by The beginning of the end for the Glazers or a consolidation of their hold on Manchester United? The main question is that of Sir Jim Ratcliffe taking a £1.3bn, 25% stake in the club and it may take years to answer. For now, the main issue addressed is the demand for a “complete sale now” made by fans in the 11 months since the Florida family began a “process to explore strategic options.”
Has a sale ever been completely realistic? That depends on your faith in Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani. As the Qatari billionaire withdrew in October, more details were revealed about his plans to block the club in a Jim Bowen “you could have won” way than during his courtship. Complaints of “extremely bogus valuation” featured prominently in the entry which became an admission that Ratcliffe had “won” the process. What followed from sources was the suggestion that a minority was his first step towards total control, the ultimate price to be determined by the success of the partnership in the coming years.
Related: Sir Jim Ratcliffe completes deal to buy minority stake in Manchester United
Some United fans will not forgive Ratcliffe for allying himself with the Glazers but again, realism comes into play. How was another agreement to be reached? Ratcliffe has a reputation in the business world as a go-getter, for being a tenacious, innovative negotiator. Minority shareholders can wield considerable power, as United fans can recall from the club’s plc days two decades ago, when the Irish Cubic Production consortium and the Glazers themselves made significant waves.
Ratcliffe won’t be the mother-daughter, ironically amiable Sheikh Mansour or Roman Abramovich but United always washed their face as a business until the current economic consequences, high inflation and rising interest rates, began to pushing debt levels close to £1bn. There has never been a need for state-owned ownership of the kind that may now be out of fashion, with financial constraints on Newcastle’s Saudi consortium much tighter than during Manchester City’s splurge and in light of the Qatari recession, the which former chief executive Ed Woodward likened to “selling diamonds”. in Paris Saint-Germain.
Ratcliffe and his Ineos team assuming that sports discipline suggests a form of executive power. If the Glazers are loath to use the club as an ATM and not properly service the debt that the late patriarch, Malcolm, laid on the club in 2005, then United’s sporting failure is most damaging to their sovereignty. That the Glazers have confirmed spending of £1.5bn on players since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has been used as a cushion by a dwindling number of advocates, but the accepted truth is that the club is suffering greatly from a lack of direction and expertise.
It has long been true that the football boardroom can confuse even the most business-minded. Mike Ashley and Lord Alan Sugar were highly regarded retail operators but made the mistake of trying to run their football clubs, Newcastle and Tottenham, like their other businesses. Both succeeded in progressing in football but did not win many friends. Adding sums is not a popular route. Both went into football with no experience and Ratcliffe, in relation to Ashley and Sugar, is much richer financially and has had previous, if not impossible, sporting success.
Critics claim that his Team Ineos-Grenadiers cycling team is not as big as the Team Sky he rebranded, that Sir Ben Ainslie never took the America’s Cup under the Ineos sail. The success of FC Lausanne in Switzerland and Nice in France is chosen although the latter is the runner-up in Ligue 1. There are those who distrust chief adviser Sir Dave Brailsford’s “marginal gains” but there are faint echoes of the Glazers’ early years at Ineos running the sporting side and the Glazers looking after the business side when Ferguson was backed by David Gill on the football side of United, and Woodward was in charge of the commercial side. It is the end game, if repeating the success of that era is a distant dream.
Related: René Meulensteen: ‘Manchester United has created a lot of negative pressure’
In Ratcliffe’s previous swoop for a club, Chelsea, in 2022, he went around Raine’s sales process, the same group that works for the Glazers, only to withdraw almost as quickly. More doubts about opportunities against the “red top” who was born in Failsworth? Some Chelsea fans may now be wondering how their reign could compare to Todd Boehly’s winning bid under Todd.
From within United itself, as the bidding process continued, the criticism was heavily guarded. Last season was a great success and the team is already falling short of this season’s goals. The handling of Mason Greenwood and subsequent allegations made – and denied – against Antony have made unwanted headlines. Richard Arnold, the chief executive who tried a more open policy than his predecessor Woodward, came under heavy criticism and left even before the new arrangement was officially in place. With the arrival of Ratcliffe, without someone to take a back seat and critical of operations during the initial scouting meetings, the future of the club’s entire executive class is in doubt. His faith in Erik ten Hag was said to be firmer than many other United supporters ‘although that may have changed in recent weeks. John Murtough, a low-profile, low-energy director of football, is likely to be on the casualty list.
Ratcliffe’s 25% stake raises many such questions, including the composition of the divisions between the Glazer siblings – who wants to cash in, who wants to stay? – the now heavy debt, a complicated “A” and “B” equity structure and an old stadium with a leaky roof. Even a self-made man worth almost £30bn can’t cure all ills but perhaps his fresh approach can lighten the damp Old Trafford air. The only other credible outcome after so many months of wrangling was the blur that the Glazers were in complete control.
