This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 17, 2025 - March 23, 2025

Slightly more than a year ago, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the fourth richest man in the UK, worth an estimated £23.52 billion (RM135 billion), acquired a 27.7% stake in Manchester United Football Club for £1.31 billion. Still a minority stake, but this gives him full control of the football operation from the Glazer family. Fans then considered him a saviour of sorts.

The deal included an injection of US$300 million to improve the club’s infrastructure. The Glazers, who have run the club since June 2005, have not been popular among the home crowd as they are responsible for putting the club, which was relatively encumbrance-free for seven decades, into debt.

The Glazers financed the takeover via loans that were secured against the club’s assets. Money that is supposed to be spent, for example, on modernising the Old Trafford stadium and training centre, has become less available as profits are partly used to pay interest on loans.

Ratcliffe, being a Brit, Mancunian and supporter of Manchester United, was supposed to put things in order, but impatient fans want to see results immediately, at least on the pitch, where the footballing has been mediocre for most of the season.

United is languishing at 14th place in the league table, a sight not familiar to many fans, especially the younger ones. This is its worst position since 1974, when it was relegated to the second division. As it is, the Red Devils are only 17 points above the relegation zone and they have been knocked out of the Carabao and FA cups.

The only chance for a trophy is the Europa League, where they are in the quarterfinals after beating Spanish side Real Sociedad 4-1 on March 14.

At the last home game against Arsenal on March 10, thousands of fans marched to protest against not only the Glazers but Ratcliffe as well. They are unhappy with the direction that both owners are taking the club. They wore black to signal that the club is “slowly dying”. A year on, the relationship between the saviour and some supporters has turned sour.

Financially, United’s performance is as bad as on the field, having lost £410 million in the last seven years. With these losses, fans fear that money will not be readily available to get new players and retain the good young ones to compete for a spot among the top four. Achieving this will allow it to enter the European Champions League which could bring it the much-needed additional revenue of between £50 million and £100 million.

While putting in money to improve the club’s ageing infrastructure, Ratcliffe has also gone on an operational cutting spree. He owns Ineos, the fourth-largest chemical company in the world producing petrochemicals, speciality chemicals and oil products. He has interests in automotive projects, fashion and sports too.

The cost-cutting is not popular among supporters and fellow Mancunians, as it involves cutting the jobs of about 400 people, the closing of the club canteen and ending free lunch and other perks for staff. At the same time, he has increased the ticket prices and reviewed ticket concessions when the team is not performing well, playing dull and inconsistent football.

Steve Crompton, the spokesperson of the Man Utd 1958 fan group, said, “The club is on its knees, the Glazers put us there and Ratcliffe isn’t helping.” The marchers chanted for the Glazers to sell their remaining shares in the club and accused Ratcliffe of being no better as a co-owner.

Perhaps feeling the pressure and the need to answer the fans — unlike the American Glazers who very much keep to themselves — Ratcliffe gave two interviews in a week to the BBC Sports editor Dan Roan and ex-United player and captain Gary Neville over his popular Overlap YouTube channel.

For someone who is known for being relatively private compared with some other high-profile business leaders, these two quick interviews covering a wide range of questions on the football business were meant to say the club is on the right track.

In both interviews his message is clear, that unlike the Glazers, he is the “bigger picture” man and has a plan and target to make Manchester United great again by first building a financially sound footballing business that will allow it to be the Premier League champions by 2028, in time for the 150th anniversary of what Ratcliffe believes is the world’s greatest football club.

To match this ambition, Manchester United announced on March 11, that it plans to build a £2 billion 100,000-capacity stadium near Old Trafford, which will be part of a bankable urban regeneration of the southern Manchester area by the club and the government. The project, which includes new transport infrastructure, has the potential to create 92,000 jobs, and attract 1.9 million visitors that could contribute £7.3 billion yearly to the UK economy.

The stadium, designed by Fosters and Partners, would feature an umbrella design, with three 200m masts symbolising the club’s trident, visible from a distance of 40km, and a new public plaza that is twice the size of London’s Trafalgar Square. The area will turn into a mixed-use mini city and this multi-function stadium can be used for other sporting events and music concerts, which will bring in added revenue, on top of the 25,000 extra seats.

The long-term target of the club is to “have the world’s best football team playing in the world’s best stadium”.

To get there and as a successful businessman, Ratcliffe argues that there has to be financial discipline first, thus the string of unavoidable cost-cutting measures, big and small. The financial warnings, apart from the losses, are already there.

“At Ineos we run a lean organisation. As my mother said, you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves. We can sound flippant about the free lunches but if you give all these perks, first-class train fares, free taxis, it is not coherent. Manchester United will go bust by Christmas [this year]. This is even after having me put the US$300 million.

“Costs had risen and the club had been spending more than it earned for seven seasons. If you spend more than you earn, eventually that’s the road to ruin. Ultimately, if you look at running a club the size of Manchester United with an income of about £650 million, you spend part of that £650 million on operating the club and part of it on the squad [of players].

“The cost of running the club in the last seven years has increased by £100 million and players’ wages by another £100 million. The increase in revenue during that period is only £100 million. That sum doesn’t work. And some of the players are not good enough and overpaid,” he told the BBC.

Ratcliffe admitted that he had made mistakes costing the club about £20 million in compensating Dutch coach Eric ten Hag, who was supposed to leave last season but was retained after winning the FA Cup, and sporting director Dan Ashworth, who left after five months, after Ratcliffe said the “chemistry” was not right. Fans are of the view that many jobs would have been saved if such wastage were prevented.

But still plans and targets will remain just that until the team starts winning trophies. The key question is how fast current manager Ruben Amorin, whose style of play and management of players are being doubted by even the faithful fans, can produce one.

The last time United has won the Premier League was in 2013, during Sir Alex Ferguson’s last year in charge, and since then even marquee managers like Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho, who have won everything Europe has to offer, had failed to deliver.

Would Amorin be given enough time to build a winning team, which could include home-grown players from the academy? Would money be available to buy new players? Would top players want to join a Manchester United team in transition?

Ratcliffe is confident that the target 2028 will be achieved. Most football pundits think otherwise and say Manchester United is years away — certainly more than three — from being able to compete against the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea for the Premier League title.

In the interim, United fans worldwide, notably those who fill up Old Trafford to capacity, just want to see their side return to their winning ways and play attractive football, which is still hard to come by these days.

Azam Aris is an editor emeritus at The Edge

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