Sir Jim Ratcliffe's investment in Manchester United was confirmed on February 16.
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00:00 After a year of negotiations, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is finally an owner at Manchester United.
00:05 The deal is worth 1.5 billion euros and means that he now has a 25% stake in the club.
00:10 But the Glazers remain majority shareholders,
00:13 so what does 2024 hold for one of England's most iconic teams?
00:17 Hello there and welcome to Football Now from Doha.
00:25 Manchester United are one of the world's biggest football clubs.
00:28 They have millions of fans around the globe and have produced some of the biggest names
00:33 this sport has ever seen. And 2024 marks the start of a new era.
00:37 Over 15 years after the Glazer family took control of the club,
00:41 it was recently announced that Ineos CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe would be buying a 25% stake in the company.
00:47 So let's remind ourselves of just how this saga played out and how it finally concluded.
00:52 After the Glazers officially put the club up for sale in November 2022,
00:56 there were two heavily interested parties.
00:59 Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the son of a former Qatari Prime Minister,
01:03 submitted five bids to the Glazers in the hopes of completing a full takeover.
01:07 Ineos CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe was also interested in a majority stake,
01:11 but was ready to keep the Glazers involved.
01:13 His proposal would have let the current owners keep hold of 30% equity in the company.
01:18 But negotiations proved tough, despite Sheikh Jassim's final offer of around 5.5 billion euros
01:25 being above the initial market valuation, it did not match what the Glazers themselves felt it was worth.
01:30 In the end, Sheikh Jassim walked away entirely, and the Glazers have instead
01:34 opted to look for a minority investment in order to keep control of their assets.
01:38 Now the purchase is approved by both the Premier League and English FA,
01:42 Ratcliffe will take control of the sporting operations,
01:45 including transfers and appointing board members.
01:47 I think United is worth every inch, five and a half to six billion pounds.
01:53 That looks good now, but they obviously feel the Glazers that they can make money
01:57 going forward by keeping a stake in United, they'd be stupid to let it go completely.
02:02 They will feel that with the TV deals as they are with the onset of the new Champions League format,
02:07 I think that further down the line, they'd be expected to be increasing value even further.
02:11 So if you look five, seven, eight years down the line, maybe that deal won't look so good.
02:18 So it's best to keep some of it back, see to keep some value,
02:21 even if it means keeping 75% of it.
02:23 If you let the INEOS come in and they take the sporting control of the club,
02:28 they make decisions on the playing side, they're going to be shielding the Glazers
02:32 from any kind of criticism. So I think that's been quite clever.
02:35 Well, in the end, the deal struck with British business tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe was for a 25%
02:40 stake, and it was formally announced at the end of 2023.
02:44 His company, INEOS Chemicals, already has shares in League and Side Nice, Formula 1 team Mercedes
02:50 Benz and the cycling team formerly known as Team Sky.
02:54 So what can his investments and fresh perspectives bring to United?
02:58 Well, given that only around about 30% of the fan base actually wanted the INEOS bid to prevail,
03:04 I think it's actually going to be quite difficult for them because now they're in the door,
03:09 fans will look more closely at what they did elsewhere.
03:11 They took over the Team Sky deal in British cycling and that hasn't gone particularly well.
03:15 They're not winning the kind of prizes they were winning 10 years ago when Sky were involved.
03:20 They'll look again at what they've achieved in France with Nice, and again,
03:24 their achievements there have been extremely modest.
03:26 That's when you get the heat, and it's going to be how they deal with that heat,
03:29 because the heat at Nice and the heat with the cycling team is a world of difference
03:34 from what they're going to experience at a top Premier League club,
03:37 a top international club like Manchester United.
03:40 Well, according to the fans, things have not been well at Old Trafford for some time.
03:45 After years of domestic domination in the 90s and noughties,
03:48 it's now been over a decade since they last saw their team lift a Premier League title.
03:53 But their revolt against the current owners, the Glazer family, long predates this trophy-less run.
03:58 So, let's catch up on the history of the Glazers at United,
04:00 and why many supporters want them to set up entirely.
04:03 Before they took over, we were against them when we saw the deal that was being proposed.
04:09 And the reason that we were so against the Glazers taking over was because it was about
04:12 to plunge us into hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt.
04:15 They basically took out a load of loans to buy Manchester United,
04:18 and they used the club itself as a sort of guarantee against those loans,
04:22 and it left us with this debt that we're still in.
04:24 You don't expect owners to necessarily be die-hard Manchester United fans,
04:29 but you want them to have the best interests of the club at heart.
04:32 And I don't think the Glazers ever did that.
04:34 Plus the fact as well, they had no clue on how to run a football club,
04:37 any understanding of football whatsoever.
04:39 And that's shown over the last 18 years.
04:41 They got away with it for a little bit, because of Sir Alex Ferguson and his genius.
04:44 But ever since Fergie retired, it's been pretty much one disaster after another.
04:48 Well, it's not just financial mismanagement that Ratcliffe will have to address.
04:52 Now he's involved at United.
04:54 The facilities around the club have not been updated in some time.
04:58 Once thought of as the best in the country, their home stadium Old Trafford
05:02 now looks outdated, with a leaky roof and no major upgrades since 2006.
05:08 Meanwhile, other clubs now have world-class facilities of their own,
05:11 catapulting them to success on the pitch ahead of United.
05:15 Yeah, I think Old Trafford is kind of living up to its name of being Old Trafford at the moment.
05:20 It seems a bit decrepit and falling down.
05:22 And when you compare that to lots of the newer stadiums being built,
05:26 especially look at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and what they have done there.
05:29 And you sit in Old Trafford and watch matches, and you could get the rain coming in on you,
05:35 even if you're sitting under the roof, because it's leaking.
05:37 And I think money needs to be spent to turn that into the ground that we all know and love,
05:42 and remember that it used to be the theatre of dreams.
05:46 Because it doesn't seem to be that at all.
05:47 It's more a theatre of nightmares for fans.
05:50 An interesting 2024 on the way then for Manchester United,
05:53 as a new era at Old Trafford begins.
05:56 Do let us know your thoughts using the hashtag #FootballNowRatcliffe,
05:59 and we'll see you next time.
06:01 Bye for now.
06:01 [Music]