example could be seen as something of an effort toward what Richard Florida at the University of Toronto and Steven Pedigo at the University of Texas-Austin describe in their studies about “inclusive prosperity.” This involves anchor and partner tenants investing in creating sustainable, family-supporting service jobs for local residents, harnessing innovation and entrepreneurship for broader community benefits, and providing public spaces that benefit the diverse mix of people who make up the wider community. These are three of the four pillars of inclusive prosperity, with nearby affordable housing being the fourth.

Further, according to research by the NYU Tisch Institute for Global Sport and NYU Tisch Center of Hospitality in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors, stadiums have the potential to make positive social impacts in several ways. They can provide a sense of belonging, be a destination for large gatherings, influence the culture of a surrounding neighborhood, and spur positive changes in quality of life for residents and visitors. They stand as a feature of their community’s identity.

Manchester City have celebrated winning major trophies on the pitch. That success, especially over the past decade-and-a-half, is not simply down to spending large sums of money on bringing in elite players, coaches, and staffs. It has to do with its leadership being keen to the reality that knowledge development and continuing education are essential for a productive workforce throughout the club and its extended community—and that it is their responsibility to build the community for the future.

The concept for updating the Etihad campus recognizes the importance of investments in human and social capital—that is, in the knowledge and skills that people can obtain through education and experience—for both the short-term and the long-run. And, alongside, it goes to show the status and function of a stadium as a place not only for fun and games, but an anchor for community and society.