Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been told he added insult to injury by explaining his plans for the club.
Amidst the current turmoil at the club and the fan uprising, the billionaire decided it was time to explain his version, perhaps in an attempt to earn the sympathy of the Reds’ supporters.
So in his interview with the BBC, the 72-year-old explained how his unpopular decisions, which include cutting the jobs of 250 employees and counting as well as ditching free meals for those who maintained their posts at the club, would eventually help Man Utd sign top stars.
“Where do you want to spend the money? Do you want to spend it on operating the club, or do you want to spend it on the squad? Because if you spend it on the squad you get better results,” explained Ratcliffe in his interview with BBC.
“And at the end of the day, what’s Manchester United here for if it’s not to win trophies and silverware? What we want to do is invest in the best players in the world if we can, rather than spend it on, I’m afraid, free lunches. My only interest here is returning Manchester United back to greatness again.”
Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn’t do himself any favours in his recent appearance
However, football pundit and writer Tom Mortimer considered these statements a hard sell. While he admits Ratcliffe has a point from a financial perspective, he often comes across as a heartless person who has little sympathy for the working class, so he didn’t really do himself any favours with his latest appearance.
“There’s got to be some sympathy [for Ratcliffe] because of the task he’s having to take over. The Glazers have run the club into the ground for the last 20 years,” said Mortimer on the ‘No Question About That’ podcast.
“Obviously, we saw vast protests at the weekend, but these have been going on since the Glazers took over. It’s not like we’re 15th in the league now and this is the first time this has happened. This situation that United is in has been a long time coming, and Ratcliffe has to deal with all the chaos and the mess that exists at the club.
“But there’s a reason why United fans are chanting very bad things about him, to put it lightly. There’s a lot of condescension, patronisation, and dehumanisation. There were always going to be difficult decisions for him to make, but I think it’s the way you go about it, share your vision, and talk about it, and if you do that in a respectful manner you might get the fans onside.
“If the vision you were painting for the fans was clear to see then I could understand, but he’s not a good spokesperson, and every single time he comes out it makes things worse.”
Ratcliffe had also tackled several other issues in interview, including the futures of Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo.
