Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side

Marcelinho87

Full Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2010
Messages
7,273
Location
Barnsley
Our season is over now apart from a cup final. However it was perfectly salvageable when Ratcliff took over. The mindset of this club of never, ever acting until the point where it's too late, has never made sense to me.
It’s evident he is playing the long game and awaiting the people he trusts to make the decisions instead of himself.
 

decorativeed

Full Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
12,472
Location
Tameside
I do and I know a lot about it. If you had your own company, there is no way you accept full remote work
If the staff had been hired specifically under those terms and conditions, there's nothing you can do about it. It's not the workers faults that they got a remote job when they were being offered and they should not be punished for it by the new owners.
 

Lash

Full Member
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
12,535
Location
Buckinghamshire
Supports
Millwall, Saint-Etienne
Absolutely spot on. So many people are happy to be effectively treated as peasants by their billionaire feudal lords. Just outright pathetic stuff.

They'll cut 100s of people at the bottom whose whole annual salary is probably less than the weekly equivalent of a couple of Antonys in the squad.

By all means, if they're shit at the job, get rid but do it properly. Don't try some slimy tactic or forcing people who have a life set up hundreds of kilometers away from the office, so you can save some pennies. It's just pathetic.
It's speculation on my part, but this seems like they're doing as easiest route to slimming the workforce.
 

Malons

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Feb 29, 2024
Messages
139
This isn't what's happening.
It's what always happens. We wait for it to be a mathematical impossibility to qualify for the Champions League and only then will we act. Seeing the car hurtling towards the cliff has never been an indication to this club that maybe action is required to stop it. Instead we wait until it goes over and then decide things have gone too far. It's not a one off, it's a pattern.


"The house is burning but not everyone's dead yet, so acting now to prevent things getting worse would be premature"
 

Remember the geese

Full Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2018
Messages
7,270
Location
Northampton
It's what always happens.
This is your problem. The Glazers aren't running this show anymore. There is no "always" about this situation. It's the first of it's kind under new leadership. Very obviously and very sensibly, Ratcliffe isn't going to sack someone without the guidance of top professionals.
 

Vault Dweller

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
6,739
Location
Vault 88, The Commonwealth
I do hybrid working for where I work and I love it. Feel far more motivated in my daily role and my team / department have improved during the period.
I understand that Ineos feel they need to make changes to try and correct the culture of the club, that's fair enough. But to just completely scrap working from home for all employees seems over the top, and while you get rid of many employees not motivated or up to it, you lose a lot of good staff who have benefitted from the WFH method and who would do better under greater leadership.
 

CM

Full Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2014
Messages
7,418
I do hybrid working for where I work and I love it. Feel far more motivated in my daily role and my team / department have improved during the period.
I understand that Ineos feel they need to make changes to try and correct the culture of the club, that's fair enough. But to just completely scrap working from home for all employees seems over the top, and while you get rid of many employees not motivated or up to it, you lose a lot of good staff who have benefitted from the WFH method and who would do better under greater leadership.
It feels like a move designed to give off the illusion of provoking change rather than a well thought out strategy. It's hardly innovative.

As you say you're just as likely to create disillusionment among good workers as you are weeding out the bad ones.
 

buchansleftleg

Full Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2014
Messages
3,756
Location
Dublin, formerly Manchester
I started working for United back in 2013. I honestly could not believe how low the standards were there.

I worked alongside some of the most useless, talentless, rude and grumpy people I had ever met in the workplace, and they were essentially the public face of the club. These were customer-facing staff and the people giving the experiences and making the first (in in many cases) final impressions of Manchester United for visitors from all over the world.

Most of them were hired straight out of school because they were related to some other awful person who also worked there, and came with no experience and we're given a couple of days training by more senior awful members of staff, so the bad attitudes and poor standards were baked right in from the start. People who wouldn't pass their probation period in your local Tesco metro became fixtures on the ironically named 'welcome desk' for the next decade.

There were some amazing people there, but the management were unable to identify or support them (this doesn't refer to me, by the way - I've no personal axe to grind there), as they were largely too busy getting pissed and/or shagging the waiting staff they'd hired.

Every single decision made there was based on how cheaply and easily it could be done and how much more they could squeeze out of the visitor. Nothing else mattered.
This is a real insight into what has been going on and reflects things others I know who work at the club have said.

As to those saying "good riddance" to staff not wanting to work flexibly then I say this. Do you expect that the ONLY people to leave will be the bad apples as described in the above post?

Newsflash! - every team reorganisation / call for voluntary redundancies / trick to get people to leave that I've ever seen or heard about - the LAST people to leave are the worst offenders and you will usually lose a lot of the BEST people in the process. The more cack-handed and clumsy / brutal the process is, the more likely that the best people just get out ASAP.

It's still early days of course but I've yet to see any substantial improvement in the club beyond having more briefings to tame journalists. I hope that is being used as a smokescreen for ACTUAL things happening in the background, otherwise we are just getting "Glazer-Lite" with better PR.
 

Vault Dweller

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
6,739
Location
Vault 88, The Commonwealth
It feels like a move designed to give off the illusion of provoking change rather than a well thought out strategy. It's hardly innovative.

As you say you're just as likely to create disillusionment among good workers as you are weeding out the bad ones.
Indeed!
 

flameinthesun

Full Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
2,094
Location
London
I hope the decisions Jim and Ineos make in regards to United aren't based on poor metrics such as email traffic....
 

golden_blunder

Site admin. Manchester United fan
Staff
Joined
Jun 1, 2000
Messages
120,600
Location
Dublin, Ireland
I started working for United back in 2013. I honestly could not believe how low the standards were there.

I worked alongside some of the most useless, talentless, rude and grumpy people I had ever met in the workplace, and they were essentially the public face of the club. These were customer-facing staff and the people giving the experiences and making the first (in in many cases) final impressions of Manchester United for visitors from all over the world.

Most of them were hired straight out of school because they were related to some other awful person who also worked there, and came with no experience and we're given a couple of days training by more senior awful members of staff, so the bad attitudes and poor standards were baked right in from the start. People who wouldn't pass their probation period in your local Tesco metro became fixtures on the ironically named 'welcome desk' for the next decade.

There were some amazing people there, but the management were unable to identify or support them (this doesn't refer to me, by the way - I've no personal axe to grind there), as they were largely too busy getting pissed and/or shagging the waiting staff they'd hired.

Every single decision made there was based on how cheaply and easily it could be done and how much more they could squeeze out of the visitor. Nothing else mattered.
Do you still work for them?
 

MadDogg

Full Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2002
Messages
16,034
Location
Manchester Utd never lose, just run out of time
That’s exactly what he is doing but some will say(as in your first paragraph)it’s screwing the normal workers.

This club has needed root and branch reform for over a decade and thankfully its finally happening(if he is of the opinion that WFH is not going to be allowed as part of his overall then so be it).
There are plenty of jobs where you can be just as productive while working from home, and indeed last time I looked into it most studies showed that people were generally more productive when they could.

On the flip side, there are some jobs where hybrid or full time office work are required (I certainly couldn't WFH in my current job for instance), so I've got no problem with a company enforcing it for those positions. But a blanket rule over everyone? Nope.

This particular decision (eliminating WFH) isn't going to just get rid of the worst workers. Not unless all the people working from home happen to be the worst workers, which I find incredibly difficult to believe. It's almost certain this is just about getting people to quit so that he saves money on having to pay redundancies and whatnot. He wants to reduce how many staff we have (which is fair since we do seem to have too many by all reports), and this decision will help with that. The issue is that if anything the good workers are more likely to leave as they will have more options, while the lazy and non-productive won't back themselves to get other work so will stay.
 

Lyng

Full Member
Joined
Jun 1, 2012
Messages
5,258
Location
Denmark
It feels like a move designed to give off the illusion of provoking change rather than a well thought out strategy. It's hardly innovative.

As you say you're just as likely to create disillusionment among good workers as you are weeding out the bad ones.
Spot on.
 

Werd.

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jun 12, 2009
Messages
1,304
I started working for United back in 2013. I honestly could not believe how low the standards were there.

I worked alongside some of the most useless, talentless, rude and grumpy people I had ever met in the workplace, and they were essentially the public face of the club. These were customer-facing staff and the people giving the experiences and making the first (in in many cases) final impressions of Manchester United for visitors from all over the world.

Most of them were hired straight out of school because they were related to some other awful person who also worked there, and came with no experience and we're given a couple of days training by more senior awful members of staff, so the bad attitudes and poor standards were baked right in from the start. People who wouldn't pass their probation period in your local Tesco metro became fixtures on the ironically named 'welcome desk' for the next decade.

There were some amazing people there, but the management were unable to identify or support them (this doesn't refer to me, by the way - I've no personal axe to grind there), as they were largely too busy getting pissed and/or shagging the waiting staff they'd hired.

Every single decision made there was based on how cheaply and easily it could be done and how much more they could squeeze out of the visitor. Nothing else mattered.
Shagging the waitstaff :lol:

Reminds me of a multinational I previously worked at where there were weekly management only orgy sessions with the hot P.As they hand-picked for recruitment..
 

Rightnr

Wants players fined for winning away.
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
14,699
And yet we had people saying for years Carrington was good enough and people were complaining unnecessarily.

INEOS seem to have made the correct call on all football topics except for the manager so far which is promising.
 

Roboc7

Full Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2014
Messages
6,728
This is a real insight into what has been going on and reflects things others I know who work at the club have said.

As to those saying "good riddance" to staff not wanting to work flexibly then I say this. Do you expect that the ONLY people to leave will be the bad apples as described in the above post?

Newsflash! - every team reorganisation / call for voluntary redundancies / trick to get people to leave that I've ever seen or heard about - the LAST people to leave are the worst offenders and you will usually lose a lot of the BEST people in the process. The more cack-handed and clumsy / brutal the process is, the more likely that the best people just get out ASAP.

It's still early days of course but I've yet to see any substantial improvement in the club beyond having more briefings to tame journalists. I hope that is being used as a smokescreen for ACTUAL things happening in the background, otherwise we are just getting "Glazer-Lite" with better PR.
It’s going to take a while to sort out though, Utd is essentially a business that is stagnant or failing in a lot of areas but has a huge wage bill and employs way more people than the other top clubs. INEOS have to try and get to the bottom of it all and I can understand why in these circumstances they want people back in the office.
 

Tom Van Persie

No relation
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
24,912
And yet we had people saying for years Carrington was good enough and people were complaining unnecessarily.

INEOS seem to have made the correct call on all football topics except for the manager so far which is promising.
It can be upgraded but will it ever be to standard they want? Probably not. It's the same debate going on with building a new stadium vs upgrading OT.
So what is it, are we moving to another training complex or are we upgrading the current one (as per Mike Keegan)?
If INEOS believe a new training ground is needed then I think they will go with that. Might not happen straight away though. It was reported not long that the club have looked into new locations and buying land. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...preliminary-talks-one-club-possible-move.html
 

RedRocket9908

Full Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2023
Messages
2,645
Location
Manchester
Our season is over now apart from a cup final. However it was perfectly salvageable when Ratcliff took over. The mindset of this club of never, ever acting until the point where it's too late, has never made sense to me.
ETH should have been sacked after the Fulham embarrasment when we still had a chance of a Champions League place but instead he has kept his job and continued to produce embarrasing Football week after week whike dropping out of contention for top 4, we have just put in one of the worst performances in history and shipped 4 goals at Crystal Palace and yet still INEOS have taken no action.
 

Red in STL

Turnover not takeover
Joined
Dec 1, 2022
Messages
10,204
Location
In Bed
Supports
The only team that matters
It's what always happens. We wait for it to be a mathematical impossibility to qualify for the Champions League and only then will we act. Seeing the car hurtling towards the cliff has never been an indication to this club that maybe action is required to stop it. Instead we wait until it goes over and then decide things have gone too far. It's not a one off, it's a pattern.


"The house is burning but not everyone's dead yet, so acting now to prevent things getting worse would be premature"
In the old days that used to mean someone was late for training!
 

bond19821982

Last Man Standing champion 2019/20
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
10,446
Location
Nnc
All positive things but I would wait before I jump . The one thing I have learnt by supporting United is not to trust the PR things.

Show me the results and I will start supporting it.
 

doubleohseven

New Member
Newbie
Joined
May 9, 2024
Messages
22
New training ground, new stadium, new recruitment strategy, new administration....

....new manager Southgate?

The last is the type of decision Ineos need to be based on, though it is good to see them non-Glazer the place, that's obvious.
 

Escobar

Shameless Musketeer
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
Messages
30,272
Location
La-La-Land
If the staff had been hired specifically under those terms and conditions, there's nothing you can do about it. It's not the workers faults that they got a remote job when they were being offered and they should not be punished for it by the new owners.
Yeah right, as if the employer cannot change anything and needs to follow the employees commands. If they dont like it, resign
 

Big Ben Foster

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
13,177
Location
BR -> MI -> TX
Supports
Also support Vasco da Gama
Brailsford is an absolute charlatan. People that have him down as some genius are going to be really disappointed.
Let me guess what your argument is going to be. He talks a big game, but at the end of the day all his success is due to PEDs?