by The Glazers are hanging on but new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is giving Old Trafford much-needed hope by taking control of football. With a 13-month sales saga finally over, Telegraph Sport details the main characters in Manchester United’s next move:
The main actors
Sir Jim Ratcliffe – co-owner who takes control of sporting affairs
Britain’s most ambitious billionaire sports investor finally takes home the prize he’s been chasing. Having previously been burned in attempts to buy a Premier League giant, Ratcliffe played the long game and, this time, the cute game. No-one was willing to meet the Glazers’ £6bn valuation so Ratcliffe adapted his offer in the summer, agreeing to buy 25 per cent instead with the precondition that he took control of the sporting affairs. United will be the jewel in the sporting crown for a man who has led the sporting ground grab for over five years.
For the first 20 years of its existence no one but business junkies had really heard of the chemicals multinational Ineos, let alone the man who owned it. But Ratcliffe’s profile has rocketed with acquisitions including Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup team, Team Sky, Ligue 1 Nice, Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon challenge, All Blacks investment and a stake in Mercedes F1.
The son of a carpenter and office worker who grew up on a council estate in Failsworth, Greater Manchester – hence his lifelong support for United – Ratcliffe is a proud, unapologetic entrepreneur and engineer. This is a man who faced the unions in Grangemouth, who had little time for environmental campaigners in Yorkshire in 2019 when they protested his efforts to drill in several parts of the county.
His tough deal-making background served Ratcliffe well for his 13-month saga with the Glazers. He realized by the summer that all he had to do was strike a deal by going into partnership. But in return for a 25 per cent cut deal for £1.24bn, Ratcliffe has full control of football
Sir David Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc – new football board members
Ratcliffe is to turn to two of his most senior staff in his sporting empire as he plots how to turn United around. Two key figures at Ineos are to be handed board membership roles on the football side as part of a major overhaul of operations which will accelerate by the summer.
Brailsford is the man who brought “marginal gains” to British Cycling but has overseen Ineos Sport from 2021 and has already appeared at Carrington on fact-finding missions.
Ratcliffe’s confidence in Brailsford has helped the performance specialist bounce back to the top after a controversial period in which questions of integrity were raised for British Cycling during his golden era at the helm. Brailsford’s philosophy at Ineos is to share best practice between different sports to achieve superior performance. “Take nutrition,” he said during the summer at the Tour de France. “You can take what you learn best from there, and transfer it into football or the sailing team.”
Jean Claude Blanc, Chief Executive Officer of Ineos Sport, is a more recent recruit and arrived last December to coincide with a major improvement in Nice’s fortunes in Ligue 1. Although Brailsford’s pedigree is in other sports, a football administrator with Blanc is experienced, having been a former officer. marketing executive of Paris Saint-Germain and former CEO of Juventus.
John Reece and Rob Nevin – the company’s new board members
Reece is Ratcliffe’s chief financial officer as finance director at Ineos. Reece joined the chemicals conglomerate in 2000, less than two years after its founding, and has played a key role in the company’s massive success, having helped Ineos oversee the acquisition of two chemicals businesses from BP in 2021 for $5 billion .
Reece derives his fortune from his minority stake in Ineos and, according to Forbes, is worth £6bn. Meanwhile, Nevin is chairman of Ineos Sport and was part of the group, along with Brailsford and Claude Blanc, that visited Old Trafford in March. Previously he was business director and CEO of Ineos Nitriles.
Nevin has 40 years of commercial experience in the petrochemical business, having joined BP in 1981 as a graduate engineer and has spent more than half of his career in manufacturing at various BP sites.
Joel Glazer – co-executive chairman and owner
The starting roles of the Glazers are no more and the new Ratcliffe era is the beginning of a more harmonious relationship with the club’s fans. However, while other siblings are fading away as sleeping partners, 56-year-old Joel is likely to want to be closer to operations, albeit on a more marginalized basis.
Ratcliffe may find a more active point of contact than Avram. Some like him much better as he is seen as the most committed of all the siblings to United, having previously been in charge of approving big player moves.
Dictating club business from his office in Washington DC, Joel is a regular at Tampa Bay Buccaneers but not at Old Trafford. Promised efforts to increase dialogue with fans since the collapse of the Super League plot have also been heartbreaking.
“We also understand that we need to communicate better with you, our fans, because you will always be at the heart of the club,” he wrote in 2021 during the height of the supporter’s anger.
Supporting cast
The Glazers
Since the siblings inherited their sporting empire from father Malcolm, Avram is usually standing shoulder to shoulder with Joel at United. Both will be handsomely rewarded as they go behind the scenes, with Kevin, Bryan, Edward and Darcie also counting their profits. The Glazers, who will now largely take a backseat role at the club, will pocket around £650m from the sale of Class B shares.
The executive team
The departure of Richard Arnold as chief executive, replaced on an interim basis by United general counsel Patrick Stewart, was a sign of intent from Ratcliffe weeks before the deal was announced. Blanc and Brailsford will have the biggest day-to-day influence on the new structure but it remains to be seen whether a new long-term CEO will be brought in.
Sports directors
John Murtough is expected to play a part in the transition period despite uncertainty over his position as director of football. Telegraph Sport reported that Crystal Palace’s Dougie Freedman, former Tottenham head of recruitment Paul Mitchell, Atalanta’s Lee Congerton, former AC Milan duo Paolo Maldini and Atlético Madrid’s Ricky Massara and Andrea Berta were all under consideration for roles at the club.
Coaches and players
United have spent more than £400million with mixed results under Erik ten Hag, but Ratcliffe ruled out rushing into any decisions as the January window expires and the Premier League is still assessing his credentials. Ten Hag is supported by Ineos for the short term. It will also be a quick priority to find a solution to the future of England winger Jadon Sancho, who has been in exile since the beginning of September after falling out with Ten Hag.
Bettors and breakers
Raine’s New York-based Colin Neville and his colleagues are set to walk away with millions for brokering the deal, but a test of Premier League directors and owners is likely to spend at least another month assessing Ratcliffe’s eligibility as an investor. in the Premier League. With Nice flying high, the French club may also need a board restructuring to ensure Ineos can comply with Uefa’s multi-club ownership rules for Europe next season.
