Manchester United: Decline and Fall? (by John Brealey)

On Monday afternoon, 24 February, Sir James Ratcliffe, minority owner of Manchester United, but with control of all sporting operations, announced that 200 Old Trafrord staff would be made redundant in addition to the 250 already dispensed with in an earlier statement. Together with a raft of other measures such as closure of the London office, increased ticket prices and the staff canteen no longer serving free hot meals, this was part of the grand plan to “return the club to profitability” and to “delivering success on the pitch for our fans and improving our facilities”.

However, you do not have to be a cynic or a financial genius to know that this will do absolutely nothing to alleviate the persistent financial problems that have contributed to dragging down this great club, for all its illustrious history and 659 million global fan base, to its current state of mediocrity. Indeed to fans and anyone who has followed United in recent years, all that seems to be happening seems to be the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic heads for the iceberg.

What everyone connected with Manchester United knows is that the primary reason the club is in its current mess is not because the workers could enjoy a free lunch or because it boasted a prestigeous London office, but because of the debt. Twenty years ago Manchester United was under the stewardship of serial winner Sir Alex Ferguson and was debt-free. Then a huge debt was placed on its books, not to build a new stadium, or purchase world-class players, but simply to allow the Glazer family to take control and siphon off the profits.

Purchased for £790 million, most of which by loans secured against the club’s assets, it has been responsible for £1 billion in interest payments over the last two decades, with the (largely absent) Glazer family taking many millions annually in dividends. Meanwhile the debt still remains unpaid and sits on the club’s books like a malignant tumour haemorrhaging up to £60 million in annual repayments. No one would dispute that there was a need for a cost-cutting excercise, - before the arrival of Ratcliffe, United had more than 1100 members of staff, - three times as many as Liverpool. Nevertheless, it appears to have been needlessly savage with a perceived lack of empathy towards staff who have been shown the door, some of whom have dedicated most of their working lives to the club. Moreover, to supporters who have followed the club steadfastly through so many poor performances, insult has been added to injury by admission prices being raised with no concessions for children or pensioners.

Hugely significant as it is, the debt is only part of the story. Failures on the pitch have been matched by even more glaring profligacy by the club’s senior management. Such as spending close to £15 million paying off previous manager Erik ten Hag and his back room team barely three months after giving them a renewed contract, and then a further £4.1 million paying off newly appointed technical director Dan Ashworth after recruiting him from Newcastle saying he was the “best man for the job”, - then deciding he was not. This of course pales when set against the £200 million allowed to ten Hag to purchase second-rate signings in the summer transfer window. All of which indicates that the current hierarchy aren’t very good at spotting and recruiting talent, such as the outrageously overpriced Antony, signed for £82 million from Ajax and such an embarrassment to the club that he has had to be farmed out on loan to Real Betis. Or the 2022 £60 million aquisition of an ageing Casemiro from Real Madrid on a 4 year contract worth almost £16 million a year. After an excellent first season, these days the 32 year-old Casemiro features mainly on the bench, as does an injury-ridden Mason Mount, an out-of-favour midfielder at Chelsea, signed in 2023 for £55 million on a 5 year contract worth £13 million a year. Such an abysmal recruiting strategy does little to inspire confidence that the decline of Manchester United as a major force in the Premiership will be halted any time soon.

It is little wonder that Manchester United have finished a cumulative 254 points behind the league champions over the last 11 years, or currently remain firmly anchored to the bottom of the Premiership table, despite almost £2 billion having been spent on players since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. Moreover that a team of moderately gifted squad players (with the honourable exception of Bruno Fernandes) have failed to adapt to new manager Ruben Amorim’s rigid adherence to a 3-4-3 playing system. Without question the recruitment of Amorim from Sporting Lisbon was a sensible one, given his outstanding success record with that club (including a thumping 4-1 Championship League win over Guardiola’s Manchester City), his widely admired coaching style and excellent command of English. Indeed he was initially on the radar of Manchester City as a possible successor to Pepe Guardiola, and Liverpool as a successor to Jurgen Klopp. It is understood that his inflexible playing style was what finally put Liverpool off, and it is inarguable that this inflexibility has much to do with the recent poor run of United results. To quote legendary Liverpool midfielder Graeme Souness “To walk through the door and impose your playing style without evaluating the players in front of you is either very brave or very naive. It goes against everything I was taught as a player under all the great managers I worked under”. In Amorim’s defence however it must be stated that he has never wavered in his insistence of sticking with his playing style and as such was reluctant to join United in mid-season, wanting to finish the season with Sporting. It was only Manchester United’s “now or never” approach that persuaded him to sign against his better judgement. It is easy to be wise in hindsight but it’s hard to see why assistant coach Ruud van Nistelrooy couldn’t have continued as interim manager for the rest of the season following the departure of ten Hag. After all, as a United legend himself, and a proven shrewd coach, his brief 4 game tenure consisted of three wins and one draw.

The arrival of Sir James Ratcliffe in February 2024, as minority shareholder but with control over football operations via INEOS Sport, (a subsidiary of his huge INEOS chemical group), was greeted with universal relief by Manchester United supporters worldwide. After twenty years of decline attributed mostly to the largely absent Glazer family, here was a British sportsman and lifelong Manchester fan, who as well as founding the INEOS chemicals group that had made him a multi-billionaire, had created INEOS Sport. As a leading player controlling many sports including Formula1 racing, cycling, yachting and rugby, INEOS is also already heavily involved in football, having acquired Lausanne-Sport, a Swiss Super League Club, and the French club Nice. Here then, was a reason for optimism among the Old Trafford faithful after so many “false dawns”. But that was then and this is now, and it is revealing to read what Jim White of the Daily Telegraph writes in an open letter to Sir James:

“………for all the transformational plans and projects this and that, everything you touch in sport seems to turn to ashes. In Formula One, yachting and rugby, the only trophies you have accumulated are lawsuits left right and centre. In your cycling operation there is a sense of relentless decline. At Nice, the football is not exactly going places. Now at United, in your refusal to address the pile of elephant dung that is the Glazer legacy of debt, you appear simply presiding over another addition to your growing catalogue of failure…………..”

One can only conclude that the promised “success on the pitch” will not be happening any time soon.