Not great that. If United are telling the truth and the men and women were updated at the same time, then that's not great either. Either someone screwed up the comms to the women or there was a leak from the club direct to The Athletic before the players were even told. Not great if we're leaking at that kind of level - even if it's as a "we're getting serious" kind of insider press PR thing.
Ineos and the women
- Thread starter jojojo
- Start date
Not great that. If United are telling the truth and the men and women were updated at the same time, then that's not great either. Either someone screwed up the comms to the women or there was a leak from the club direct to The Athletic before the players were even told. Not great if we're leaking at that kind of level - even if it's as a "we're getting serious" kind of insider press PR thing.
That is showing lack of respect, also what will they have to say if the men lose against City when they didn't have any distractions.
Very bad look. Ratcliffe doesn't seem to care about our women.
From the Bloomberg interview with SJR:
That's a kop out.
Not a good sign and honestly a little embarrassing for one of the biggest football clubs in the world. Clearly it's very low on the priority list for INEOS and that's going to make to tough to attract and keep elite talent.
Simple thing I would like everyone to ALWAYS keep in mind when looking at issues like this. ManUtd is a football club, absolutely but it's also a business. When new owners come into the club they first look at the mission-critical factors and going concerns. There is a hierarchy of priorities and in this case the Men's football team is at the top and thus they will focus all their energy on fixing that before trickling down to the academy and then the Women's team. Let's please not make this a gender issue of ''oh they don't respect the women''. It's a business decision and it's the right one.
It's basically admitting things are gonna be bloody glum for the Women's team for the next season at least, losing best players all the time with no great scope for improving.
Yeah, it’s not like we’re expecting Ratcliffe or Brailsford themselves to get hands-on in sorting out the women’s team but they could easily delegate responsibility to someone else after agreeing to increase the budget - which will be little more than a rounding error compared to Ineos’ overall investment into the club. Saying you’re too busy to even think about it just means you have no interest in it at all, and never will.
They’re obviously not going to scrap the women’s team altogether again (we’ve seen the furore when an even a tiny non-league team tries to do that) but it seems pretty clear that they’re going to be much less than an afterthought under Ineos. If the rest of the WSL continues to improve at their current rate, relegation could be a threat in a couple of season.
Absolutely, surely couldn't be that difficult to improve structurally and as you say, improve the level of funding available, and leave it to another department to run. But the answers given and attitude shown so far suggests they couldn't care less about the Women's team. Why would the likes of Earps and Toone stay listening to that, or why would anyone else want to come.
At least hire an interim DoF to manage the operations until you make some real changes. It’s disgraceful how the owners neglect the women’s team. It’s not a secret why we keep losing our best players etc.
Yeah, he doesn’t give a shit does he? That’s really concerning. Women’s football is changing massively and if we don’t act now we’ll miss our best chance of becoming an elite team. If his grand plan is just to kick the can down the road for a year or two (or worse) then we’re just gonna slip further and further behind.
What are they talking about with the 'spin it off' like Chelsea has bit?
Didn’t really understand phrase either. Guess it meant external investment in the women’s team exclusively or something.
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He really just... said it out loud.
I was not aware that Chelsea (or any other WSL team in fact) have anything like that going on
I also dont think its a big deal that he says they need to sort out the Men first, frustrating for the Women but only normal really
Chelsea Women will be run almost independently, with their own resources and management. With Chelsea looking for outside investments to take a percentage of the club (I assume solely Women's team)
I'd imagine similar to how Lyon sold off a percentage of their Women's team to Michelle Kang.
Interesting - never heard this before, but found this article
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...g-stake-womens-team-todd-boehly-b1157633.html
As a business, there's no real reason why both teams cannot be prioritised.
The money is there.
Ineos will obviously prioritise the men's team because it is good business for Ineos, not United and certainly not the women's team.
He's already told us that the men's team is going to be shite for a while as well.
Has he fixed the leaking roof yet or is that also something that its impossible to do anything about because we need to focus full time on not improving the men's team?
If everything is going to be rubbish for a while as Ratcliffe has insinuated, there's kind of an easy win here to put a bit of focus on the women's team, which would take minimal investment and effort compared to sorting out the mess with the men's team (which there really is no actual reason this would even be a slight distraction from). At the very least have a more positive answer ready for when the question would inevitably come up.
Capitalist prick is letting everyone down gently
It’s really not that bad of a statement. Im not sure how many things some people expect Ineos and the handful of people they’ve hired to solve in a few months. It’s decades of decay they’re dealing with.
Personally I prefer the honest answer rather than empty sound bites which anyone can trot out
and I hope he has fixed that roof because Im moving to the Stretford End right under it next season !
I doubt anyone is surprised that it's fallen off the bottom of the agenda. The timing of the takeover and the number of issues at a whole club and men's team level was going to make "kick the can down the road" the strategy for the women's team (for who knows how long).
It's a bit disappointing that it's fallen off the PR agenda as well. Even a "we've got an interim team in place and we'll be looking to recruit" would sound better than what we got. But then he's not really in the PR business so I guess we can congratulate him on being honest.
The trouble for the women's team is that contracts are short and we're going to lose first choice players on frees if we don't pay attention. Even if we can get comparable quality replacements the changes are unlikely to be in our favour financially or in terms of squad building.
Maybe the current management team (that's lost a couple of full-timers and borrowed a couple of Academy staff to fill in) will impress us all. We all remember the heady days of Casey Stoney and her ability to surprise us with the quality, vision and pulling power she showed when she recruited our first squad.
Then I remember that our current manager is Marc Skinner.
It's a bit disappointing that it's fallen off the PR agenda as well. Even a "we've got an interim team in place and we'll be looking to recruit" would sound better than what we got. But then he's not really in the PR business so I guess we can congratulate him on being honest.
The trouble for the women's team is that contracts are short and we're going to lose first choice players on frees if we don't pay attention. Even if we can get comparable quality replacements the changes are unlikely to be in our favour financially or in terms of squad building.
Maybe the current management team (that's lost a couple of full-timers and borrowed a couple of Academy staff to fill in) will impress us all. We all remember the heady days of Casey Stoney and her ability to surprise us with the quality, vision and pulling power she showed when she recruited our first squad.
Then I remember that our current manager is Marc Skinner.
There’s a space between solving everything and not doing anything. He barely gave a two-sentence answer regarding the women’s team. It’s pretty obvious he doesn’t care about it.
I understand the point you’re making, still it doesn’t really add up. Taking over a club means assessing the whole club, not just one of the teams - and that is what Ratcliffe et al has done as well: In addition to looking at technical director and manager post for the men’s team, they’re going over everything from city development plans and stadium building to training facilities now and future to administration working from home arrangements to litterboxes at Carrington, to academy roles. On the personell side they’re hiring a CEO and a Football director/DoF responsible for all teams, as well as various people for minor roles in the administration. It’s simply not a fact that they are looking at one key area at a time and prioritizing what is most economically crucial and pressing. The only way to explain that they can be busy with all these different things for six months, big and minute, football and administrative, while not hiring a director for the women’s team and seeing to there are a few positions dedicated to working with that as well, is that they have defined the women’s team out from the club as such, based on one thing, which is gender.
That’s a step back from The Glazers of late, even, and it’s shooting themselves in the foot, IMO. Because actively treating women’s football as an important part of the club, while messing repeatedly that football shall now be prioritized over business, is to say that women’s football isn’t ‘really’ football in the same way men’s football is football. Fair enough with the Glazers (well, not really) who said we’re only in it for the money, and we don’t see the financial upside of women’s football (extremely shortsighted though it is) so whatever with that. But if you say football is first, the women’s set up is the far easiest, least costly and least time-consuming part of that to set up with the personnell needed to compete at the highest level. He will just have to accept that we have too football teams competing in each their sports pyramid, and I think it’s a display of arrogance towards both the women’s team and women in general to single out the the women’s team to ‘look at when we have time left from the men’s team’ while simultaneously claiming to look at all aspects of the club and setting the sporting interest first.
I’m a bit surprised, to be honest. It’s not because I expected a 70 year old hard boiled business man to be particularily interested in women’s football, or a Monaco-brexiteering tax evader to be overwhelmed by feelings for the whole community of Manchester and Man Utd ahead of cynical ego interests or anything like that.
It’s rather that it seems like such a weak analysis either way you look at it.
For an opportunistic facade merchant, te women’s team is a short and long term winner case for an enormous amount of potential ‘users of the brand’.
For a person feeding on vicarious sports success, the road to sporting success for the women’s team is infinitely shorter than for the men’s team, monetarily and effortwise.
For a business-cynical moneypincher, the cost of women’s football is peanuts compared to the economical upside of spreading the brand world wide to new tarhet audiences and hence making money off it. You must be daft and bland to branchingopportunities not to see where women’s football is heading world wide.
If you’re a psychopath wanting to be liked and admired, there is an enormous upside to concincing thousands of mothers and fathers of young girls interested in football that you are their knight in shining armour, just by investing a percentage of your transaction on a single day to make it seem that way.
In short, I thought he was smarter.
I did have a vague hope that SJR/Ineos would go for what looked like an easy win. Top up the budget and send someone to poach a specialist from a successful women's club (Europe/US?) to act as the DoF or whatever they choose to call it.
Unfortunately, the first time I heard him talk it seemed pretty clear that it wasn't even an after thought for him. I did hope that could still mean that an Ineos minion might sell him on the idea that they could just "make it a win" just by investing enough time to write a memo.
Instead we've seen SJR covering such burning issues as messy desks in the IT department and looking for cuts in low paid staff generally (and presumably their replacement with agency workers).
It's not a great look and it must be pretty demoralising for people associated with the women's team. It'll certain impact anyone asked to support them from the men's team or academy setup or Ineos themselves. If the boss announced he doesn't care then it's hard for anyone to take it seriously - especially if it's just an extra thrown on top of their job.
The one we need is Ashworth - Im confident he would sort the Womens stuff out but doesnt seem like he's coming anytime soon
Why would anyone call the mens team the "first team" when asked about the womens team? That just being so poor with words....sheesh! What are you going to refer the womens team as going forward, the 2nd or 3rd team Ratcliffe? Tbh he is off to a rough start with his non-existing relationship with the womens team.
Well said.
Historical habit - except that SJR doesn't have a history of day to day club life, where people would routinely talk about "the first team" dressing room etc.
On a more cheerful note, here's someone who was involved in day to day club life for decades and still apparently manages to talk to the women like they actually exist.
https://www.tiktok.com/@men4womensfootball/video/7370959124948929824
Ok, I admit that's nothing to do with Ineos. I've only posted that because I think we deserve a bit of cheering up
Historical habit - except that SJR doesn't have a history of day to day club life, where people would routinely talk about "the first team" dressing room etc.
On a more cheerful note, here's someone who was involved in day to day club life for decades and still apparently manages to talk to the women like they actually exist.
https://www.tiktok.com/@men4womensfootball/video/7370959124948929824
Ok, I admit that's nothing to do with Ineos. I've only posted that because I think we deserve a bit of cheering up
The coach better be ready to answer Marys questions of where UTD women is going. How should skinner be able to sell United women to Mary or new signings when Ineos has no plan outlined?
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Surely isn't that hard to appoint someone to oversee the women's team in the same way as the men's? Not great, blatantly doesn't care.
Only real hope at the moment is that Berrada will have a clue when he comes in and isn't quite so myopic.
There is some temporary bloke in place - I forget his name now, promoted from the MU Foundation who oversee the Girls Academy. Whether he actually has any power to actually do anything, I have no idea.
Business people like Ratcliffe are well versed in using processes and structures for prioritisation that then gets layered over the Vision and Strategy and sets the direction and priorities for the company. (club)
If you were to ask the majority of stakeholders, customers, investors (fans) then you would probably get most people saying that the Mens team is the most Urgent, Important, High Impact and Achievable to ensure overall club success. So that is naturally going to be where all the focus is. The infrastructure and cultural issues mentioned all tie into that so of course that will be part of the solution.
In business terms it's Product A over Product B as a priority.
Of course for supporters of the Womens team we want it to be Product A AND Product B. Unfortunately that's not how business works. Last season was a car crash for the mens team with the FA Cup win being our only saving grace. Clearly the owners want to put 100% focus into sorting all of those issues out as a priority. That often means other priorities come second, third and so on. It's tough decision making.
We have had shit business owners for the last 20 years so there's lots of things to change.
He is trying to get the right people into the club...this summer was clearly about clarifying the role of first team manager (mens) and we all know from the press that other people are wanted such as Dan Ashworth as Director of Football. All of this takes time and resource. Maybe he is not happy delegating the responsibility of the Womens team to anyone until he has had time to review it to his own satisfaction. The new CEO (Berrada) doesn't start until the 13th July, and he is still trying to hire a Head of Recruitment (Matt Hargreaves is an interim because Murtough resigned and Ashworth needs to be involved in the new hire). That's a whole new leadership team at the club in the last couple of months.
Finally, I haven't seen anything concrete that is saying that United are not doing anything around the Womens team and the club has spent millions on developing womens facilities at Carrington this season. INEOS had to make a detailed formal acquisition of the Womens team to the FA, which then had to approved by the Womens Super League and Womens Championship Boards. In order for the women's game authorities to approve that acquisition request, INEOS must have made specific commitments to developing Manchester United Women. Otherwise, all three of those entities would have said..."we are not supporting it". In addition, Berrada represented Manchester City's Women's team on the Women's Super League Board so clearly knows and supports the women's game.
When INEOS bought into United in March they said this:
"INEOS intends to take a ‘football first’ approach and wants United to be playing the best football in the world. But it is not a light switch, where these things change overnight. The club have a three-to-four-year timescale for United men to knock Manchester City and Liverpool “off their perch”. The aim is to stabilise the men’s side and it would be unrealistic to put women’s football at the top of the list, though a similar timescale to establish United Women as England’s premier force applies. It is not going to be easy and we do not want to give fans false expectations. The group is realistic with its ambitions and is adopting a gradual approach. There are no plans to splurge cash in the summer transfer window for either team."
So everything Ratcliffe said in that Bloomberg interview was said back in March before the INEOS deal was ratified.
Whilst many fans of the women's team might not like it...I think we have to give the club time to sort things out.
If you were to ask the majority of stakeholders, customers, investors (fans) then you would probably get most people saying that the Mens team is the most Urgent, Important, High Impact and Achievable to ensure overall club success. So that is naturally going to be where all the focus is. The infrastructure and cultural issues mentioned all tie into that so of course that will be part of the solution.
In business terms it's Product A over Product B as a priority.
Of course for supporters of the Womens team we want it to be Product A AND Product B. Unfortunately that's not how business works. Last season was a car crash for the mens team with the FA Cup win being our only saving grace. Clearly the owners want to put 100% focus into sorting all of those issues out as a priority. That often means other priorities come second, third and so on. It's tough decision making.
We have had shit business owners for the last 20 years so there's lots of things to change.
He is trying to get the right people into the club...this summer was clearly about clarifying the role of first team manager (mens) and we all know from the press that other people are wanted such as Dan Ashworth as Director of Football. All of this takes time and resource. Maybe he is not happy delegating the responsibility of the Womens team to anyone until he has had time to review it to his own satisfaction. The new CEO (Berrada) doesn't start until the 13th July, and he is still trying to hire a Head of Recruitment (Matt Hargreaves is an interim because Murtough resigned and Ashworth needs to be involved in the new hire). That's a whole new leadership team at the club in the last couple of months.
Finally, I haven't seen anything concrete that is saying that United are not doing anything around the Womens team and the club has spent millions on developing womens facilities at Carrington this season. INEOS had to make a detailed formal acquisition of the Womens team to the FA, which then had to approved by the Womens Super League and Womens Championship Boards. In order for the women's game authorities to approve that acquisition request, INEOS must have made specific commitments to developing Manchester United Women. Otherwise, all three of those entities would have said..."we are not supporting it". In addition, Berrada represented Manchester City's Women's team on the Women's Super League Board so clearly knows and supports the women's game.
When INEOS bought into United in March they said this:
"INEOS intends to take a ‘football first’ approach and wants United to be playing the best football in the world. But it is not a light switch, where these things change overnight. The club have a three-to-four-year timescale for United men to knock Manchester City and Liverpool “off their perch”. The aim is to stabilise the men’s side and it would be unrealistic to put women’s football at the top of the list, though a similar timescale to establish United Women as England’s premier force applies. It is not going to be easy and we do not want to give fans false expectations. The group is realistic with its ambitions and is adopting a gradual approach. There are no plans to splurge cash in the summer transfer window for either team."
So everything Ratcliffe said in that Bloomberg interview was said back in March before the INEOS deal was ratified.
Whilst many fans of the women's team might not like it...I think we have to give the club time to sort things out.
Otherwise I might agree with some of that, but we're about to lose three or four of our best players for free, after losing two of our best players for free a year ago. Our women's DoF left the club earlier this year and as far as I know no-one is responsible for her duties. I'm also confident that once Berrada, Ashcroft etc. have all started we'll most likely, eventually get some appointments to the women's side as well.
But for this team it'll be too late. Losing six key players inside a year for free, some of them to our rivals, is unforgivable. It will be very hard to convince our current players and potential new signings (who would improve the squad) to sign on the dotted line after this. It's like only six years after joining the women's game we're starting from scratch again. If this happened on the men's side there would be riots. So I don't think it's fair to try to play down the current predicament for those of us who really care about the women's team and have been following them for years.
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I don't think anyone was expecting the women's team to be a priority. There was a vague hope that we might do a bit better if we just got lucky and someone knew a women's team CEO/DoF who fancied a job. It looks like we got as far as making the old head of women's football leave and that was it.
The money involved in running the entire women's team is the kind of money that can get lost in the financial noise (exchange rates/payment terms etc) on a big transfer+contract deal in the men's game. The corollary to that is that it doesn't cost much to make a massive impact on the team for better or worse.
No one's surprised that we just kicked the can down the road. Trouble is that still means someone has to get the renewals signed and get new players in if we can't (or don't want to) keep the players.
Given we're relying on secondments and squeezing into the gaps in the men's team/boys Academy to get that work done. It would have been nice to hear SJR or someone say it's important or that change is coming.
Starting a secondment by hearing the boss couldn't care less isn't exactly motivating. I'm also having trouble imagining who's sticking their hand up when someone shows up asking for help (or even do a sign off!) in the "first XI's" office.
The worry is we may not be kicking the can down the road at all, we may be kicking it backwards.
The money involved in running the entire women's team is the kind of money that can get lost in the financial noise (exchange rates/payment terms etc) on a big transfer+contract deal in the men's game. The corollary to that is that it doesn't cost much to make a massive impact on the team for better or worse.
No one's surprised that we just kicked the can down the road. Trouble is that still means someone has to get the renewals signed and get new players in if we can't (or don't want to) keep the players.
Given we're relying on secondments and squeezing into the gaps in the men's team/boys Academy to get that work done. It would have been nice to hear SJR or someone say it's important or that change is coming.
Starting a secondment by hearing the boss couldn't care less isn't exactly motivating. I'm also having trouble imagining who's sticking their hand up when someone shows up asking for help (or even do a sign off!) in the "first XI's" office.
The worry is we may not be kicking the can down the road at all, we may be kicking it backwards.