Should Liverpool and Manchester bid for the 2040 Olympics?

Posted on: 29 September 2025 by Liam Fogarty in Blog

Journalist and broadcaster Liam Fogarty argues that the two cities should give serious thought to making a joint bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2040.

For cities with something to say or something to sell, the right to stage an Olympic Games is the most powerful marketing tool available. While some Games (Montreal 1976, Athens 2004) left their hosts humbled and debt-laden, others (Barcelona 1992, London 2012 and Paris 2024) used their Olympic status to create strategic frameworks for investment, leading to transformative physical and economic regeneration.

Liverpool and Manchester are cities which have in different ways changed the world through their innovations in commerce, industry, science and popular culture. Both have a global sporting footprint and a track record of staging elite world championships, most recently in boxing.

Away from the football pitch, the historic rivalry between the two cities is, if not disappearing, at least being eased to one side as new habits of collaboration emerge. The concept of a Northern Arc linking Manchester and Liverpool with a new high speed railway line is being championed by both city regions’ metro mayors. The multi-year celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 2030 will be a timely reminder of the transforming power of co-operation.

A confident and optimistic joint bid to bring the Olympics and Paralympics here could provide much-need impetus to the task of upgrading our regional rail infrastructure.  It would foster a broader sense of renewal and be an antidote to the prevailing fatalism identified on these pages by Mark Swift. The bid could be a unifying flagship project that draws together disparate initiatives and investment streams and engages local people. It also has the potential to re-frame the narrative of the North of England, emphasising renaissance and opportunity. Staging the Games in this region would be “levelling up” made real.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) now actively welcomes joint bids from multiple cities and city regions, even countries.  The Summer Olympic Games of 2032 will take place in three cities along a 110 mile stretch of the Queensland coast. The IOC is likely to choose an Asian host for its 2036 Games, with India, Indonesia and Qatar among the early contenders. By 2040, it will have been 16 years since a European venue staged a summer Games, a gap not lost on the IOC (and its commercial partners) as it eyes the lucrative European broadcast market.

Future hosts will be expected to keep down costs and maximise sustainability, a brief which Paris 2024 met with panache, re-imagining many of the city’s great spaces and landmarks and keeping costly new-builds to a minimum.

What might a Liverpool & Manchester Olympics & Paralympics actually look like?

The author has devised an indicative masterplan (see below) based on sports that featured in Paris 2024. It identifies venues and race routes across both city regions and featuring every borough in the two combined authorities. It is an attempt to map out an equitable spread of events, impact and prestige between Liverpool and Manchester across both Olympic and Paralympic Games, for example by staging and swapping the Opening and/or Closing Ceremonies in both cities.

Liverpool & Manchester 2040: Potential Venues (Credit: paul@studio-cjn.co.uk)

Manchester’s growing portfolio of big indoor arenas gives the bid a solid foundation. Liverpool’s waterfront venues and football stadia would be complemented by the creative use of historic sites, with fencing staged at St. George’s Hall, equestrian events at Knowsley Hall and speed climbing at Liverpool Cathedral.

Most of the events would be held at existing venues. Any new facilities, such as a multi-sport complex in Liverpool’s North Docks or an aquatic centre in Wigan, would be hard-wired into local regeneration plans. Cities and towns across the North of England would stage qualifying events. University campuses from Chester to Hull would host thousands of athletes in training camps. And the Cultural Olympiad which accompanies every Games would galvanise creatives and communities across the North.

Proposed Olympic venues:

Liverpool North & Coastal

EVERTON FC (Dance Sports, Street Sports); LIVERPOOL FC (Football Grp, QF & SF) ; NORTH DOCKS GRAIN SILO (Weightlifting, Badminton); AINTREE RACECOURSE ( Baseball, Softball, Modern Pentathlon); ROYAL LIVERPOOL GC (Golf); ALTCAR (Shooting); KNOWSLEY HALL (Equestrian)

Liverpool Downtown

WATERFRONT/STRAND (Closing Ceremony, Marathons S/F); M&S ARENA (Boxing); ACC LIVERPOOL (Table Tennis); UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL (Hockey); LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL (Sports Climbing); ST. GEORGE’S HALL (Fencing)

Central

WIGAN AQUATIC* (Swimming, Water Polo); BOLTON ARENA (Judo, Taekwondo); ST. HELENS CARR MILL WHITEWATER* (Canoe Slalom); HALTON (Marathons)

Manchester Downtown

AO ARENA (Basketball, Handball QF, SF & Final); MANCHESTER CENTRAL (Volleyball & Handball Prelims); CITY CENTRE (Road Cycling S/F); CASTLEFIELDS (Beach Volleyball); SALFORD QUAYS (Triathlon) ; LANCASHIRE CCC (Archery); MANCHESTER UNITED FC (Rugby 7s, Football Finals)

Manchester East

MANCHESTER CITY FC (Opening Ceremony, Athletics); CO-OP LIVE ARENA (Gymnastics, Volleyball QF, SF & Finals); NATIONAL CYCLING CENTRE (Track Cycling); PLATT FIELDS (BMX); STOCKPORT TENNIS CENTRE* (Tennis); BURY/ROCHDALE/OLDHAM/TAMESIDE (Road Cycling)

Other venues

NOTTINGHAM (National Rowing Centre); WEYMOUTH & PORTLAND (National Sailing Academy); LEEDS/SHEFFIELD/HULL/SUNDERLAND (Football Group stages, QFs)

* Denotes new-build Centre of Excellence for the North of England

The support of the UK Government is a sine qua non for any potential British bid. The Mayor of London has suggested his city should offer to stage the Games for an unprecedented fourth time. Sir Sadiq Khan has been lobbying the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for his support. You can understand why. The physical and economic benefits for that part of East London which hosted London 2012 have been significant: new transport links, a huge land reclamation programme, new communities, schools and cultural attractions and thousands of new jobs and homes came to one of Britain’s poorest boroughs, Newham.

A Government that is minded to support a bid to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games back to the UK could, of course, choose to direct further resources into our overheated capital. Or it could direct that investment to city regions with the capacity and the appetite to use a bid for the Games to make a once-in-a-generation leap forward.

In 2021, the Olympic movement changed its historic motto from “Faster, Higher, Stronger” by adding the word “Together.” The impact of historic rivals Manchester and Liverpool uniting to bid for the Games would itself be transformative. At the very least, Metro Mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram should commission a bid feasibility study and make sure their colleague from London isn’t the only one bending the Prime Minister’s ear.