By Juan Davalos
Manchester United, once the epitome of football excellence, now finds itself in 14th place, grappling with its most challenging period in the modern Premier League era. The club’s continued underperformance on the pitch has shown deeper issues rooted in years of mismanagement.
Since manager Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, there have been multiple fan protests demanding improvements to the club beyond team performance, like the recent gathering for the 20th anniversary of one of the first organized protests against the ownership, as first reported by The Guardian.
The fan protest targets the controversial ownership of the Glazer family, which also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They acquired Manchester United in 2005, and the deal was heavily leveraged, saddling the club with substantial debt.
As of early 2024, the club’s gross debt stood at nearly $1 billion, as found in a recent tabulation by The Athletic, a burden that has hampered its ability to invest effectively in both infrastructure and talent.
With fan pressure on the Glazers increasing, they were forced into a vulnerable position and looked into selling the team to Qatari bidder. However, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, through his company INEOS, acquired a 27.7% stake in Manchester United in February 2024, taking over the management of sporting and financials.
However, this minority investment has already cost the club nearly $44 million in fees. Ratcliffe has publicly criticized the previous management in a recent interview with The Sunday Times.
Ratcliffe said, “It’s gone off the rails a long way … the costs had got out of control.”
The 2024–25 season has been particularly challenging for Manchester United. The club parted ways with manager Erik ten Hag in October 2024 after a series of poor results left them in 14th place in the Premier League.
One of the first decisions by the Ratcliffe INEOS group was the appointment of Portuguese manager Ruben Amorim as his successor in Nov. 2024. Despite initial optimism, the team’s performance has not improved significantly.
Under Amorim, the team has continued to struggle, currently sitting 14th in the Premier League, just 10 points clear of relegation. After a defeat to Brighton, Amorim was very upset with the team’s shortcomings.
“We are the worst team, maybe, in the history of Manchester United,” Amorim said in January.
In the same interview, he also expressed confidence in the process of bringing this team back. United, while out of every other competition and teetering ever closer to relegation, is still playing in the Europa League. If they win this competition, it could mean a huge difference in next season’s recruitment and compensation as they would earn the profitable Champions League qualification.
However, given United’s recent form and this year’s top-eight close shootout, it seems more and more unlikely that they will win anything.
Off the pitch, in a recent financial disclosure to investors, INEOS revealed that the club over the past three years has reported cumulative losses exceeding £300 million. In response, Ratcliffe initiated a series of austerity measures aimed at stabilizing the club’s finances.
These austerity measures included the termination of approximately 250 employees in 2024, costing the club £8.6 million in redundancy payments. Sir Jim Ratcliffe also recently personally announced to Gary Neville further plans to cut up to 200 additional jobs in early 2025 as part of efforts to reduce annual expenses by an estimated £10 million.
Additional cost-saving strategies have included the cancellation of staff Christmas parties, reductions in funding to the Manchester United Foundation, and the elimination of free meals for staff, according to The Standard.
These measures, while financially motivated, can be perceived by many as detrimental to the club’s culture and morale, especially when the same report by The Standard revealed the wage bill for the club’s players remained the second highest in the league after their takeover.
Manchester United legend Eric Cantona was particularly vocal in his criticism.
“This team of directors, they try to destroy everything and they don’t respect anybody,” said Cantona, condemning Ratcliffe and his INEOS group.
What was once the world’s most profitable club, usurping Real Madrid, now seems closer to bankruptcy than ever to achieving those heights again. Whether it’s managerial disagreements, fan protests, new owners, or harsh budget cuts, Manchester United seems to be anything but united.
As the season gears to an end, given the institution’s size and viewership pull, what the ownership decides to do next will have a ripple effect on the sport as a whole.
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Photo courtesy of Nat Callaghan, via Unsplash.