Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Avram Glazer (Photo by Michael Regan, Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has spoken out on his relationship with the Glazers and some of the decisions that have gone on at the club in recent years.
Ratcliffe insists he has a good working relationship with the Glazer family, who still own a large chunk of Man Utd, though Ratcliffe and INEOS have sporting control.
Ratcliffe coming in has seen a number of changes at Old Trafford, with a new management team in place, such as Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox.
This follows over a decade of poor decision-making at United, and it seems Ratcliffe doesn’t think much of the regime that was in place before.
“If you ever think about doing something like that again, your backside will be OUT that door before it touches the ground!” – which former Man Utd star almost got kicked out by Fergie?
Speaking to the Times, Ratcliffe took aim at some of the stupid decisions that have gone on at United for the last 12 years.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes aim at stupid mistakes by Manchester United
“To be fair to the Glazers, they’re really good on the commercial side,” Ratcliffe said.
“The people who advise me say the fans don’t want to hear it. So I’ve got to be cautious. I get a lot of criticism if I support the Glazers, but the fact is they’re really decent people.”
He added: “The way I look at it is that you had two management teams at Manchester United for the past 12 years who did a poor job because the owners weren’t like, say, Steve Parish [Crystal Palace] and Daniel Levy [Tottenham Hotspur], they weren’t really into the details.
“Those two know what’s going on. They’re there every day and the management at their clubs are on a short leash.
“The management of Manchester United have been given a huge amount of rope. The owners just managed the club and left the football side alone and they’ve made a lot of very poor decisions over 12 years, stupid things.
“They made a complete cock-up of it, shocking really. They couldn’t see where they were headed. The first management group, they thought they understood and wanted to get involved in buying footballers but they didn’t have the knowledge to buy footballers, you know, so they went in the marketplace, spraying money around and it was just random, wasn’t it?”
United fans may not have warmed that much to Ratcliffe so far, but it’s hard to argue with a lot of what he’s saying here.
At the end of the day, MUFC supporters will be happy with the British billionaire if he’s able to do what’s required to deliver success to the club.
