Manchester United co-owner threatens to walk away

It’s fair to say that the first year of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s co-ownership of Manchester United has not gone entirely to plan.

The on-field performances have not improved and Ratcliffe has introduced some pretty unpopular policies, including two rounds of wide-scale redundancies among club staff. Those decisions have started to attract criticism from fans, who had initially welcomed Ratcliffe’s introduction after two decades of unpopular leadership from the majority stakeholders, the Glazer family.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Ratcliffe insisted that he doesn’t mind being unpopular but admitted that he would consider walking away if he started to get “abused” like the Glazers have done in recent years.

“I mean, I can put up with it for a while,” Ratcliffe said. “I don’t mind being unpopular because I get that nobody likes seeing Manchester United down where they are, and nobody likes the decisions we’re having to make at the moment.

“If I draw a bit of the ire, I can put up with that. But I’m no different to the average person. It’s not nice, particularly for friends and family.

“So, eventually, if it reached the extent that the Glazer family have been abused, then I’d have to say, look, enough’s enough guys, let somebody else do this.

“They can’t really come to a match, the Glazers. They’ve retreated into the shadows a bit now, so I’m getting all the stick,” Ratcliffe continued. “At the moment, I don’t have security, I don’t have to walk around like that. But it would defeat the object, wouldn’t it? You couldn’t tolerate it at that level, it just wouldn’t be fun.”

There was initial optimism about Ratcliffe’s investment in the club and his remit of tackling the club’s on-field issues. However he has not yet managed to refresh a sub-par playing squad and another season out of the Champions League now looks like a real possibility, further complicating the financial picture.

This week’s announcement of a plan for a new £2 billion stadium to replace the iconic Old Trafford has not been universally popular and Ratcliffe is now under pressure to prove that he can be the transformative presence that fans had been led to believe.

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