Patrick Vieira wants to rebuild his £3m mansion

Former football star Patrick Vieira and his wife want to demolish their£3 million“state-of-the-art” Hampstead mansion and build a new home with an underground garage.

According to plans lodged with Camden council, the ex-Arsenal captain, 37, and wife Cheryl want permission to knock down their home after it was plagued by damp.

The planning application states they want to erect a new four-storey family home on the site of the existing three-storey property, which Vieira bought in 2001.

It also says the “scale of the proposed house is humble”. Despite the Frenchman and his Trinidadian wife undertaking extensive refurbishment works they say their mansion, with an indoor pool, still has “extensive damp problems throughout.”

Their new home would have high-spec features including a basement car park with a car lift and a “living” sedum roof. Vieira, who finished his career in 2011 at Manchester City, still has a training role there and has another £2.2 million home in Cheshire.