City has entered the application following a six-week consultation period, which the club claims received a 97% approval rating from respondents. The 80-acre site will contain a 7,000-seat mini-stadium, 15 full-size pitches, and sleeping accommodation for 72 senior and youth players. An announcement regarding planning permission is expected in December with the club pinpointing the venture as a major part of its long-term development.
The facility, which aims to be the world’s finest training complex, is also seen as a method for City to fall into line with UEFA’s financial fair play regulations. Investment in training facilities is exempt from the rules stating clubs can only spend what they earn. “Everybody is getting quite concerned about financial fair play, and rightly so,” Brian Marwood, Manchester City’s chief football operations officer, told Press Association Sport. “But it's not just us, everybody is looking at us but there are a lot of other football clubs looking very carefully at their own situation.”
He added: “We're quite comfortable in terms of the work we have done to date, we know that we have still got a huge amount of work still to do before we conform, and this is part of that process.” Meanwhile, Marwood admitted City was “rocked” by CEO Garry Cook’s departure earlier this month, with the club currently engaged in a global search for his replacement. Cook resigned after admitting an “error of judgement” for his part in an email scandal that hit the Barclays Premier League club.
Marwood told BBC Sport: “(The) search will be worldwide and we will have somebody that will take forward the great work that has been carried out over the last three years.” He added: “(Cook's departure) was a massive shame from a club point of view and a personal point of view. The whole club was rocked by what happened. I think everybody in football and close to the club is fully aware of what he has achieved – and what the club has achieved in these three years.”
