Manchester United are getting closer and closer to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s minority investment in the club being approved.
We have learned by now that no timeframes can be trusted when it comes to the Manchester United takeover. A resolution was expected in the first quarter of 2023. Yet here we are, almost a full 13 months since the strategic review was announced, awaiting a resolution.
At least now we have some kind of direction. Barring a dramatic last-ditch U-turn, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is expected to imminently formalise his 25 per cent buy-in at Manchester United.
According to Sky News, Ratcliffe’s partial takeover of the club is finally set to be ratified by the beginning of next week. This will see him get a major say in sporting decisions, with chief executive Richard Arnold already removed from his post.
Manchester United need help
Depending on which week it is, Manchester United are either flying or in crisis. This week it is full crisis mode, after another away defeat which starts the month of December on a sour note. But we won’t dismiss this as a kneejerk reaction. The team have been playing badly all season and picking up results against the cannon-fodder bottom half clubs. Often only just.
Manager Erik ten Hag‘s position has even come under scrutiny in the media, with Gary Neville criticising the lack of playing style evident in the team’s play.
Ratcliffe’s takeover will spark a new era, Manchester United fans hope. However, Match of the Day host Gary Lineker has warned not to expect too much.
Speaking on the Rest Is Football podcast, Lineker has expressed reservations that the takeover will provide the solution, because he doubts Ratcliffe’s experience for such a mammoth task.
He said: “I think it’s going to be a tough season for them, no question about that, it will be interesting if they do come in, Ratcliffe, they are looking at Brailsford as well taking over, there’s no guarantee that they know any better, they are not football people.
“Something needs to be done, and it doesn’t look like there’s any quick fix. The club’s in a mess. They’ve gone through a number of managers in recent times and normally when people above you, they need someone to blame, it’s normally the manager who gets the heave-ho. It’s a tough one.”
Manchester United fans need hope
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos have involvement across various sports, from cycling, to Formula 1, to football. And their record in football at Lausanne in Switzerland and Nice in France has been patchy.
This season he appears to have turned it around with Nice, who are second in Ligue 1 and on track to qualify for the Champions League. That is evidence that he can turn around a struggling team, and did not need big investment to do it, he just needed time.
The trouble is, at United, time is expensive. The demands are ravenous. You can be winning a cup final one week, and losing 7-0 to a rival a week later, as Erik ten Hag expensively discovered. And that will flip the entire narrative on it’s head.
Manchester United fans are fully aware that Ratcliffe is not a totally perfect solution. Not when the Glazers still have a role at the club. And there will be an element of adjustment for the Ineos team. Thankfully they will have learned a lot at Nice, preparing them for a bigger club with bigger resources – and bigger demands.
Where United fans should be encouraged is the determination and business savvy Ratcliffe showed to outbid the deep pockets of Qatar. That was something nobody expected him to be able to pull off. And for the record, Sheikh Jassim had no track record at all in football, so the same doubts would have been pointed toward him, had he been the winning bidder.
This new era does not guarantee success, and Manchester United fans are acutely aware of this. But if you compare it to the alternative of sticking solely with the Glazers, it is an injection of hope and optimism Manchester United desperately need, and Lineker is helping nobody by undermining him before he starts.
The criticism of Ratcliffe and Brailsford because they are not a ‘football people’ is misguided. Nor is Liverpool’s owner John Henry, who comes from a baseball background, yet has delivered a Premier League title and Champions League. Sheikh Mansour at City has deep pockets, but was not a football person.
Instead, Mansour recruited a strong backroom team featuring Txiki Begiristain from Barcelona. Ratcliffe is looking to hire former Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain chief executive Jean Claude Blanc, along with a sporting director, potentially Paul Mitchell. Add in Brailsford’s unique approach too, and it’s a strong team. That’s the difference where the Glazers have fallen short, lumbering United with Ed Woodward and Richard Arnold.
Whether Erik ten Hag will be kept around as part of the club, long-term, remains to be seen. A lot depends on how the rest of the season plays out.
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