Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he “wouldn’t have tolerated” Manchester United man, criticises three Glazer decisions

Every word Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said on the Glazer family as he finally opens up on his Manchester United co-owners one year on from joining them at the club.

Just over one year ago, Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought his way into Manchester United’s ownership, purchasing around 27.7% of the club for around £1.25 billion of his personal wealth.

He has since made many changes, with Omar Berrada coming in as CEO, Jason Wilcox as technical director, and a number of other high-level appointments.

There have also been changes on the pitch. Manager Erik ten Hag was sacked and replaced with new head coach Rúben Amorim, while a number of players were sold and bought last summer.

Beyond this, Ratcliffe has had to make several unpopular decisions to stabilise the club’s financial footing, cutting over 400 employees from the workforce and expenditures such as bonuses for stewards and free lunches for employees.

Ratcliffe critiques three Glazer decisions

Fans have still been keen to voice their disdain for the Glazer family, who remain majority owners and work alongside Ratcliffe, and the British billionaire has been fairly quiet on his thoughts of the Glazers since he joined the club.

However, in a new interview with The Times, Ratcliffe has finally opened up on the American owners, explaining that although there are positives to their work, they made three major decisions he would not have, one of which was the appointment of former CEOs Ed Woodward and then Richard Arnold.

“To be fair to the Glazers, they’re really good on the commercial side,” Ratcliffe exlpained. “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.

“They’re East Coast, you know — that old East Coast America, they’re very polite, they’re very civilized, they’re the nicest people on the planet. I mean, there isn’t a bad bone in Joel Glazer’s body. I mean, part of the problem is there isn’t a bad bone in his body, which is why he didn’t bloody…”

Ratcliffe tailed off, but then continued: “I mean, I wouldn’t have tolerated Ed Woodward, or Richard Arnold. Richard was a rugby man, he didn’t even understand football. Ed didn’t have the credentials to manage the club. He was a merchant banker, an accountant. He wasn’t the chief executive.”

Later, the 72-year-old explained that he also felt the Glazer family had given the management teams at United in the last decade or so two much licence and executive power – another decision he disagreed with.

“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?

“I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that says, well, that’s just life in football, ups and downs, these things happen, because if I look at Real Madrid and Barcelona and Bayern Munich, they don’t do that. They just stay at the top. And it’s not like that here because it’s been poorly managed and they’ve made poor decisions.

The third bad decision the Glazers made

Finally, Ratcliffe concluded that he feels a third poor decision the Glazers took was to hire David Moyes immediately after Sir Alex Ferguson departed the club.

“Look, I like David Moyes, and I think he’s a really good manager, but to go from Sir Alex Ferguson to Moyes is not where I would have gone.

“Moyes stepped into the shoes of Ferguson, who’s won the Premier League 13 times, who won the Champions League twice and then you’re handing over to a guy that has never managed big players and had never won anything. He’s not necessarily got the personality to stand in front of them all.

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“And I don’t think Real Madrid would have made that choice as coach. If you look at coaches, a club can’t always get it right, but they should have found the best chief executive in the world, and the best coach in the world, because Manchester United is the best club in the world. Instead they got both of those decisions wrong.”

He then rounded off his talk about the Glazers with: “So, in my mind, we have a very professional partnership with the Glazer family. But have you met them? They’re really honest, straightforward, not what you expect when you read about them in the press.

“And they’re both [Avram and Joel — the most involved in the club] passionate about Manchester United. I like them as people — to be honest, they could have given us a bloody hard time, couldn’t they, after we cocked up with Dan Ashworth and Erik ten Hag? Could have, but didn’t.”

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