Bloomberg: Jim Ratcliffe on plans for Man Utd

Why do you all keep saying he's a Tory?

He's literally just backed Labour and mentioned it repeatedly in the interview.
 
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??

Pardon? I was quoting the previous poster who made out that he’d had it all handed to him.
I think you need to calm down a bit mate.
 
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??
The richer you are the more you're taxed and rightly so. But you can't just say 'hey, you've made so much more money than others we should be able to take it from you arbitrarily because other people feel like they deserve it more'. That's not how any western society or economy can work. And by taxing 100% of earnings over a certain amount then you're not just destroying rich peoples freedoms, you're making poor people poorer too by preventing the tax gained from those earnings coming in. If you want to talk about tax avoidance or evasion then fine, but don't believe that the system you're devising could serve any good purpose, it's narcissism and envy and that's it.
 
Last edited:
What I took from Jim's interview is that his investment is much more than Man UTD.

I think his team once established will run the club, Jim himself will be focussed on the land and investment opportunities around OT and Manchester in general.
 
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.
Oh, so you pretty much would have been dead set against anyone who bought (into) the club, as they'd have all needed to have far more than that? And everyone whose the owner of most other clubs, really. Especially in top flights. I mean, £100 million doesn't quite even get you one player like Declan Rice or Enzo Fernandez at the moment.

Not much I can say about that really. I guess I don't share those strong anti-views that you have, and so was just judging it on which inevitably wealthy person it was. I guess if you're starting off point is, whichever it is, it's a crime to society, then they were always going to fall into that group.
 
Why do you all keep saying he's a Tory?

He's literally just backed Labour and mentioned it repeatedly in the interview.
I was wondering about that myself, actually. :lol:

I'm not interested in politics so kept skipping through parts of that section seeing if he got back onto United, but from what I could make out he seemed to be backing Labour so was surprised to read about him being a Tory and thought I must have got the wrong end of it by skipping bits.
 
Oh, so you pretty much would have been dead set against anyone who bought (into) the club, as they'd have all needed to have far more than that? And everyone whose the owner of most other clubs, really. Especially in top flights. I mean, £100 million doesn't quite even get you one player like Declan Rice or Enzo Fernandez at the moment.

Not much I can say about that really. I guess I don't share those strong anti-views that you have, and so was just judging it on which inevitably wealthy person it was. I guess if you're starting off point is, whichever it is, it's a crime to society, then they were always going to fall into that group.

I think his point is that the whole Ratcliffe worshipping that's going on by some is a bit cringey considering that the guys seems to be a bit of a cnut. Just because he owns us it doesn't mean I will suddenly support every decision he makes. So far there has been a lot of talk from him but not much more. Let's see how he does. I sure as hell am not impressed by some talk in an interview
 
Guy voted for the tories at the last election and now says he's had enough of Sunak and the tories.

'Having seen the way the Tory Party has performed in the last five to six years I found myself completely unable to vote for them again.'

So yea not a "tory scum" at all the way some are trying to make out.
 
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!
I am not really worried about him as long as he remains inclined towards trusting the professionals. It seems a lot will rest on the shoulders of Berrada and Ashworth, in particular, and we are all in agreement with the broad outlines we can deduce from the little we have heard Berrada say and what Ashworth has done in his career so far.

It's just that the Glazers have made a series of costly mistakes that could hold us back for at least three more years if we follow PSR to the letter. In that regard, even though I vehemently disagree with the decision to keep him, Ten Hag's willingness and ability to blood in youngsters becomes critical. If he can add two to three first team quality youngsters we will be fine as that reduces the capital outlay required for new signings.

Philosophically he is on the right path but it all depends on execution and whether in the heat of the moment, during negotiations, we stay true to our overarching strategy.
 
The whole situation with Nice and Tobido. That's the sort of thing that would have been entirely predictable to forsee and I don't get what whinging about it like a spoilt child is going to do to help.

C'mon noods, nobody actually believed we'd qualify for the Europa League by winning the FA Cup.
 
Interesting interview. Good to see that Madrid is the benchmark they want to catch. That will take awhile.

Sooner the core of the mgmt team is in situ and working the better.

Shame about tobido.
 
Interesting interview. Good to see that Madrid is the benchmark they want to catch. That will take awhile.

Sooner the core of the mgmt team is in situ and working the better.

Shame about tobido.
Our fans would prefer if we become the new Forest it seems
 
Guy voted for the tories at the last election and now says he's had enough of Sunak and the tories.

'Having seen the way the Tory Party has performed in the last five to six years I found myself completely unable to vote for them again.'

So yea not a "tory scum" at all the way some are trying to make out.

No. Let’s clap if and when he produces change that sees our football team win things again. But draw a firm line there.

He’s jumping into bed with the new government of the day. Mainly because he wants funding for a new stadium complex at the expense of the tax payer. Plus other influences of course.

First google result;

“Radcliffe has a personal wealth of £21bn. To put that into context, someone earning the average (median) UK salary of around £28,500 would have to work 736,842 years without paying tax, or making a single expenditure, to accumulate that amount.

Despite this wealth, Ratcliffe’s Ineos has been embroiled in several disputes with its workforce. At the company’s Grangemouth plant in central Scotland, workers were forced to accept a three-year pay freeze after being locked out of the factory. The workers were also banned from striking for three years.

It was revealed last year that Ratcliffe had personally lobbied then chancellor George Osborne to break the power of the unions, and to back fracking in the UK.

The fracking giant is leading drilling attempts in Yorkshire. The firm is also contesting a ban on hydraulic fracturing imposed by the Scottish government. The moratorium was put into place after the proposal received overwhelming public support in the consultation process”

Let’s not go full City and start idolising an owner. The man is a prick with awful politics. We’d do well to not let him launder his reputation with our football club.
 
I think his point is that the whole Ratcliffe worshipping that's going on by some is a bit cringey considering that the guys seems to be a bit of a cnut. Just because he owns us it doesn't mean I will suddenly support every decision he makes. So far there has been a lot of talk from him but not much more. Let's see how he does. I sure as hell am not impressed by some talk in an interview
Where? Majority of the stuff I'm seeing is poster's irrational annoyance at anything he does or says.
 
C'mon noods, nobody actually believed we'd qualify for the Europa League by winning the FA Cup.

I mean it was obviously a possibility as was qualifying via the league until the last month pf the campaign. Also its just the rules, and not being able to use multi club ownership to sell players to yourself I wouldn't say is a particularly controversial rule at all. If they were allowed to do it they could just inflate/decrease the price as much as they wanted to cheat the ffp rules or effectively launder players between clubs for the same purpose.

He does a lot of moaning about stuff like this. It's not encouraging and doesn't play into the idea INEOS actually have any kind of plan
 
Our fans would prefer if we become the new Forest it seems
Even Forest made the difficult decision to part ways with Cooper. He says he wants us to become like Madrid, then keeps the manager after a midtable finish.
 
Even Forest made the difficult decision to part ways with Cooper. He says he wants us to become like Madrid, then keeps the manager after a midtable finish.
5 minutes before that he said how poor the structure has been for the last 10 years and we can’t just flip a switch and be Real Madrid.
 
Jim Ratcliffe is a very intelligent business man. During his interview he makes interesting and realistic targets.
 
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.

Anyone old enough to remember United in its prime (ie treble days) knows that that's exactly how United operated. We would invest heavily on youths and then buy a mix of young talent and unknown talent (ex Johnsen from Besiktas). The wage structure was sacrosanct. We were so terrified into breaking it that prime Roy Keane came at an inch away from signing with Juventus for a free because United refused to bulge.

Why did we do that?

A- Young players can run all day something that older players can't. I've seen absolute legends getting humiliated because they simply couldn't keep up the pace. We're seeing the decline of Casemiro with our very eyes and we'll probably see worse considering that the idiots who signed him gave him an endless contract

B- Keeping the wage structure under control mean that investment can be diverted elsewhere like the youth academy or the stadium. It also act as an incentive for players to do better. Good luck persuading some lazy bum not to spend the night on XBOX when he's on a long term contract on a 300k a week.

Regarding players leaving, well shit happens. We lost so many throughout the years such as Beckham, RVN and Ronaldo. However I'd rather have players that other clubs want and might get rather then players who keep kissing the badge while playing shit simply because no one wants them.
 
We whinged that the Glazers said feck all and now we are whinging that our owner is present and communicating to the fans through the media.

What a fan base we have become.
Exactly. Some just like moaning for moanings sake. We could win the quadruple and you would still have haters over something
 
Why do you all keep saying he's a Tory?

He's literally just backed Labour and mentioned it repeatedly in the interview.
Because he backs traditional tory policies, he's backing Labour because Starmer is closer to the classic tory than the modern tories who lean more to the right than a man who's had his left leg blown off.
 
I do know don’t expect too high on internet members education. But gosh, the fan base is actually sucked. He is telling the truth and he know what’s going at his boyhood club.
 
I am little concerned with how Jim Ratcliffe is going to manage his time as it seems he's going to remain CEO of Ineos and isn't going to sell Nice.

He's 72 years old this year and he said that there have been quite a few negative surprises at Man Utd. He has obviously been quite involved and Dan Ashworth isn't coming anytime soon to help out. New stadium, transfer window, finances, regulations, hiring staff, media, travels a lot and owns houses in multiple countries. Hopefully he wont get overworked.

Even Forest made the difficult decision to part ways with Cooper. He says he wants us to become like Madrid, then keeps the manager after a midtable finish.
He explained several times that the problem at Man Utd right now is not the manager.
 
He’s a bloke who has started to put a structure together that the leeches could have done if they had the knowledge they have today. If it works 10% better than the parasites debacle it will be a gain. I do think it will work better than 10% simply as he is putting people in power who know about football. I’m not interested in anything else about him, his politics or anything about his life as long as he gets Utd competing again
 
He explained several times that the problem at Man Utd right now is not the manager.
And he wouldn't have personally talked to other candidates if that were the case? My point is that at Madrid this wouldn't happen regardless of the circumstances
 
Because he backs traditional tory policies, he's backing Labour because Starmer is closer to the classic tory than the modern tories who lean more to the right than a man who's had his left leg blown off.

:lol: This is true. Labour as we knew it went to the wall the day Blair and co ditched Clause 4.
 
Even Forest made the difficult decision to part ways with Cooper. He says he wants us to become like Madrid, then keeps the manager after a midtable finish.

Please go watch the interview again. He aims to become like Madrid but also said, its not a light switch. It takes 3/4 years.
 
And he wouldn't have personally talked to other candidates if that were the case? My point is that at Madrid this wouldn't happen regardless of the circumstances
They wanted to do a full review and considered the current manager as one of the candidates to manage Man Utd next season. Then they started to evaluate and eliminate names from the list of candidates and they were left with Ten Hag as their man.

In order to evaluate candidates it makes perfect sense to talk to them? I'm pretty sure Tuchel was very interested in the job but they decided against it.
 
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.
There was apparently no evidence Jassim had the money to back his bid.
 
Even Forest made the difficult decision to part ways with Cooper. He says he wants us to become like Madrid, then keeps the manager after a midtable finish.
Stop it with the manager ffs. Accept the decision and see what happens next season. If he performs, fine. If not, bye. It is not that an amazing manager is available right now
 
From that, its clear there won't be a clearout or a massive turnover as much as people expected. However, we have big parts of our squad that aren't being used that could be sold to give us a few signings. Greenwood and Sancho would be big wins in regard to sales. Lindelof and Pellistri could also add some funds. In addition, AWB and Antony are parts of our squad that we have used often, but can afford to let go of to get some money. Finally, getting both Varane and Martial off the books could open up room in regard to wages.

I think we will end up seeing three signings as opposed to the five that I had originally wanted, which is meant to strengthen our squad with the hope that there is growth within the team.

I think we will sign 1 forward, 1 midfielder and 1 centre back.
 
At the end there was one serious bidder, and he got the club

Only Raine and the Glazers could possibly know if thats true or not, as I understand it Shiekh Jassim submitted all the paper work and supporting evidence to Raine and was ready to do the deal but the Glazers stopped it happening.
 
Like this, realistic but at the same time very high bar to reach. Give it time he will change things.