British tycoon Jim Ratcliffe has bought a quarter of the shares of Manchester United from the American Glazer family for roughly 1.5 billion euros. The British football club has that announced on Sunday, after months of negotiations and inherent uncertainty about the club’s sporting direction. The 71-year-old boss of the petrochemical group Ineos will have full control over Manchester United’s sporting policy. He will invest more than 272 million euros in the Old Trafford stadium.
With the deal, head coach Erik ten Hag still gets something that resembles a Christmas miracle – if he is allowed to stay on. In terms of sport, Manchester United has been a club in decline for some time: on Saturday Manchester United lost to West Ham United. It was already the eighth defeat of the season. The British superpower goes into Christmas eighth. In the Champions League, Ten Hag’s team finished last in an apparently simple group.
The disappointing performance reinforced the call from supporters, the players and Ten Hag for extra quality in the selection, but the major investments deemed necessary largely failed to materialize last summer due to the impending takeover. It is not clear how much Ratcliffe plans to invest in the selection, but the path to new major transfers is clear again.
Manchester United supporter
Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe was born in Failsworth, a town a few miles from Manchester. He says in a statement that he has been a lifelong supporter of Manchester United (but tried in vain to buy rival Chelsea from Roman Abramovich last year). Manchester United will be by far the largest club in its sporting portfolio. Ratcliffe also owns France club OGC Nice, FC Lausanne-Sport from Switzerland and Racing Club Abidjan from Ivory Coast.
With an estimated fortune of more than 33 billion euros, Ratcliffe is the second richest resident of the United Kingdom. He acknowledges the challenges ahead: “While commercial success has always assured the club the resources needed to win trophies at the highest level, this potential has not been fully realized recently.”
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