6 takeaways from Sir Jim Ratcliffe's first interviews as Man Utd co-owner

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now officially part of the Manchester United setup. Plenty is already going on behind the scenes, but the headlines in recent days have been dominated by the United-supporting billionaire giving his first collection of interviews with various media outlets.

Ratcliffe has spoken extensively a wide range of topics relating to his vision for the club now that he assumes responsibility for football operations and infrastructure.

Below are six key things to take away from all that has been discussed.

Benevolent owner

United fans believe their club to have been exploited as a cash cow for the past 19 years of Glazer ownership. There is no denying that money has been spent – and wasted – in the transfer market, but as much money has been taken out of United through shareholder dividends and debt management as has been invested into highly successful Manchester City over a similar period.

Amid increasingly poor optics, the Glazers took no dividend in 2022 for the first time in six years and again didn’t in 2023. Ultimately, the family have got rich off Manchester United at the club’s overall detriment. But Ratcliffe insists he isn’t in the game to make money.

"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. I'm not interested in the financial aspects of this investment at all, really, because I make enough money in chemicals and oil and gas really."

That in its own way is slightly morally dubious given the state of the planet thanks to the fossil fuel economy, but at least every penny and more that United make will now go back into the club.

When ratification for Ratcliffe's investment was nearing, prolific United author Wayne Barton drew comparisons with James Gibson, who rescued the club from the brink of financial oblivion in the 1930s and laid the foundations on which all the success of the last 80 years has been built.

Three-year plan: 2025-2028

As one himself, Ratcliffe knows that United fans have had to wait long enough and experienced too many false dawns to still have the patience for a long-term restoration. He has warned that a quick fix isn't possible because of how much needs doing, but equally is aware that any more than two or three years for visible signs of significant improvement is the upper limit.

"The fans would run out of patience if it was a ten-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 year by next season is not sensible. And if we give people false expectations, then they will get disappointed. I think the key thing is our trajectory so that people can see that we're making progress. I think it’s the club's 150th 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."

Firm but necessary

What is plain to see is that a lot of change is needed, in people as well as processes. Plenty of those in position over the last decade have not been successful in making Manchester United the best football club in the world, or even the north west of England, as it always aims to be.

Ratcliffe doesn't simply want to have mass staffing culls for the sake of it, but those who are in jobs have to be there because they are good and no other reason.

"We're not a sort of a brutal organisation really. But sometimes you do have to make decisions. And maybe not that popular.

"We need to populate all the key roles with people who are best in class, ten out of ten. You [also]
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 ten years."

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New Old Trafford

If it’s a case of renovating the current Old Trafford or building a new one next door, Ratcliffe would ideally prefer the latter. Ultimately, the ambition is to create a regenerative 'campus' rather like Manchester City have developed at their base a few miles east. His early estimate is £1bn for a refurb job, which perhaps isn’t value for money, or £2bn for a brand new stadium.

"What we can see so far is a really good case to refurbish Old Trafford, probably about £1bn in cost. You finish up with a great stadium, it’s probably 80,000-90,000. But it’s not perfect because you’re modifying a stadium that is slap-bang up against a railway line, so it’s not an ideal world. But you finish up with a very good answer.

"In an ideal world, I think it's a no-brainer, a [new] 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."

Dig at Qatar bid

An official filing from the US Securities and Exchange Commission repeatedly noted that throughout the bidding process, the Qatari bid fronted by Sheikh Jassim never provided proof of funds. They, of course, denied that to be true, but Ratcliffe too backed up the assertion and joked that he isn’t even sure if Sheikh Jassim is a real person because nobody ever met him.

"Still nobody's ever seen him, actually. The Glazers never met him…I'm not sure he exists! [laughs]. No, they didn't [provide proof of funds]. No. I don't know [if they were really bidding]. 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.

"I'm not going to comment on [whether Qatar played fair]. I know what the answer is. That's correct [they claimed their bid was a lot higher than it was]."

Defending Glazers with questionable logic

Ratcliffe obviously has to work alongside the Glazers moving forward. He may be the largest individual shareholder on the board, but the six siblings collectively outweigh him massively. What's more, the likelihood is that he will continue to try and increase his stake over time, which means forging positive relationships with the family and not being directly critical of their stewardship.

That being said, his specific praise for the Glazers was based on slightly bizarre logic, suggesting the easier route would have been to accept the Qatari bid and walk off into the sunset.

"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."

In reality, they can afford to sit back and let Ratcliffe and his team do all the work undoing the damage of the last 11 years, ultimately making the club more successful and therefore more valuable than it is right now. That will mean selling up in the future, potentially relinquishing a greater share to Ratcliffe, at a greater price than they could have achieved by selling outright to Sheikh Jassim. All the while, they retain all the perks of majority owning one of the world's biggest sporting brands.

Call a spade, a spade.

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