Has he passed his forklift drivers test?
Bloomberg: Jim Ratcliffe on plans for Man Utd
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This comment is completely ironic.
He makes very valid points but the proof in the pudding.
I think when he says he doesn't understand these things, he means he disagrees with these things. Negging.
The pace of change will frustrate some, but it really feels like he's putting the best people in place to run it. Talks about three summers, and I wouldn't be surprised to see us with a new manager in that time.
In the meantime, he's pressed ahead with the modernisation of the training ground and is going full steam ahead on Old Trafford. I cannot believe it's taken 20 years for someone at Manchester United to notice the massive investment opportunity of being in Manchester.
Yeah, it's best to be open-minded about it and see what he does instead of automatically assuming someone is evil because they have money like a narrow-minded troll person, or because you can't accept that someone voted a different way to you (also narrow-minded).
Honestly don't think there's a weirder fan base than United's, maybe Real with their sad booing but it's a stretch
"Hateful prick"? The actual feck is wrong with people?
"Hateful prick"? The actual feck is wrong with people?
I think he has done that already, in the interview he did hint that the decision to keep EtH was made by the team showing that he is hands off and is going to be hands off. He also let it known that a lot of things are waiting for Ashworth and Berrada who are two of the three pillars on the football side.
His admission that he is inexperienced at the nuts and bolts especially the awareness of that ignorance is refreshing because he won't be an overbearing owner which is great. I think right now he has the right level of involvement in the processes whilst also deferring to the experts he has brought in.
Talking is ok, but I would leave the talking until the end of the transfer window.
I think that applies to the multi club ownership / inability to sign Todibo, yeah. He was definitely more alluding to disagreement with the decision. Though the fact we haven't managed to get round it unlike other clubs (even taking into account the latest rule change) is a little worrying in terms of not being ahead of the situation and possessing the canny know-how of how to beat the system that those other clubs keep managing to do.
The other things that he says have surprised him / he doesn't know too much about - the depth of the issues at the club, the length of gardening leave, the way the PL operates, etc - I believe him when he says it. And I don't think that's great, as the first two especially overlap in terms of the fact that we're struggling to address key areas of the first one (the club issues) as quickly as ideal because of struggling in negotiations over the second (gardening leave).
They're the only negatives, though. That it just feels like he's playing 'catch up' with a lot that's surprised him, whereas I'd have hoped having been in club ownership and having, presumably, looked into the club a lot before investing over a billion, that a lot of these things wouldn't have been such a surprise to him and he'd have come in ready to work round them.
But generally I'm happy with most of what he's saying and the areas that he's already trying to address. Things won't happen overnight, obviously. And we're still in a position where we're being hampered by our mistakes of the past so that further complicates and delays things. It'll clearly take time and require patience on our part. But that patience needs to be earned as well by showing (understandably) slow but steady progress. So far you can see / hear what's trying to be done in the early stages and they would be positive steps forward if / when they come off.
A United fan and Chelsea's season ticket holder
Some of our left-wing working class fans were never going to be comfortable with a Tory Brexiteer owning the club so I understand the hostility from that perspective. I do prefer having a vocal owner to what we had before though.
I wonder if he'd still vote for Brexit now after realising how difficult it has made running an English football club?
I wonder if he'd still vote for Brexit now after realising how difficult it has made running an English football club?
You ok?
I can't imagine what it must be like to get this angry at absolutely nothing.
He covered his ass in that respect by stating that Madrid spent £200m net in a decade to our £1.1 billion, this clearly told me that he indeed does see this as a business, yes he loves the club however his refusal to sell Nice and his full advocacy of the multi club business model.
It’s clear he wants to buy young players around Europe, move the most talented to United and then potentially sell some of them at profit when they are 25, like he said Madrid have 6 or 7 players who could all fetch over €100m and United have none.
The PSR/FFP is not as big an issue as people think, the real issue is working cash and capital to facilitate transfers, he also mentioned quite brilliantly what I’ve been saying for ages that under UEFA and the squad ratio rule of 80% of turnover you need forecasters because the revenue is a moving number, like I said for 2024/25 season we can only spend 80% of our revenue generated from January 1st 2024 to December 31st 2024.
In other words we don’t know what the revenue is because the year of 2024 will feature no CL revenue only Europa league revenue, so will £650-675m of last year become £625-£650m.
If so 80% of that can be spent on Wages, Amortised Transfer, New Transfer and Agent Fees. This is why a deal like Zirkzee won’t happen not with an Agent receiving an upfront fee of £13m
Assume £625m, then a £520m threshold would be the limit of spend this year. We know the club owes £80-90m in amortised transfers, fees for Martinez, Antony, Casemiro etc, we know the wages will reduce significantly in two ways; 1) 25% EL clause and 2) losing high earners like Varane, Martial, Williams, and hopefully Casemiro which is £1million per week savings.
Wages are also being reduced at the employee level as well so we may reduce last years £330m to maybe £260m, that leaves an awful lot left for transfers and agent fees and that’s before any player is sold.
He made a Payment of $200m(£157m) of which £120m in April was used to pay off the revolving credit card facility, this was to appease the banks so the new transfer committee of Brailsford, Blanc, Wilcox and Matt Hargreaves could actually get deals done this summer. I’m sure SJR sees this very simply;
1. Reduce the Wage Bill
2. Get older players on huge wages sold or released
3. Maximise all sellable assets like Sancho, Casemiro, M Greenwood, AWB, Antony, Lindelof, Eriksen, DVB
4. Loan certain players from that list that can’t be sold
5. look at generating £10-20m from youth player sales like Alvaro Fernandez, Hanibal Mejbri etc.
6. Target Two CB’s, Two Midfielders, right winger and Striker
7. Sort out new contracts for Bruno and Mainoo before season starts
8. Make sure players are in early so the manager can get them on tour and find a pattern of play which improves the football.
So he has proved he can talk the talk but can he walk the walk? That remains to be seen.
Hopefully he is doing something about things like the stadium having the highest waterfall in the country rather than just complaining about them in interviews.
Hopefully he is doing something about things like the stadium having the highest waterfall in the country rather than just complaining about them in interviews.
I thought it was because owner funds injection changed our transfer budget under spending rules?
Without it, we could lose a max of an average of 5m per year… with it, rules say we can lose an average of 35m per year??
“He made a Payment of $200m(£157m) of which £120m in April was used to pay off the revolving credit card facility, this was to appease the banks”
Without it, we could lose a max of an average of 5m per year… with it, rules say we can lose an average of 35m per year??
“He made a Payment of $200m(£157m) of which £120m in April was used to pay off the revolving credit card facility, this was to appease the banks”
I mean half of the british contingent of this forum must have voted for it for it to have passed through.
Don't let this cesspool trick you into thinking it speaks for the fanbase, it's been overrun by whining weirdos who revel in negativity.
You act like he was born into wealth and didn’t work for what he has. I’d hardly say a man brought up in a council house in Failsworth can be called a “privileged prick”.
Good interview. Seems a bit unaware though. Talking about immigration but at the same time talking about setting up Nice to provide a conveyor belt of talent into United. He wants immigration to work for him but not other businesses who might need workers as well. Just not as glamorous as United.
It's so fecking tiring, this idealistic nonsense that just because an owner isn't perfect, they must be immoral or wrong.
He was the best available option. I don't agree with his politics, but they are within normal bounds. He seems to be involved in United for the right reasons. He's saying and so far doing sensible strategic things. So great. He has my support, for now.
The hate some of you frustrated guys have is really unhealthy. Tell me anything that is wrong with his comments? You hear nothing from the Glazers and now we have a co-owner who communicates and yet you have a meltdown. Some of you really deserve the mess this club is
A bid for a 27% minority share that would keep the Glazers in and still pulling the strings as majority owners certainly wasnt the best available option.
It doesn't matter. All businesses have issues like that. He's hired a top notch team to handle those issues and solve those problems. What matters is whether he has the desire to back them and to see it through, and so far he does.
And what was?
Sheikh Jassims offer for the whole club was a better option as was Sir Jim's original offer to buy all of the Glazers shares.
There were also apparently other offers on the table that wernt made public.
It never stops amazing me how easily English football fans jump into the beds of dictators, murderers and their best friends.
If you really think that way, just become a fan of City.
Id rather to listen to interviews like these to be honest. Its better than when he talks about business or about the govt.
True.
Though when you say "all business have issues like that..." one of the things that's a little worrying in the interview begins at 2.10 when he says "one of the biggest issues in Football, which I have to say I wasn't fully prepared for, is gardening leave..." As you say, he's close to appointing some top notch people who should hopefully improve us once they start. And the fact that there's gardening leave you'd think would have been taken into account when the issue of who runs those roles in the meantime and deals with a crucial summer transfer window, etc.
You'd have fully thought they'd have taken gardening leave into the equation and have a short term solution well in hand. Then he says that, and it does make it seem like we've been caught out a little there, not taking into the equation that we wouldn't have these people fully in place for the summer window.
But I'll leave it there as I am generally happy with the interview and the long term vision so far. And while I'm only just chatting about one or two negative areas, I know what this place is like - there's plenty of overly negative posters that people get rightly annoyed about, but that does tend to mean anyone mentioning any negatives (along with positives) gets lumped into the 'moaning' group as well!
Yeah, bids that were highly suspicious and doubtful. We all can dream buddy but time to wake up
This view never fails to stun me. How the feck can anybody work for billions and billions while others work their asses of for merely surviving? Why do we allow them to have this much money as it only brings vast problems and zero profit for anybody? We aren't you angry? Why the feck aren't you angry??
Makes me laugh.
Jim is getting hammered in here for being a Tory or supporting Brexit etc but the same dissenting voice would happily take actual murderers and despots.
If they sign us Mbappe I don't mind a few murders. People die anyway.
Finally some words of reason in this snowflaky thread.
Because if they've earned it through being good at their job (in this case Business), then it's not really any different to the comparatively small number of sports stars, actors, musicians, etc, who have become incredibly wealthy when plenty of others in those industries put just as much time and effort in but due to limited ability don't earn anywhere near as much.
Why be 'angry' that the likes of Messi and Ronaldo have earned so much more money than players working just as hard, but with far less ability, in non-league? Or Paul McCartney far wealthier than a hard working busker out in all weather?
Just like with those industries - where the numbers hoping for success are high but the numbers achieving it are low, same with start up businesses. Plenty of people start businesses and fail. Others achieve moderate success. A small number achieve huge success (and therefore wealth).
It was obviously going to be someone very wealthy who bought (into) United. Seems better that it's just a normal person who has worked hard to achieve the wealth they have than a legacy person or someone who has huge question marks over where that money came from (such as Abramovich).
Ehh, he was at the 99 final. That’s enough for me.A United fan and Chelsea's season ticket holder
I am 99% sure that the Brexit referendum wasn't done via a poll in the general forum.
This could be an answer if there was at least a little bit of proportionality in this system. I can live with someone earning some dozens of millions if they are good and brave in what they are doing. But this is not what we are talking about. We are talking about billionaires, that only bring problems into the world. A reasonable society would tax and expropriate them until they are cut to an okay level. Everything over 100 million is a crime to society.
There is zero evidence that Shiekh Jassim has got anything to do with any of those things though, INEOS however have $2bn worth of investment agreements with the Saudi Royal Commission.
There is absolutely no evidence of that, its just speculation
I suppose you can hate someone for their political affiliations but hating someone for their self made fortune is really sad and indicative of why this country is such a horrible fecking place these days.