This is just the media drumming up unrest between fans and INEOS, they will be cutting a ton of stuff but only “perks” or what we deem unreasonable will be leaked/shown/made up.
Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side
- Thread starter Solius
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I don't think that's what it's about at all, but I know lots of people who worked for United over the years and most of them were on shockingly low wages for the roles they did, and the perks and rewards like this were a genuine incentive to stay and try to do well.
The vast majority of people who work there are United fans, as you'd expect, so it was fantastic for staff morale and genuinely something people looked forward to. Sadly, over the past 20 years it's just diminished and diminished, with this new move coming after decades of the Glazers slowly stripping away those perks.
Cutting low paid club staff perks good old Jim capitalist to the core
This is just life in general now, everywhere and every business is stripping back and offering the bare minimum it's unfortunate but it's not exclusive to United.
No, that's true, but a sad reflection on the culture of rewarding shareholders before employees - essentially the people who create the wealth. I would like United to be an example of the best in class when it comes to these things, as well as in regard to facilities, stadia and on the pitch.
As I've seen us do all those things in the recent past, I don't want to imagine that we cannot lead on those fronts ever again. And when it comes to the relationship between the club and its employees, arguably that is the easiest thing to fix.
I’ve a good feeling about this summer window coming up. I think we’re gonna be very proactive and try and sign most of our players before the tour. The quicker we bring players in the better and quicker they can get use to new surroundings. However it all depends on if we have to sell before we can buy.
Hey just out of interest what type of roles and what type of wages exactly?
Nightmare owners. Seems Muskesque.
They’ve come in as business owners trying to make us profitable. Fine if it wasn’t a football club. We need to spend money on refurb, players etc. not cut further costs and stripped away.
What cuts will they make to our first team? Get rid of high paid stars? At least they’ll get a nice dividends.
What
Well without going into specifics that could easily identify former staff, in the club museum there were long term employees that never got a raise other than when the club gave out blanket inflationary pay increases.
I worked there casually for a while and at another museum and was part of a pay review there, where roles were benchmarked against those elsewhere in the heritage and museums industry. This resulted in my salary being adjusted to be the same as someone more qualified than me and with 30 years experience at United. A year later I was earning more than that person and significantly more than someone doing the same role as I was at United.
When the people that worked at United in roles similar to mine left for sideways career moves at other museums (a notoriously low paid sector in general, I should add) their pay went up 30-50%. United, in my experience, just don't care about being competitive in the employment market or about retaining staff with a wealth of knowledge and experience. That's why they don't publish what they will be paying you when they advertise jobs.
I have sympathy for the lower paid staff, although I’m not sure I would expect any more than one free ticket for myself as an employee. There’s millions of fans all over the world and plenty without season tickets who go to games that won’t get a sniff. And if they do they’re paying an equivalent of a couple weeks wages on resell sites.
The players seem to have no shame at all in leaking that.
The players seem to have no shame at all in leaking that.
Yeah how dare they cut the perks and freebies for the wives and girlfriends of millionaires. They want to get their priorities right.
No cutting costs - spend the money on players and the stadium instead.
Thanks for sharing that. Interesting window into something I knew nothing about.
I think the club would have a huge advantage in recruiting because of the brand, and could easily see that translate to an ability to pay less than the going rates. Over time, I would think that advantage quickly shrivels into nothingness, as the "glam" of working for United (!) disappears and it turns out to be just another place of employment. When that happens, people start looking for ways to get paid what they're worth.
The thing is football itself, unless you’re a player, footballing staff member or on the executive board is a low paying industry.
I worked for an EFL club for 7 years and my pay went up three times in that period, only in line with inflation and one because of a club promotion.
Clubs rely on the good nature of people seeing it as a privilege to work for them, up and down the pyramid. If you look at the majority of roles advertised by clubs up and down the leagues, they’re all notoriously low paid.
Why do you assume it's the players and not staff? Why would players care about non-football related matters at the club?
There’s been tweets saying the players are pissed off that they have to pay for tickets for their family.
I was lucky to benefit from one of those tickets in the past and actually had to turn down one another time. What I noticed on the coach is that only one person on it didn't also work for the club in some capacity, as only full time permanent staff were given the tickets. The rest of us were the casual zero hour staff.
Tweets are not evidence.
Oh do give over!!
Cutting bloated payrolls and cutting unnecessary spending is exactly what will help to fund squad and infrastructure investments
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You're doing an awful lot of guessing about the nature of United's backroom and operations staff.Oh do give over!!
Cutting bloated payrolls and cutting unnecessary spending is exactly what will help to fund squad and infrastructure inve
They could probably make every manager reapply for their jobs and improve things though.
How is it guessing? It’s literally what’s been reported.
I’m not sure what point you’re making? Journalists put out tweets now instead of breaking things in newspapers. I’m simply commenting that if the story is true that the players are pissed if with having to pay for family tickets, that’s pretty shameful. Im not claiming I have evidence from players you weirdo.
Might be adding 2 and 2 and getting 5 but I get from that, that we're using Brailsford in a "representative" role to get Berrada and Ashworths ideas implemented early doors.
I agree that they will try to get business done early, but a quiet summer looks likely - upheaval behind the scenes, key personnel not yet in post, uncertainty over the manager and severe financial constraints owing to a lack of European football, will all be contributing factors. Two or three in (probably a CB, striker and, if Casemiro goes, a midfielder) would be my guess.
True. Think the manager situation will be sorted before anything els. We also probably need another wide forward aswell. If sancho leaves, we’ll only have Rashford, Garnacho and Antony, possibly Amad but he isn’t trusted yet.
Not sure if I'm being naive, but I share your thoughts too. I just don't think INEOS can afford to start slow and let the nerves/groans grow the longer the summer gets on.
“face-to-face and telephone” - must be some burner phones in the gardens
We’ll sign more than 2 or 3 players, I’m sure we will bring in 5 or 6 at least but they will probably be younger players with a lower profile than we’ve often seen.
INEOS are going to want to get a lot of these players off the books and they won’t have the luxury of only being able to sign 2 or 3 players. They can only get rid of so many in one window and that’s why they can’t waste it as it is just kicking the can down the road.
I doubt it.
Thanks for that! Very interesting but also just sad that United (and other football teams I'd assume) are that scammy.
It shouldn't surprise me but it does.
Doubt it.
Varane, Lindelof, Martial, Eriksen, Casemiro, Amrabat will leave 100% . That's 3 midfielders gone. Pretty sure we will sign a striker as well.
That's minimum.
Its general business practice when you're trying to establish new standards. You need to cull everything and start from the bottom up. It will always take someone's privileges away but it opens up new opportunity for others to stand up.
The stadium will get upgraded, we know that. The staff will get upgraded, we know that by the appointments being made. The squad will be improved. And we should also maintain that same culture across the club.
you've totally lost the plot. I love reading your posts about INEOS because I never know what unreasonable and just mental stuff you're going to say next. Imagine reading that article and THIS is the opinion you come away with.Not really impressed with two of their more immediate decisions.
The whole WFH fiasco just reeks of Ratcliffe being a bit of a boomer. It's especially audacious to ask them to come back when there isn't enough room for them there because some of the space got turned into hospitality. Also has there been any consideration at all for people who will have dramatically changed their lives due to WFH (got a pet, had a baby, moved house, etc..) only to have that torn away from them? Or any consideration for people with health issues that massively benefit from not having to commute/be in the office?
Cancelling the end of season awards dinner. The women's team just won the FA Cup and the U18s have been incredibly successful. What kind of message does this send to them? They don't matter?
The whole WFH fiasco just reeks of Ratcliffe being a bit of a boomer. It's especially audacious to ask them to come back when there isn't enough room for them there because some of the space got turned into hospitality. Also has there been any consideration at all for people who will have dramatically changed their lives due to WFH (got a pet, had a baby, moved house, etc..) only to have that torn away from them? Or any consideration for people with health issues that massively benefit from not having to commute/be in the office?
Cancelling the end of season awards dinner. The women's team just won the FA Cup and the U18s have been incredibly successful. What kind of message does this send to them? They don't matter?
And a bunch of important players in the women's team are at the end of their contracts and wondering ready to renew. Great way to incentivise them, Jim.
The return to office work screams of future layoffs to be honest. He is a businessman and he has invested into a failing business, I think we can expect him to be ruthless and rigid - rightly or wrongly.
I don't like the cancellation of the end of season awards, as you point out both the women's side and U18 deserve to be acknowledged for their achievements this season. That was poor, but also nothing new with the club - so difficult to pin that on Ratcliffe.
I’m glad they’ve decided to hire in best in class footballing people to do the sporting side because I’ve not liked a lot of the other stuff I’ve seen so far from Ineos
They’re not making the wrong decisions per se it’s how they’ve communicated them, what they’ve chosen to focus on (petty stuff like office tidiness, hybrid working, cancelling socials) and who/what they’ve failed to consider (eg the women’s team) - it’s probably killed a lot of the initial good will they had with support staff which can’t help overall performance.
The stadium stuff (pushing for public money) is fairly icky from a PR perspective as well and the leaks about selling 90% of our squad at the business end of the season was mental. They’ve also failed to be decisive one way or the other on Ten Hag which has fed into dressing room issues.
SJR is clearly a very intelligent, successful man but he’s showing himself to be quite out of touch and he needs better PR advice. If anything it’s been worse than the Arnold/Murtough days so far in that respect.
They’re not making the wrong decisions per se it’s how they’ve communicated them, what they’ve chosen to focus on (petty stuff like office tidiness, hybrid working, cancelling socials) and who/what they’ve failed to consider (eg the women’s team) - it’s probably killed a lot of the initial good will they had with support staff which can’t help overall performance.
The stadium stuff (pushing for public money) is fairly icky from a PR perspective as well and the leaks about selling 90% of our squad at the business end of the season was mental. They’ve also failed to be decisive one way or the other on Ten Hag which has fed into dressing room issues.
SJR is clearly a very intelligent, successful man but he’s showing himself to be quite out of touch and he needs better PR advice. If anything it’s been worse than the Arnold/Murtough days so far in that respect.
I think a lot of people have lost sight of who big Jim is in light of him not being a glazer or a semi imaginary sheikh. He is a (I believe) self made billionaire. The richest man in the UK. A staunch conservative voter. A resident of a tax haven. You don’t get to that point without being cold and ruthless. You don’t get to that point without trampling on those beneath you. These discussions are had in the CE forum all the time about billionaires and the like.
That’s not to say that I’m judging these moves as right or wrong, but we would do well to remember who Jim actually is outside of being the owner of Manchester United, because I would not be surprised to see more stories along these lines coming out as time goes by.
It would also be interesting to see if there’s any overlap between the posters who would talk about people like Bezos in the CE forum and those saying “Gwaan Jim, drain the swamp!” in here. Just because he’s our owner and will likely be better than the glazers doesn’t mean we have to pretend he’s a good guy or that all his decisions are things we agree with.