by Sir Jim Ratcliffe has echoed two of Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous lines as he vowed to knock “noisy neighbours” Manchester City and Liverpool “off their pitch” within three years as he sets out his vision to rebuild the Red Devils .
Ratcliffe, 71, is now co-owner of the club he has supported since the age of six after buying a 27.7 per cent stake that delegates control of football operations to his company Ineos.
He set out his ambition to challenge City and Liverpool for domestic and European silverware, using the famous former United manager’s sentiment, but asked fans to be patient, insisting that it will take it took at least two or three seasons for Ineos to acquire the club. to where he wants them to be.
In 2002, Ferguson said his “biggest challenge was to get Liverpool right off their f*****g ground”, going on to overtake their league title rivals, while naming City as the “acoustic neighbours”.
In the longer term, he wants to work with the public sector on building a new £2billion stadium to revitalize the area around Old Trafford, which is set to host England games and the FA Cup finals, or the current site be redeveloped at cost. of £1billion.
“We have a lot to learn from our exposed neighbor and the other neighbor (Liverpool). They are the enemy at the end of the day,” Ratcliffe said.
“There’s nothing I’d like better than to get them both off the perch. Likewise, we are the three great northern clubs that are very close to each other.
“They’ve been in a good place for a while and there are things we can learn from them. They have sensible organizations, great people within the organizations, a good, committed and elite environment in which they work.
“I respect them a lot but they are still an enemy.”
Asked about the time frame for making United truly competitive, Ratcliffe added: “It’s not a light switch. It’s not an overnight change – it will take two or three seasons.
“You have to ask the fans for patience. I know the world likes instant gratification these days but that’s not really the case with football.
“It’s not a 10-year plan. The fans would run out of patience if it was a 10 year plan. But it’s definitely a three-year plan to achieve that.”
Ratcliffe, whose investment in club infrastructure will increase his stake in United to 28.9 per cent by the end of the year, recognizes the importance of having a modern, fit-for-purpose stadium.
He said the focus would be on a stadium in the north to compete with Wembley as the venue for major matches in England, or to redevelop Old Trafford.
“There’s a very good case for refurbishing Old Trafford, probably around £1billion in cost, or something like that,” he said.
“You end up with a great stadium, probably 80 or 90,000 seats. But it’s not perfect because you’re modding a stadium that’s slap bang up against a rail line and all that kind of stuff, so it’s not an ideal world. But you end up with a very good answer.
“There is this wider conversation with the community about whether you could use a more ambitious project on the site as a catalyst to revitalize the Old Trafford area. There is a strong case for using a stadium to regenerate that area, as the Olympics did, as Seb Coe did with that part of East London. City have done it and they’ve done a pretty good job (regenerating the Eastlands).”
Both of those projects had state support, and Ratcliffe saw no problem with United achieving that.
“The people in the north pay their taxes like the people in the south pay their taxes,” he said.
“But where is the national football stadium? It is in the south. Where is the national rugby stadium? It is in the south. Where is the national stadium for tennis? It is in the south. Where is the national concert stadium? It’s the O2, it’s in the south. Where is the Olympic Village? It is in the south.
“There’s all this talk about leveling up and the Northern Powerhouse… where’s the northern stadium? How many Champions Leagues have the north west won and how many Champions Leagues has London won? The answer to that is that 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 FA Cup semi-final and you’re a northern club? You have to schlep down to London, don’t you? People in the north pay their taxes and there is an argument that you could think of a more ambitious project in the north that would suit England, the Champions League final or the FA Cup final and act as a catalyst for the south of Manchester to revive. , which has a significant history in the UK.”
