Tactical NIMBYism

To help train potential up-and-coming soccer stars of tomorrow, the Manchester City Football Club has plans to greatly expand its training grounds on land near its stadium in Manchester, England. The multimillion dollar club, though, has an unlikely roadblock in its way: a single individual who owns part of the land they want to build on. Normally one man wouldn’t be a problem for a deep-pocketed institution like a professional soccer team, but this particular land owner, a local businessman named Shaun O’Brien, appears hell-bent on stopping, or at least stalling, the process.

The city has been trying to ease the club’s expansion moves by proposing a Compulsory Purchase Order, the U.K. equivalent of seizing private property through eminent domain.