Last render I saw of it, it had a honeycomb effect cladding? I haven't been on skyscrapercity for years
Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side
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Last render I saw of it, it had a honeycomb effect cladding? I haven't been on skyscrapercity for years
“We need to walk to the right solutions, not run to the wrong solutions” 
Also good that he’s just a fan at heart
Sir Jim Ratcliffe says Manchester United must "walk to the right solution not run to the wrong one" after he bought a 27.7% stake in the club.
The 71-year-old billionaire told BBC Sport "something is wrong with the environment" at United, who won the most recent of their 20 English titles in 2013.
And he called for patience from supporters as he aims to restore his childhood club to its former glory.
Ratcliffe, who is also chairman of petrochemicals company Ineos, was speaking to BBC sports editor Dan Roan hours after his £1.25bn investment was completed.
In a wide-ranging interview, he discussed his preference to build a new stadium which would "serve the north of England", working with the Glazer family and trying to emulate rivals Manchester City.
Ratcliffe on being a Manchester United supporter
- "I was at primary school in north Manchester and in my class half were pale blue and the other half were red. My family were a red family, my mother and father were always Manchester United fans, and my only regret is my parents aren't here today.
- "I automatically became a Manchester United supporter from the age of six or seven. It's an important element of your life, and hugely important to all those who support Manchester United.
- "Without question [my favourite memory was] the [1999 Champions League final] victory in Barcelona against Bayern Munich. I was there with my son, who was about 11. The last three minutes were unforgettable. It was a remarkable moment ingrained in the mind - and that is what football is all about."
Ratcliffe on his reasons for pursuing a deal
- "It is a boyhood dream, but they never come true normally. This is the exception.
- "It's ruled by the heart. This is not a financial investment for me. If I wanted to make a financial investment, I would buy another chemical company.
- "It's very much taking on one of the great challenges in the world. It is a very worthy challenge and very exciting.
- "The only reason I got involved is because I want to see Manchester United restored to where it should be. I might be biased but I believe it is the biggest and most well-known club in the world. It should be playing the greatest football in the world."
Ratcliffe on the scale of the challenge ahead
- recruitment and we haven't been. FFP [Financial Fair Play] is a new element in football and a really important part of managing a football club well. We will assess how much money we have available and use it well.
- "We have to find the best people in the world, ensure they have the right character and personality, and create the right environment for elite sportspeople to be successful. All we're doing is trying to drive performance on the pitch."
Ratcliffe on the pursuit of Dan Ashworth
United have made an official approach to Newcastle for sporting director Ashworth, who has been put on gardening leave.
- "I think Dan Ashworth is a 10/10 sporting director - one of the best around. He would be very good for Manchester United. It is understandable that somebody like Dan would see the Manchester United job as a very interesting challenge at this stage of his career.
- "Ultimately, you can't really criticise Dan for looking at maybe the most coveted job in football as a sporting director - particularly with the challenge at Manchester United. What doesn't make sense is for Dan Ashworth to be sat doing nothing for 18 months."
Ratcliffe on Mason Greenwood's future at the club
Forward Mason Greenwood left the club by mutual agreement in August and joined Spanish club Getafe on loan after a six-month internal investigation into his conduct.
- "We need to look at facts, judge fairly and take into consideration what the values of the club are. Then we come out of that with a decision. It is not appropriate for me to comment on Mason Greenwood."
Ratcliffe on catching Manchester City and Liverpool
United are 13 points adrift of Premier League leaders Liverpool and 12 behind Treble winners Manchester City
- "When Manchester City played Real Madrid at home and won 4-0 last season [in the Champions League semi-finals], that was the best football I have ever seen. If we can ever get to that point, it would be a great achievement.
- "In the north west we have two neighbours who are really impressive football clubs. I want to knock them all off their perch. We are friends in the sense we're all in the north west but they are our biggest enemies. They are clearly our biggest competitors in the UK.
- "[We are] a long way behind. It's not going to change tomorrow. People unfortunately need to give us time to get back. It will be two to three seasons. Patience is needed. Spending money lavishly in the summer is not the solution, it is much more complicated than that."
MUTV has a 11 min preview up of a 35 minute interview with Jim
https://www.manutd.com/en/videos/detail/preview-of-sir-jim-ratcliffe-the-interview
https://www.manutd.com/en/videos/detail/preview-of-sir-jim-ratcliffe-the-interview
He's says the right things and to be fair there seems to be some substance. That said he also wanted a controlling stake in Barca, so whether it's his dream to own a chunk of United... The signs are good though. And he's definitely a massive upgrade on the Glasers.
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fecking hell. That quote about Sheik Jassim not being real. We had thousands of posts about people wanting him to take us over.
We had thousands of posts about people wanting him to take us over.He says the right things until the subject of the Glasers comes up and then you can hear all the substance in everything he says evaporate into the fact they are still the owners.
This is a LONG READ...
Sir Jim Ratcliffe on Manchester United, Old Trafford, Sheikh Jassim and Mason Greenwood: Full transcript
Adam Crafton
Feb 21, 2024
On Tuesday evening, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS completed their purchase of a minority stake in Manchester United, as the British billionaire acquired a 27.7 per cent stake in the Premier League club in a deal worth over $1.3bn.
On Wednesday, Ratcliffe spoke to the written media for the first time about his decision to take a minority investment, for which he has received control of the club’s sporting operation. Inside a boardroom at INEOS’ offices in Knightsbridge, London, Ratcliffe sat at the head of the table and took questions from thirteen assembled journalists from the British and international media.
Along the way, Ratcliffe answered every question; including
Has the last decade been quite painful?
Sir Jim Ratcliffe: “It’s been a complete misery really in the last 11 years and it’s just frustrating if you’re a supporter during that period of time. That’s football isn’t it? It has its ups and its downs. I remember pre-Ferguson it wasn’t great for quite some time – for a more extended period of time actually, for about 25 years.
Q: Is that your incentive for investing, to transform Manchester United into what it used to be?
“Fundamentally you want to see your club being where it should be. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. It should be playing the best football in the world and it hasn’t been doing that for 10 or 11 years. So it’s certainly related to the decision (to invest).”
Q: Do you have a time frame on achieving success?
“It’s not a light switch. it’s not one of these things that changes overnight. We have to be careful we don’t rush at it, you don’t want to run to the wrong solution rather than walk to the correct solution. We have two issues – one is the longer term, getting Manchester United to where we would like to get it but there’s also the shorter term of getting the most out of the club as it stands today. We would like to see the Champions League for next season if we can. The key challenge here is that longer term we need to do things well and properly, and thoroughly, so it’s not an overnight change. It’s going to take two or three (seasons). You have to ask the fans for some patience. I know the world these days is about instant gratification but that’s not the case with football really. Look at Pep Guardiola at Man City – it takes time to build a squad.
“What you need are the foundations to be in a good place for Manchester United to be successful, which means you need the right organisational structure. It means not having a coach reporting to the chief executive for instance.
“Then we need to populate all the key roles with people who are best in class, 10 out of 10s, and there’s clearly a lot of interest in these roles in Manchester United, because it’s one of the biggest clubs in the world but also it’s one of the biggest challenges, because you’re taking it from a difficult place to hopefully where it should be at the top of the pyramid.
“Thirdly, you need to create this environment which is driven and competitive. It is going to be intense at times, but equally it needs to have warmth and friendliness and be a supportive structure because the two things marry together well. They probably haven’t had that environment for the last 10 years. If we get those three things right, then you have to believe the results will follow.”
If you look at a club like Manchester, you see they’ve got a very sensible structure. They’ve got a really driven competitive environment but there’s a bit of warmth to it. There are two clubs not very far from us who have been successful and have got some of those things right and United don’t.”
Q: How is a minority stake going to work? What do you get to drive ?
“We have a really good relationship with Joel and Avram, who are the only two of the siblings that we’ve got to know and have met, actually. And there’s a fair amount of trust between those two parties. And they obviously are very comfortable with us running the sports side of the club.
“This is going to be a very sports-led club, it’s all going to be about performance on the pitch. I’m still a significant shareholder even in respect of all the other things in the club.
“We’re obviously going to be on the ground, whereas the Glazer family are a fair way away. So I don’t see an issue in us being able to influence the club in all the right ways going forward, to be honest.
“I don’t think we’re going to be taking the legal agreements out of the bottom drawer. I just hope they gather dust and we never see them. Which it should be. It should be on the basis of a relationship.
“As long as we’re doing the right things then I’m certain that relationship is going to go very well.
One of the things I’d add is that the transaction was quite challenging, as you know. We met all sorts of obstacles on the way, a lot of them in relation to hedge funds, and SEC, American (regs) and a few with the Qataris and all those sort of things. It obviously it was a rocky road for quite an extended period of time.
“And the Glazers really, from the beginning, preferred ourselves to the Qatari option – which in a way for them was a much easier option because they could just sell the whole thing and they would have walked away and financially done quite well.
“But they stuck with us through the whole process. Our offer was a bit more complicated and that sort of adversity, that rocky road for a year, has forged a relationship between ourselves and the other shareholders.
“We’ve all got to know each other. You get to know people better in adversity than when the whole thing is going swimmingly.”
Q: Always have confidence that you would end up here? Moments when you thought about walking away?
“How long have you got? Time and time again. I remember at the Monaco Grand Prix, which was in May, we opened a bottle of very expensive champagne and all celebrated. That was in May – but that was a false dawn and we went through several more false dawns after that.
“We had a few surprises on the way. Not at the Glazers’ making. We just kept bumping into problems, particularly with the non-executives on the board.”
Q: How would you rate the scale of this challenge? You are up against clubs linked to nation states, Financial Fair Play etc, it has not been a great season etc? How big is the challenge?
“I don’t know about the biggest thing in my career. But certainly the biggest challenge in sport that we’ve undertaken. It’s enormous – and the club IS enormous. The tentacles reach around the world. Everywhere I go in the world it’s Manchester United. It affects an awful lot of people on the planet and getting it right is not easy.
“We’ve got to get so many aspects of that club right. And the right people doing the right thing at the right time and doing it well. It’s a very complex problem, football – which is surprising considering it’s just putting 11 players on a football field, and they run around. But it’s very complex getting there.”
Q: Part of the INEOS mantra is a compass which says you “don’t like losing money” – but you have spent so much for a 27% share?
“To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever lose money. For me it’s not about a financial investment. The objective was to get involved and be influential in the future of Manchester United.
“I don’t believe I’ll ever lose money in it and I’m not interested. I’ve just put that aside. It’ll sit there forever but I don’t see that the value is going to devalue. I don’t believe that. In that sense I don’t think I’ve been financially stupid but it’s not my motivation in life at all.”
Q: What do you think the biggest growth is financially in terms of the ability to grow revenue?
“We’re really really clear about that – It’s football-led. So if we’re successful on the pitch, then everything else will follow.
“Manchester United (has been) a bit, I think, in the last 10 years or so, that if you’re really good in commercial and you make lots of money, then you’ll be successful in football because you’ve got lots money to spend.
But I think that’s flawed because it only starts for a certain while and you start to degrade the brand if you’re not careful. But we’re really clear that football will drive the club. If we’re really successful at football, then commercial will follow. And we’ll make more money.”
Q: And how do you take on the challenge of those nation states? It’s almost viewed now as impossible to take them on?
“I don’t agree with that. Firstly, the nation state bit helps to a degree but FFP limits the degree by a considerable margin, doesn’t it? Ultimately, it becomes about how successful the club is because that dictates your FFP. With FPP you have to operate the club within its own means. So clearly that means that if you’ve got a bigger club it ought to be more successful than a smaller club, by definition, because you’ve got more means that you can spend more money and recruitment.
Q: How much is FFP an issue for United (particularly ahead of the summer)? How patient will fans need to be with maybe damage that’s been done before, in some ways with what’s being spent before?
“Firstly FFP has become a new aspect of running the football club, and it’s clearly a really critical part of running a football club. And you have to think about how you can manage FFP to the benefit of the club. But ultimately FFP says you have to operate the club within its own means. Effectively, it takes into account your prior expenditure, and the club’s spent quite heavily in the last couple of seasons. So that does impact FFP going forward, because they’ve used quite a large part of their allowance. I don’t know the full answer to that question at the moment. It’s obviously related to sales as well as purchases, and so we need to get our heads around that well before the summer window – there’s no question that history will impact this summer window.
Q: You have been heavily linked with Newcastle’s sporting director Dan Ashworth in the media in recent weeks. Would it be fair to say that identifying player sales and purchases is an area that United that you think can make a real improvement on?
“Recruitment in the modern game is critical. Manchester United have clearly spent a lot of money but they haven’t done as well as some other clubs. So when I was talking about being best in class in all aspects of football, recruitment is clearly top of the list.”
Q: What do you make of the recruitment under the current manager? Because it seems like he’s had quite a lot of sway?
“We don’t benefit too much from thinking about that. I’m thinking about getting recruitment in a good place in the future. There’s not much I can do about what’s happened in the past. Our thinking is all about how we become first in class in recruitment going forward. Which means you need the right people.”
Q: You talk about being best in class… is it a five year plan or is it a 10 year plan?
“It’s not a 10 year plan. The fans would run out of patience if it was a 10-year plan. But it’s certainly a three year plan to get there. To think that we’re going to be playing football as good as Manchester City played against Real Madrid last season by next year is not sensible. And if we give people false expectations, then they will get disappointed. So the key thing is our trajectory, so that people can see that we’re making progress. I think it’s the club’s 150-year anniversary in 2028 … if our trajectory is leading to a very good place in that sort of timeframe then we’d be very happy with that. Because it’s not easy to turn Manchester United into the world’s best football team.”
Q: Is it the aim to win the Premier League and then the Champions League?
“The ultimate target for Manchester United – and it’s always going to be thus, really – is that we should be challenging for the Premier League and challenging for the Champions League. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. There’s six who are probably the six biggest clubs in Europe – three in the northwest, two in Spain and one in Germany. United should be in that small group. It hasn’t been for a while. And so therefore, it must be challenging for the Premier League. And if we’re not, then in a way, we’re not doing what we saying we ought to do.
Q: Does FFP influence your thinking about the need for a modern stadium?
“You have to think about how you can optimise the football club in FFP terms and a stadium is one of those. You can increase your revenues by building a new stadium, rebuilding a stadium or putting all the facilities in. You have to think practically because money doesn’t grow on trees. The two most talked-about issues at Manchester United are number one, the football, the performance on the pitch and the second one is the stadium.
“What we can see so far is a really good case to refurbish Old Trafford, probably about £1billion in cost. You finish up with a great stadium, it’s probably an 80-90,000-seater. But it’s not perfect because you’re modifying a stadium that is slap bang up against a railway line and all that type of stuff, so it’s not an ideal world. But you finish up with a very good answer.
“Manchester United needs a stadium befitting one of the biggest clubs in the world and at the moment, it’s not there. Old Trafford maybe was 20 years ago but it’s certainly not today. There’s this wider conversation with the community as to whether you could use a more ambitious project on site as a catalyst to regenerate that Old Trafford area, which is quite an interesting area in a way because it was the heart of the Industrial Revolution, it is the oldest industrial park in Europe, it was the first industrial park in Europe. And it’s still one of the biggest ones. And they obviously built the Manchester Ship Canal to service it. That’s where all the coal came in, the cotton. And that’s why they built Old Trafford there. People would finish their shift and then walk to the ground, there was no transport in those days. That’s the history of why the club is there. But today it’s a bit run down and neglected in places, there’s a strong case for using a stadium to regenerate that area, like with the Olympics, like Sebastian Coe did with that part of East London quite successfully. City have done it and they’ve done quite a good job.”
Q: Both of those had some state funding? (There have been reports suggesting United may seek state support)
“The people in the north pay their taxes like the people in the south pay their taxes. But where’s the national stadium for football? It’s in the south. Where’s the national stadium for rugby? It’s in the south. Where’s the national stadium for tennis? It’s in the south. Where’s the national concert stadium? It’s the O2, it’s in the south. Where’s the Olympic Village? It’s in the south. All of this talk about levelling up and the Northern Powerhouse. Where is the stadium in the north? How many Champions Leagues has the north-west won and how many Champions Leagues has London won?
“The answer to that is the north-west has won 10 – Liverpool have won more than us – and London has won two. Where do you have to go if you get to the semi-final of the FA Cup and you’re a northern club? You have to schlepp down to London, don’t you? So what happened to HS2, which was going to be a substantial amount of investment in the north, what happened to that? They cancelled that. And where are they going to spend that? They’re going to spend it on the rail network in London. People in the north pay their taxes and there is an argument you could think about a more ambitious project in the north which would be fitting for England, for the Champions League final or the FA Cup final and acted as a catalyst to regenerate southern Manchester, which has got quite significant history in the UK.”
Q: Might your tax status, having relocated to Monaco, pose a challenge in the optics of requesting state support?
“I paid my taxes for 65 years in the UK. And then when I got to retirement age, I went down to enjoy a bit of sun. I don’t have a problem with that, I’m afraid.”
Q: Do you prefer a new ground or a refurbishment?
“In an ideal world I think it’s a no brainer, a stadium of the north, which would be a world class stadium where England could play and you could have the FA Cup Final and it’s not all centred around the south of England. So in an ideal world, absolutely, that’s where I would be but you’ve got to be practical about life.”
Q: Is there a financial estimate of what that might be?
“In broad terms, a refurb is one [billion] and a new stadium – both of these would include the campus so, you know, the museum’s crap and and the shop is too small and you’d have the Xbox thing for entertaining the fans. So in other words, the fans could come there and do some stuff. So include the campus in both cases, in very simple terms you are talking about one versus two [billion].”
Q: And how long would it be to happen?
“I think the refurb would take longer than the new one because it’s more complicated, because obviously you’re building and you have to build over a main railway line which is quite complicated and expensive.”
Q: And a stadium for the women’s team as well?
“If you use that as a centre of regeneration, a bit like the Olympic Village, then I think what you probably finish up doing is Old Trafford would end up being reduced in size to a smaller facility still in the same footprint but a smaller facility which can be used for all sorts of community things, be it a concert or whatever. The ladies teams could play there. The Academy teams could play there. Some of the local teams could play there and Old Trafford sort of become a community asset and then you’d have this world class stadium next door to it.”
Q: What’s your vision for broader control of Manchester United? Would you like to increase your stake?
“We spent well over a year getting to where we are. We got to where we could do. I’m really pleased we are here and we are going to be able to influence the future, to be in charge of the sports side. I haven’t had the energy to think about the future or worry about it because I’m focussed on the problem today – not what I might do in three, five, ten years.”
Q: In the SEC filing, it said if the Glazers received an offer for a complete buyout within 18 months – then they could force you to sell?
“There’s all sorts of scenarios. We might get hit by an asteroid. Theres been lots of opportunities for someone to come in and buy United in last 12 months.”
Q: What are your ambitions for the women’s team?
“I know we have been around since Christmas but we only took over today. What I would say is that if it’s a team wearing a Manchester United badge on shirt then it’s Manchester United and they need to be focussed on winning and being successful.”
Q: Dan Ashworth – are you confident you will get him?
“Dan Ashworth is clearly one of top sporting directors in the world. I have no doubt he is a very capable person. He is interested in Manchester United because it’s the biggest challenge at the biggest club in the world. It would be different at City because you’re maintaining a level. Here it’s a significant rebuilding job. He would be a very good addition. He needs to decide if he is going to make that jump. We have had words with Newcastle who would be disappointed. They have done really well since their new ownership. I understand why they would be disappointed but then you can’t criticise Dan because it’s a transient industry. You can understand why Dan would be interested because it’s the ultimate challenge. We’ll have to see how it unfolds.”
Q: There have been reports of a £20m asking price. Does £20m seem strange for a sporting director?
“A bit silly, personally. I wont get dragged into that. What I do think is completely absurd is suggesting a man who is really good at his job sits in his garden for one and a half years. We had a very grown up conversation with City about Omar Berrada. When things got done we sorted it out very amicably. They could see why he wanted to take that challenge. You look at Pep and when he’s done with one of his footballers he doesn’t want them to sit in the garden for one and a half years. He doesn’t do that. That’s not the way the UK works or the law works.”
Q: One of the main stories at Manchester United last year was what the club would do with Mason Greenwood (who is on loan at Getafe). That is now a problem on your doorstep as you control the sporting operation.
“I can talk about the principle. I am not going to talk about Mason. I am familiar with it. The principle is the important one. We will have other issues going forwards. You are dealing with young people who have not always been brought up in the best circumstances, who have a lot of money and they don’t always have the guidance they should have. What we need to do when have issues like that is understand the real effects, not the hype, then we need to make a fair decision in the light of the club’s values. That’s what we need to do and that’s how we will deal with it.”
Q: Will that be a fresh decision then?
“Yes, absolutely. We will make a decision and we will justify it.”
Q: So it’s feasible he could still have a future at Man Utd?
“All I can do is talk about the principle of how we will approach decisions like that.”
Q: What are the values you are defining?
“Is he the right type of footballer? Is he a good person or not?”
Q: We don’t want to misquote you or take this out of context. Are you saying you are not closing the door on Mason?
“He’s a Manchester United footballer so we are in charge of football. So the answer is yeah, we have to make decisions. It’s quite clear we have to make a decision. There is no decision that’s been made. He’s on loan obviously but he’s not the only one. We’ve got one or two footballers that we have to deal with and we have to make a decision on so we will do that. The process will be: understand the facts not the hype and then try and come to fair decision on the basis of values which is basically is he a good guy or not, and answer could he play sincerely for Manchester United well and would we be comfortable with it and would the fans be comfortable with it.”
Q: Is the INEOS ownership of French club OGC Nice an issue for playing in the Champions League if you both qualify under UEFA’s regulations?
“We’ve spoken to UEFA. There’s no circumstances upon which an ownership of Nice would prevent Manchester united from playing in the Champions League– I’ll be crystal clear on that.
Q: But at the moment the rules say you can’t.
“It says you have to change the ownership structure. So it’s all about influence and positions on the board and that sort of thing. So, (a): the rules are changing, and (b): there are shades of grey, not black and white. Manchester City will probably have the problem before we have the problem because they’ve obviously got Girona who are doing well in the Spanish La Liga.
You tried to buy Chelsea when they were for sale in 2022….
“We have a collection of quite interesting sports clubs; Formula 1 Americas cup, cycling etc. but we’ve always recognized that the biggest sport in the world is football and the Premier League is the biggest league in the world. So we’ve always had an interest in having a Premiership club but they don’t come up very often and at the time we had no inkling that Manchester United might ever be sold so that’s we finished up in that Chelsea equation.”
Dave Brailsford is the director of sport at INEOS. Can you talk about what his role will be and how important he is and what his attributes are? Some will look at his history in cycling and query his role at United amid the criticisms?
“Well, I think he will be critically involved in the future of Manchester United. He’s interested in elite sport and performance, which is what Manchester United is and I think he’s been very, very successful in sport in cycling, but he’s generally viewed as one of the world’s best thoughtful people on the subject of sports performance.
“It’s for good reason. I’ve known Dave now for quite a few years. He is obsessive about performance in elite sports, and he is going to be very successful at Manchester United.”
Rival fans will bring up parliamentary select committee and (his role in) questions about Team Sky previously.
“I’m not interested in all that. Really, I’m not. You can keep harping on at the past but I am not interested in the past. I’m interested in the future. My view is he is a really good man and is really good at his job.
“That for me was all nonsense, in the past, I’m not not interested.”
Chelsea was a very busy process but there seemed to be less bidders for United? Why was that?
“Good question that.”
There was this Qatari guy (Sheikh Jassim) that no one’s ever seen it was very odd.
“Still nobody’s ever seen him, actually. The Glazers never met him… he never… I’m not sure he exists!” (laughs). I would say this but there is no comparison between Chelsea and Manchester United. The scale of Manchester United is incomparable to any of the London clubs to be honest with you.”
The SEC filing suggested Qataris did not provide the proof of funds…
“No, they didn’t, no.”
Were they really bidding against you or were you potentially the only bidder?
“I don’t know. They were they were obviously there and there was a whole host of people on the team in their squad… I didn’t ever meet them. But it was it was a very odd affair.”
There seemed to be a lot of background briefings – did they play clean?
“I’m not going to comment on that. I know what the answer is.”
They claimed the bid was a lot higher than it was .
“Yeah, that’s correct.”
Do Chelsea show how not to do things given their recent spending?
“I don’t want to finish up criticising Chelsea but what I would say is that in having bought other clubs in Lausanne and Nice – we have made a lot of cock ups. We’ve made some really stupid decisions in both those clubs. There’s a lot of organisations in the world where if you make a mistake, you get shot, so nobody ever puts their head above the parapet. But at INEOS, we don’t mind making people making mistakes but please don’t make it a second time. So with that, we’re much less than sympathetic when they make the same mistake twice. We have made mistakes in football so I’m really pleased that we made those mistakes before we arrived here in Manchester United. If we hadn’t, this would be a much tougher job for us. Because it is huge and it’s very exposed.”
What sort of player do you want at the club? Youngsters or superstars?
“We’re probably still debating what precisely is the style of football we want to play. If you look at Manchester City, they know precisely what the style of football is they want to play and all 11 teams at the club play the same formula. We need to do that, but I think in terms of the nature of the players, you want Manchester United types of players… attacking football, exciting football, bringing the youth through. You want players that are committed. You want players that play 90 minutes – those are the types of players you want playing for Manchester United. The academy is really really important for us. It’s probably the most successful academy in football in terms of number of players that have come through.”
“We’ll decide that style, plus the CEO, sporting director, probably the recruitment guys, what the style of football is and that will be the Manchester United style of football, and the coach will have to play that style. We’re not going to oscillate from a Mourinho style to Guardiola style. That’s not the way we’ll run the club. Otherwise you’re changing everything all the time, you change your coach, you’ve got the wrong squad we won’t do that. In modern football you need to decide what’s your path and stick to your path.
You are doing something today that has been very rare at Manchester United in recent decades: communicating. How important is it to reconnect the fans and the club?
“Again, I have a very simple view of a football club. It’s a community asset. The club is owned by the fans, that’s what it’s there for. For the fans. We’re guardians or stewards for a temporary period of time. I’m not going to be there forever. It is important we communicate to the fanbase. We underestimate how important an aspect it is of their life and how it affects their life. On a wet Monday morning in Manchester that’s the first thing you talk about when you go into the office or the factory, how did we do at the weekend and you either start off with a good week or a bad week depending how it went. It’s beholden upon us to… It’s not my job to do it on a frequent basis but it was quite important today that we are seen by the true owners, who are the fans really.”
You are sitting in front of a jersey in here where there is a No 7 on the back and the collar up. It looks like an Eric Cantona shirt.
“He was a maverick obviously. He was the catalyst for change in Ferguson’s era … and that kickstarted everything off. He was a talisman.
“There has always been a bit of glamour attached to Manchester United which has been lacking a bit in the last few years. You’ve had George Best, Bobby Charlton, Eric the King. At the end of the day we are in the entertainment business. You don’t want to watch bland football or characterless football. And to be honest, since Christmas, with the young lads, they have played some fantastic football. There have been some great matches. I can’t remember many matches at the beginning of the season I was really excited by. The three young lads sitting on the hoarding at the side. That was a good picture. So I think that’s the Eric point really. We are cognisant of that fact you do need a bit of glamour in this.”
Have you spoken to Sir Alex Ferguson much?
“I have. He was the first person I met when I went up there which I think was the second week of January and I had a meeting from 9am to 10am at his house and – I left at 1pm.
He never stopped. He’s got a lot of experience, a lot of stories to tell and a lot of thoughts about the club.
I don’t think he has been encouraged to get involved but he is still very thoughtful about the club and he has an immense amount of experience. He really understands the values and traditions of the club and what it’s all about. He’s still fiercely competitive, Alex Ferguson.”
You have mentioned Manchester City an awful lot in this conversation?
“Well they are one of the best teams on the planet.”
Are they a blueprint?
“Blueprint? (laughs) We have a lot to learn from our noisy neighbour and the other neighbour. They are the enemy at the end of the day. There is nothing I would like better than to knock both of them off their perch. Equally we are the three great northern clubs who are very close to one another. They have been in a good place for a while and there are things we can learn from both of them. They have sensible organisations, great people within the organisations, a good, driven and elite environment that they work in. I am very respectful of them but they are still the enemy.”
Would it help if they were found guilty of 115 breaches they are accused of by the Premier League?
“I would not wish that upon them. I don’t understand any of that. I just want to smash them on the football field.”
When you refer to knocking them off their perch… is that a knowing nod to Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous comments about knocking Liverpool off their perch?
“It is actually. He was the first one who came out with that expression. I am in the same place as Alex – 100 per cent. He was fiercely competitive and that is why he was successful. We have to be the same. I remember Queen Victoria was present at the first Americas Cup when we challenged America in 1851. They sent a yacht across called America. We had eleven yachts and we had a race around the Isle of White. It was hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron. In the end, the American boat – called America – won the race. Queen Victoria turned to the commodore and said ‘Did we come second?’ And the commodore said: ‘There is no second”
Sir Jim Ratcliffe on Manchester United, Old Trafford, Sheikh Jassim and Mason Greenwood: Full transcript
Adam Crafton
Feb 21, 2024
On Tuesday evening, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS completed their purchase of a minority stake in Manchester United, as the British billionaire acquired a 27.7 per cent stake in the Premier League club in a deal worth over $1.3bn.
On Wednesday, Ratcliffe spoke to the written media for the first time about his decision to take a minority investment, for which he has received control of the club’s sporting operation. Inside a boardroom at INEOS’ offices in Knightsbridge, London, Ratcliffe sat at the head of the table and took questions from thirteen assembled journalists from the British and international media.
Along the way, Ratcliffe answered every question; including
- His ambitions to restore Manchester United to the summit of English and European football, knocking the “enemy” Liverpool and Manchester City “off their perch”
- How INEOS will make a fresh decision this summer on the future of Mason Greenwood
- Insight into the year-long battle to secure a stake in Manchester United, “odd affair” of Sheikh Jassim’s rival bid and how INEOS previously thought they had won the battle nine months ago, opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate at the Monaco Grand Prix in May
- Why Manchester United have targeted Newcastle’s sporting director Dan Ashworth and the club’s battle to prise him away
- His ambitions to create a Wembley of the North as Manchester United seek to redevelop Old Trafford or build a new stadium, including his argument for the British state to support funding plans for the project
Has the last decade been quite painful?
Sir Jim Ratcliffe: “It’s been a complete misery really in the last 11 years and it’s just frustrating if you’re a supporter during that period of time. That’s football isn’t it? It has its ups and its downs. I remember pre-Ferguson it wasn’t great for quite some time – for a more extended period of time actually, for about 25 years.
Q: Is that your incentive for investing, to transform Manchester United into what it used to be?
“Fundamentally you want to see your club being where it should be. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. It should be playing the best football in the world and it hasn’t been doing that for 10 or 11 years. So it’s certainly related to the decision (to invest).”
Q: Do you have a time frame on achieving success?
“It’s not a light switch. it’s not one of these things that changes overnight. We have to be careful we don’t rush at it, you don’t want to run to the wrong solution rather than walk to the correct solution. We have two issues – one is the longer term, getting Manchester United to where we would like to get it but there’s also the shorter term of getting the most out of the club as it stands today. We would like to see the Champions League for next season if we can. The key challenge here is that longer term we need to do things well and properly, and thoroughly, so it’s not an overnight change. It’s going to take two or three (seasons). You have to ask the fans for some patience. I know the world these days is about instant gratification but that’s not the case with football really. Look at Pep Guardiola at Man City – it takes time to build a squad.
“What you need are the foundations to be in a good place for Manchester United to be successful, which means you need the right organisational structure. It means not having a coach reporting to the chief executive for instance.
“Then we need to populate all the key roles with people who are best in class, 10 out of 10s, and there’s clearly a lot of interest in these roles in Manchester United, because it’s one of the biggest clubs in the world but also it’s one of the biggest challenges, because you’re taking it from a difficult place to hopefully where it should be at the top of the pyramid.
“Thirdly, you need to create this environment which is driven and competitive. It is going to be intense at times, but equally it needs to have warmth and friendliness and be a supportive structure because the two things marry together well. They probably haven’t had that environment for the last 10 years. If we get those three things right, then you have to believe the results will follow.”
If you look at a club like Manchester, you see they’ve got a very sensible structure. They’ve got a really driven competitive environment but there’s a bit of warmth to it. There are two clubs not very far from us who have been successful and have got some of those things right and United don’t.”
Q: How is a minority stake going to work? What do you get to drive ?
“We have a really good relationship with Joel and Avram, who are the only two of the siblings that we’ve got to know and have met, actually. And there’s a fair amount of trust between those two parties. And they obviously are very comfortable with us running the sports side of the club.
“This is going to be a very sports-led club, it’s all going to be about performance on the pitch. I’m still a significant shareholder even in respect of all the other things in the club.
“We’re obviously going to be on the ground, whereas the Glazer family are a fair way away. So I don’t see an issue in us being able to influence the club in all the right ways going forward, to be honest.
“I don’t think we’re going to be taking the legal agreements out of the bottom drawer. I just hope they gather dust and we never see them. Which it should be. It should be on the basis of a relationship.
“As long as we’re doing the right things then I’m certain that relationship is going to go very well.
One of the things I’d add is that the transaction was quite challenging, as you know. We met all sorts of obstacles on the way, a lot of them in relation to hedge funds, and SEC, American (regs) and a few with the Qataris and all those sort of things. It obviously it was a rocky road for quite an extended period of time.
“And the Glazers really, from the beginning, preferred ourselves to the Qatari option – which in a way for them was a much easier option because they could just sell the whole thing and they would have walked away and financially done quite well.
“But they stuck with us through the whole process. Our offer was a bit more complicated and that sort of adversity, that rocky road for a year, has forged a relationship between ourselves and the other shareholders.
“We’ve all got to know each other. You get to know people better in adversity than when the whole thing is going swimmingly.”
Q: Always have confidence that you would end up here? Moments when you thought about walking away?
“How long have you got? Time and time again. I remember at the Monaco Grand Prix, which was in May, we opened a bottle of very expensive champagne and all celebrated. That was in May – but that was a false dawn and we went through several more false dawns after that.
“We had a few surprises on the way. Not at the Glazers’ making. We just kept bumping into problems, particularly with the non-executives on the board.”
Q: How would you rate the scale of this challenge? You are up against clubs linked to nation states, Financial Fair Play etc, it has not been a great season etc? How big is the challenge?
“I don’t know about the biggest thing in my career. But certainly the biggest challenge in sport that we’ve undertaken. It’s enormous – and the club IS enormous. The tentacles reach around the world. Everywhere I go in the world it’s Manchester United. It affects an awful lot of people on the planet and getting it right is not easy.
“We’ve got to get so many aspects of that club right. And the right people doing the right thing at the right time and doing it well. It’s a very complex problem, football – which is surprising considering it’s just putting 11 players on a football field, and they run around. But it’s very complex getting there.”
Q: Part of the INEOS mantra is a compass which says you “don’t like losing money” – but you have spent so much for a 27% share?
“To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever lose money. For me it’s not about a financial investment. The objective was to get involved and be influential in the future of Manchester United.
“I don’t believe I’ll ever lose money in it and I’m not interested. I’ve just put that aside. It’ll sit there forever but I don’t see that the value is going to devalue. I don’t believe that. In that sense I don’t think I’ve been financially stupid but it’s not my motivation in life at all.”
Q: What do you think the biggest growth is financially in terms of the ability to grow revenue?
“We’re really really clear about that – It’s football-led. So if we’re successful on the pitch, then everything else will follow.
“Manchester United (has been) a bit, I think, in the last 10 years or so, that if you’re really good in commercial and you make lots of money, then you’ll be successful in football because you’ve got lots money to spend.
But I think that’s flawed because it only starts for a certain while and you start to degrade the brand if you’re not careful. But we’re really clear that football will drive the club. If we’re really successful at football, then commercial will follow. And we’ll make more money.”
Q: And how do you take on the challenge of those nation states? It’s almost viewed now as impossible to take them on?
“I don’t agree with that. Firstly, the nation state bit helps to a degree but FFP limits the degree by a considerable margin, doesn’t it? Ultimately, it becomes about how successful the club is because that dictates your FFP. With FPP you have to operate the club within its own means. So clearly that means that if you’ve got a bigger club it ought to be more successful than a smaller club, by definition, because you’ve got more means that you can spend more money and recruitment.
Q: How much is FFP an issue for United (particularly ahead of the summer)? How patient will fans need to be with maybe damage that’s been done before, in some ways with what’s being spent before?
“Firstly FFP has become a new aspect of running the football club, and it’s clearly a really critical part of running a football club. And you have to think about how you can manage FFP to the benefit of the club. But ultimately FFP says you have to operate the club within its own means. Effectively, it takes into account your prior expenditure, and the club’s spent quite heavily in the last couple of seasons. So that does impact FFP going forward, because they’ve used quite a large part of their allowance. I don’t know the full answer to that question at the moment. It’s obviously related to sales as well as purchases, and so we need to get our heads around that well before the summer window – there’s no question that history will impact this summer window.
Q: You have been heavily linked with Newcastle’s sporting director Dan Ashworth in the media in recent weeks. Would it be fair to say that identifying player sales and purchases is an area that United that you think can make a real improvement on?
“Recruitment in the modern game is critical. Manchester United have clearly spent a lot of money but they haven’t done as well as some other clubs. So when I was talking about being best in class in all aspects of football, recruitment is clearly top of the list.”
Q: What do you make of the recruitment under the current manager? Because it seems like he’s had quite a lot of sway?
“We don’t benefit too much from thinking about that. I’m thinking about getting recruitment in a good place in the future. There’s not much I can do about what’s happened in the past. Our thinking is all about how we become first in class in recruitment going forward. Which means you need the right people.”
Q: You talk about being best in class… is it a five year plan or is it a 10 year plan?
“It’s not a 10 year plan. The fans would run out of patience if it was a 10-year plan. But it’s certainly a three year plan to get there. To think that we’re going to be playing football as good as Manchester City played against Real Madrid last season by next year is not sensible. And if we give people false expectations, then they will get disappointed. So the key thing is our trajectory, so that people can see that we’re making progress. I think it’s the club’s 150-year anniversary in 2028 … if our trajectory is leading to a very good place in that sort of timeframe then we’d be very happy with that. Because it’s not easy to turn Manchester United into the world’s best football team.”
Q: Is it the aim to win the Premier League and then the Champions League?
“The ultimate target for Manchester United – and it’s always going to be thus, really – is that we should be challenging for the Premier League and challenging for the Champions League. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. There’s six who are probably the six biggest clubs in Europe – three in the northwest, two in Spain and one in Germany. United should be in that small group. It hasn’t been for a while. And so therefore, it must be challenging for the Premier League. And if we’re not, then in a way, we’re not doing what we saying we ought to do.
Q: Does FFP influence your thinking about the need for a modern stadium?
“You have to think about how you can optimise the football club in FFP terms and a stadium is one of those. You can increase your revenues by building a new stadium, rebuilding a stadium or putting all the facilities in. You have to think practically because money doesn’t grow on trees. The two most talked-about issues at Manchester United are number one, the football, the performance on the pitch and the second one is the stadium.
“What we can see so far is a really good case to refurbish Old Trafford, probably about £1billion in cost. You finish up with a great stadium, it’s probably an 80-90,000-seater. But it’s not perfect because you’re modifying a stadium that is slap bang up against a railway line and all that type of stuff, so it’s not an ideal world. But you finish up with a very good answer.
“Manchester United needs a stadium befitting one of the biggest clubs in the world and at the moment, it’s not there. Old Trafford maybe was 20 years ago but it’s certainly not today. There’s this wider conversation with the community as to whether you could use a more ambitious project on site as a catalyst to regenerate that Old Trafford area, which is quite an interesting area in a way because it was the heart of the Industrial Revolution, it is the oldest industrial park in Europe, it was the first industrial park in Europe. And it’s still one of the biggest ones. And they obviously built the Manchester Ship Canal to service it. That’s where all the coal came in, the cotton. And that’s why they built Old Trafford there. People would finish their shift and then walk to the ground, there was no transport in those days. That’s the history of why the club is there. But today it’s a bit run down and neglected in places, there’s a strong case for using a stadium to regenerate that area, like with the Olympics, like Sebastian Coe did with that part of East London quite successfully. City have done it and they’ve done quite a good job.”
Q: Both of those had some state funding? (There have been reports suggesting United may seek state support)
“The people in the north pay their taxes like the people in the south pay their taxes. But where’s the national stadium for football? It’s in the south. Where’s the national stadium for rugby? It’s in the south. Where’s the national stadium for tennis? It’s in the south. Where’s the national concert stadium? It’s the O2, it’s in the south. Where’s the Olympic Village? It’s in the south. All of this talk about levelling up and the Northern Powerhouse. Where is the stadium in the north? How many Champions Leagues has the north-west won and how many Champions Leagues has London won?
“The answer to that is the north-west has won 10 – Liverpool have won more than us – and London has won two. Where do you have to go if you get to the semi-final of the FA Cup and you’re a northern club? You have to schlepp down to London, don’t you? So what happened to HS2, which was going to be a substantial amount of investment in the north, what happened to that? They cancelled that. And where are they going to spend that? They’re going to spend it on the rail network in London. People in the north pay their taxes and there is an argument you could think about a more ambitious project in the north which would be fitting for England, for the Champions League final or the FA Cup final and acted as a catalyst to regenerate southern Manchester, which has got quite significant history in the UK.”
Q: Might your tax status, having relocated to Monaco, pose a challenge in the optics of requesting state support?
“I paid my taxes for 65 years in the UK. And then when I got to retirement age, I went down to enjoy a bit of sun. I don’t have a problem with that, I’m afraid.”
Q: Do you prefer a new ground or a refurbishment?
“In an ideal world I think it’s a no brainer, a stadium of the north, which would be a world class stadium where England could play and you could have the FA Cup Final and it’s not all centred around the south of England. So in an ideal world, absolutely, that’s where I would be but you’ve got to be practical about life.”
Q: Is there a financial estimate of what that might be?
“In broad terms, a refurb is one [billion] and a new stadium – both of these would include the campus so, you know, the museum’s crap and and the shop is too small and you’d have the Xbox thing for entertaining the fans. So in other words, the fans could come there and do some stuff. So include the campus in both cases, in very simple terms you are talking about one versus two [billion].”
Q: And how long would it be to happen?
“I think the refurb would take longer than the new one because it’s more complicated, because obviously you’re building and you have to build over a main railway line which is quite complicated and expensive.”
Q: And a stadium for the women’s team as well?
“If you use that as a centre of regeneration, a bit like the Olympic Village, then I think what you probably finish up doing is Old Trafford would end up being reduced in size to a smaller facility still in the same footprint but a smaller facility which can be used for all sorts of community things, be it a concert or whatever. The ladies teams could play there. The Academy teams could play there. Some of the local teams could play there and Old Trafford sort of become a community asset and then you’d have this world class stadium next door to it.”
Q: What’s your vision for broader control of Manchester United? Would you like to increase your stake?
“We spent well over a year getting to where we are. We got to where we could do. I’m really pleased we are here and we are going to be able to influence the future, to be in charge of the sports side. I haven’t had the energy to think about the future or worry about it because I’m focussed on the problem today – not what I might do in three, five, ten years.”
Q: In the SEC filing, it said if the Glazers received an offer for a complete buyout within 18 months – then they could force you to sell?
“There’s all sorts of scenarios. We might get hit by an asteroid. Theres been lots of opportunities for someone to come in and buy United in last 12 months.”
Q: What are your ambitions for the women’s team?
“I know we have been around since Christmas but we only took over today. What I would say is that if it’s a team wearing a Manchester United badge on shirt then it’s Manchester United and they need to be focussed on winning and being successful.”
Q: Dan Ashworth – are you confident you will get him?
“Dan Ashworth is clearly one of top sporting directors in the world. I have no doubt he is a very capable person. He is interested in Manchester United because it’s the biggest challenge at the biggest club in the world. It would be different at City because you’re maintaining a level. Here it’s a significant rebuilding job. He would be a very good addition. He needs to decide if he is going to make that jump. We have had words with Newcastle who would be disappointed. They have done really well since their new ownership. I understand why they would be disappointed but then you can’t criticise Dan because it’s a transient industry. You can understand why Dan would be interested because it’s the ultimate challenge. We’ll have to see how it unfolds.”
Q: There have been reports of a £20m asking price. Does £20m seem strange for a sporting director?
“A bit silly, personally. I wont get dragged into that. What I do think is completely absurd is suggesting a man who is really good at his job sits in his garden for one and a half years. We had a very grown up conversation with City about Omar Berrada. When things got done we sorted it out very amicably. They could see why he wanted to take that challenge. You look at Pep and when he’s done with one of his footballers he doesn’t want them to sit in the garden for one and a half years. He doesn’t do that. That’s not the way the UK works or the law works.”
Q: One of the main stories at Manchester United last year was what the club would do with Mason Greenwood (who is on loan at Getafe). That is now a problem on your doorstep as you control the sporting operation.
“I can talk about the principle. I am not going to talk about Mason. I am familiar with it. The principle is the important one. We will have other issues going forwards. You are dealing with young people who have not always been brought up in the best circumstances, who have a lot of money and they don’t always have the guidance they should have. What we need to do when have issues like that is understand the real effects, not the hype, then we need to make a fair decision in the light of the club’s values. That’s what we need to do and that’s how we will deal with it.”
Q: Will that be a fresh decision then?
“Yes, absolutely. We will make a decision and we will justify it.”
Q: So it’s feasible he could still have a future at Man Utd?
“All I can do is talk about the principle of how we will approach decisions like that.”
Q: What are the values you are defining?
“Is he the right type of footballer? Is he a good person or not?”
Q: We don’t want to misquote you or take this out of context. Are you saying you are not closing the door on Mason?
“He’s a Manchester United footballer so we are in charge of football. So the answer is yeah, we have to make decisions. It’s quite clear we have to make a decision. There is no decision that’s been made. He’s on loan obviously but he’s not the only one. We’ve got one or two footballers that we have to deal with and we have to make a decision on so we will do that. The process will be: understand the facts not the hype and then try and come to fair decision on the basis of values which is basically is he a good guy or not, and answer could he play sincerely for Manchester United well and would we be comfortable with it and would the fans be comfortable with it.”
Q: Is the INEOS ownership of French club OGC Nice an issue for playing in the Champions League if you both qualify under UEFA’s regulations?
“We’ve spoken to UEFA. There’s no circumstances upon which an ownership of Nice would prevent Manchester united from playing in the Champions League– I’ll be crystal clear on that.
Q: But at the moment the rules say you can’t.
“It says you have to change the ownership structure. So it’s all about influence and positions on the board and that sort of thing. So, (a): the rules are changing, and (b): there are shades of grey, not black and white. Manchester City will probably have the problem before we have the problem because they’ve obviously got Girona who are doing well in the Spanish La Liga.
You tried to buy Chelsea when they were for sale in 2022….
“We have a collection of quite interesting sports clubs; Formula 1 Americas cup, cycling etc. but we’ve always recognized that the biggest sport in the world is football and the Premier League is the biggest league in the world. So we’ve always had an interest in having a Premiership club but they don’t come up very often and at the time we had no inkling that Manchester United might ever be sold so that’s we finished up in that Chelsea equation.”
Dave Brailsford is the director of sport at INEOS. Can you talk about what his role will be and how important he is and what his attributes are? Some will look at his history in cycling and query his role at United amid the criticisms?
“Well, I think he will be critically involved in the future of Manchester United. He’s interested in elite sport and performance, which is what Manchester United is and I think he’s been very, very successful in sport in cycling, but he’s generally viewed as one of the world’s best thoughtful people on the subject of sports performance.
“It’s for good reason. I’ve known Dave now for quite a few years. He is obsessive about performance in elite sports, and he is going to be very successful at Manchester United.”
Rival fans will bring up parliamentary select committee and (his role in) questions about Team Sky previously.
“I’m not interested in all that. Really, I’m not. You can keep harping on at the past but I am not interested in the past. I’m interested in the future. My view is he is a really good man and is really good at his job.
“That for me was all nonsense, in the past, I’m not not interested.”
Chelsea was a very busy process but there seemed to be less bidders for United? Why was that?
“Good question that.”
There was this Qatari guy (Sheikh Jassim) that no one’s ever seen it was very odd.
“Still nobody’s ever seen him, actually. The Glazers never met him… he never… I’m not sure he exists!” (laughs). I would say this but there is no comparison between Chelsea and Manchester United. The scale of Manchester United is incomparable to any of the London clubs to be honest with you.”
The SEC filing suggested Qataris did not provide the proof of funds…
“No, they didn’t, no.”
Were they really bidding against you or were you potentially the only bidder?
“I don’t know. They were they were obviously there and there was a whole host of people on the team in their squad… I didn’t ever meet them. But it was it was a very odd affair.”
There seemed to be a lot of background briefings – did they play clean?
“I’m not going to comment on that. I know what the answer is.”
They claimed the bid was a lot higher than it was .
“Yeah, that’s correct.”
Do Chelsea show how not to do things given their recent spending?
“I don’t want to finish up criticising Chelsea but what I would say is that in having bought other clubs in Lausanne and Nice – we have made a lot of cock ups. We’ve made some really stupid decisions in both those clubs. There’s a lot of organisations in the world where if you make a mistake, you get shot, so nobody ever puts their head above the parapet. But at INEOS, we don’t mind making people making mistakes but please don’t make it a second time. So with that, we’re much less than sympathetic when they make the same mistake twice. We have made mistakes in football so I’m really pleased that we made those mistakes before we arrived here in Manchester United. If we hadn’t, this would be a much tougher job for us. Because it is huge and it’s very exposed.”
What sort of player do you want at the club? Youngsters or superstars?
“We’re probably still debating what precisely is the style of football we want to play. If you look at Manchester City, they know precisely what the style of football is they want to play and all 11 teams at the club play the same formula. We need to do that, but I think in terms of the nature of the players, you want Manchester United types of players… attacking football, exciting football, bringing the youth through. You want players that are committed. You want players that play 90 minutes – those are the types of players you want playing for Manchester United. The academy is really really important for us. It’s probably the most successful academy in football in terms of number of players that have come through.”
“We’ll decide that style, plus the CEO, sporting director, probably the recruitment guys, what the style of football is and that will be the Manchester United style of football, and the coach will have to play that style. We’re not going to oscillate from a Mourinho style to Guardiola style. That’s not the way we’ll run the club. Otherwise you’re changing everything all the time, you change your coach, you’ve got the wrong squad we won’t do that. In modern football you need to decide what’s your path and stick to your path.
You are doing something today that has been very rare at Manchester United in recent decades: communicating. How important is it to reconnect the fans and the club?
“Again, I have a very simple view of a football club. It’s a community asset. The club is owned by the fans, that’s what it’s there for. For the fans. We’re guardians or stewards for a temporary period of time. I’m not going to be there forever. It is important we communicate to the fanbase. We underestimate how important an aspect it is of their life and how it affects their life. On a wet Monday morning in Manchester that’s the first thing you talk about when you go into the office or the factory, how did we do at the weekend and you either start off with a good week or a bad week depending how it went. It’s beholden upon us to… It’s not my job to do it on a frequent basis but it was quite important today that we are seen by the true owners, who are the fans really.”
You are sitting in front of a jersey in here where there is a No 7 on the back and the collar up. It looks like an Eric Cantona shirt.
“He was a maverick obviously. He was the catalyst for change in Ferguson’s era … and that kickstarted everything off. He was a talisman.
“There has always been a bit of glamour attached to Manchester United which has been lacking a bit in the last few years. You’ve had George Best, Bobby Charlton, Eric the King. At the end of the day we are in the entertainment business. You don’t want to watch bland football or characterless football. And to be honest, since Christmas, with the young lads, they have played some fantastic football. There have been some great matches. I can’t remember many matches at the beginning of the season I was really excited by. The three young lads sitting on the hoarding at the side. That was a good picture. So I think that’s the Eric point really. We are cognisant of that fact you do need a bit of glamour in this.”
Have you spoken to Sir Alex Ferguson much?
“I have. He was the first person I met when I went up there which I think was the second week of January and I had a meeting from 9am to 10am at his house and – I left at 1pm.
He never stopped. He’s got a lot of experience, a lot of stories to tell and a lot of thoughts about the club.
I don’t think he has been encouraged to get involved but he is still very thoughtful about the club and he has an immense amount of experience. He really understands the values and traditions of the club and what it’s all about. He’s still fiercely competitive, Alex Ferguson.”
You have mentioned Manchester City an awful lot in this conversation?
“Well they are one of the best teams on the planet.”
Are they a blueprint?
“Blueprint? (laughs) We have a lot to learn from our noisy neighbour and the other neighbour. They are the enemy at the end of the day. There is nothing I would like better than to knock both of them off their perch. Equally we are the three great northern clubs who are very close to one another. They have been in a good place for a while and there are things we can learn from both of them. They have sensible organisations, great people within the organisations, a good, driven and elite environment that they work in. I am very respectful of them but they are still the enemy.”
Would it help if they were found guilty of 115 breaches they are accused of by the Premier League?
“I would not wish that upon them. I don’t understand any of that. I just want to smash them on the football field.”
When you refer to knocking them off their perch… is that a knowing nod to Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous comments about knocking Liverpool off their perch?
“It is actually. He was the first one who came out with that expression. I am in the same place as Alex – 100 per cent. He was fiercely competitive and that is why he was successful. We have to be the same. I remember Queen Victoria was present at the first Americas Cup when we challenged America in 1851. They sent a yacht across called America. We had eleven yachts and we had a race around the Isle of White. It was hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron. In the end, the American boat – called America – won the race. Queen Victoria turned to the commodore and said ‘Did we come second?’ And the commodore said: ‘There is no second”
I think nice, Barca, Chelsea would have been a more of a transaction for him, Manchester United is different. Is is something he probably never dreamed of. This is a club he actually supports and loves. This is about legacy.
To be fair, he's keeping them sweet. The man didn't make billions from being an honest individual.
I still do wonder if the whole thing with Chelsea given it came after the deadline was a ruse of sorts to see if the Glazers could be smoked out. The bid was never gonna be allowed
Amazing
They seem pretty carefree giving the Glazers era a good kicking.
Hope you're right. If he sorts the stadium and keeps improving from the top. It'll be more than a great start. Achieving success on the pitch will take longer though. And it's here he'll be judged.
What would you want him to do? He has to work with them.
Honestly, I think he is pretty harsh on them given what he says about the state of the club the last 10 years.
They are the owners, so he's going to be carrying on keeping them sweet, which for pretty much all of the rest of what he said is going to become a problem.
He also doesn't make billions from spending loads of his own money so some other greedy bearded men can take all the benefit and profit from it..
This is kind of my point.
I tend to agree with this but if he’s in as much as a hurry as we think then he needs a bigger transfer window not to flex his financial muscles but instead to repair a decade of Mal Practice. We need 6 to 7 players in this summer and 11-12 out just to become a top 4 regular?
Ah, I see. I misunderstood. Yeah, it's not ideal. I hope his goal is to get full ownership at some point. For now I'm happy with what he is saying and most importantly doing. I think there are reasons to be optimistic, though. For the first time in forever we are seeing real change at a structural level. We'll see if he puts his money where his mouth is going forward, but I have hope.
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Sure, if this works those greedy bearded men make money. Either he takes full control or he makes a fortune we're great again prompting an oil state deciding buy them all out. That's said couldn't Ratcliffe have completely bought out the Glasers? Clearly they didn't want as much as the press were leading us to believe.
Sure, if this works those greedy bearded men make money. Either he takes full control or he makes a fortune we're great again prompting an oil state deciding buy them all out. That's said couldn't Ratcliffe have completely bought out the Glasers? Clearly they didn't want as much as the press were leading us to believe.
Even if he talks some bollocks about the Glazers I do appreciate his candour.
I bet the Glazers are delighted to be silent partners now. They never would have had the intelligence nor the communication skills to have done an interview like that.
Saying all the right words. Quite excited and happy that he got the opportunity to buy his part of the club. Let's hope that it will get us the success we've missed for a long time.
How do the Jassim supporters feel about this (and SJR in general, for that matter)?
Thought it was a brilliant interview.
He says all the right things, boyhood fan etc etc. Everything you want to hear. He’s a billionaire at the end of the day though and probably full of shit most of the time.
However, to be fair to him, if he’s in it purely for profit, there are better/easier football acquisitions out there.
However, to be fair to him, if he’s in it purely for profit, there are better/easier football acquisitions out there.
This is superbly said.
Do we know when the full MUTV interview will be out?
This guy really gives me the highest of hopes since fergie retired, patience is a must and his first steps so far have eluded to a man, a team, who knows what needs to be done.
Exciting times.
Let's hope he backs his words up.
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
It’s early days but he has spoken really well here. I am impressed with his ambition and the sense of his words. He has already brought in top class people to run the club and has spoken about improving the clubs infrastructure too which is great.
co-owners *
Pretty spot on with everything said - obviously time will tell if it’s backed up.
Particularly like the bits about how crap the last 11 years have been and how far behind Pool/City we are. Nice bit of honest realism compared to that pleb Arnold.
Particularly like the bits about how crap the last 11 years have been and how far behind Pool/City we are. Nice bit of honest realism compared to that pleb Arnold.
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