Gary Neville has moved to criticize The Glazers for two key areas in which they have been especially ‘negligent’ over the last decade.
The Glazers have owned Manchester United since 2005 and, though their ownership has always been met with discontent from supporters, protests against the family have intensified in recent years.
A match between United and Liverpool was even postponed in 2021 after fans stormed the Old Trafford pitch in protest.
Gary Neville believes the owners have been particularly neglectful in their lack of investment in Old Trafford and the surrounding area as well as making poor appointments at board level.
Gary Neville criticises the Glazers
Speaking on The Overlap, Neville said: “I think the Glazers over the last 10 years have been negligent.
“Negligent in not appointing the right people. We think Ratcliffe coming in is amazing because he’s appointed a sporting director and CEO, it’s unbelievable really it’s just normal practice.
“It’s negligence in terms of not correcting that and my biggest thing is to let the stadium and the regeneration.
“You think about FFP now and the generation of income. United own 50, 60 acres around the ground.
“They own all the car parks. What they could have done like City have done, City have invested in that Co-op Arena that’s just going to open a month or two.
“They own half of that. That’s going to throw out, it’ll probably lose money to start with cause it’ll need to build up, but they’ve invested in other things that have made money around the ground and they’ve invested in place.
“So the negligence of letting the stadium go, not touching the regeneration for me they’re the two things that are just negligent.
“You can not have Manchester United… you can get the team wrong, you can sign the wrong players, you can lose football matches, I actually don’t have a problem with that.
“But you can’t not have the best stadium with the money that’s coming in and you can’t not have a CEO and sporting director that understands football clubs.”
A brighter future
It appeared as though fans would finally get their way when the Glazers announced in November, 2022, they would explore a potential sale of the club.
Well over a year of negotiations ended with the Glazers still holding a controlling stake but selling 27.7 per cent of their Class A share to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group.
Ratcliffe has now taken over football operations at the club and is already making exciting moves to finally get United competitive again.
Omar Berrarda has been convinced to leave his role at Manchester City to join as CEO, the club are trying to appoint Dan Ashworth from Newcastle United as sporting director and are looking to make other smart appointments behind the scenes.
A task force has also been created to explore options for the regeneration of Old Trafford.
Ratcliffe is looking to remedy the biggest failings of the Glazers as soon as possible and it can only be positive for United.
Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox
