Jonny Evans has stated that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s decision to cut 250 Manchester United jobs has been difficult to witness as the club is like a family and people the defender knows personally are involved.
Last week Ratcliffe began the formal process of making the redundancies, informing some staff they were officially at risk, with those in this category who were due on United’s summer tour told that they would no longer be on the plane to the US.
Evans is starting the second year of his second spell at the club. The first began when he was scouted at nine, the Northern Irishman playing for the youth team in 2004, followed by a senior debut two years later before he left in 2015. Evans’s wife, Helen, worked for United’s in house television channel, MUTV, for 14 years, his dad, Jackie, was an academy coach, and his brother, Corry, a youth player from the age of 15 until he was 20.
Ratcliffe, United’s largest single minority shareholder, leads the football department and has appointed Omar Berrada as chief executive, Dan Ashworth as sporting director and Jason Wilcox as technical director.
After Erik ten Hag’s team lost 2-1 against Arsenal at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday, Evans was asked if the club felt more organised now. The 36-year-old said: “They’ve got an idea of how they want the structure but, as someone who’s been at the club – I had a spell away, but been at the club a long time – a lot of people [are in danger of losing] their jobs this last couple of weeks.
“It’s been hard and difficult to see. The new owners feel that’s the direction that they want to go. But it’s not been easy for everyone at the same time.”
Evans was asked generally how much the players would feel if somebody who had a long history at United leaves. “There’s people you’ve known for 20 years and the timing of it happened as we came away on tour pretty much,” he said. “So we were all a bit in the dark and I’m sure everything will be sorted out, things will be a bit more clear when we get back.
“But it’s been a difficult thing to see – people I’ve known for a long, long time. One thing about working in a club like Man United, you’re all in and everyone’s always been all in. It’s a big massive staff but I think that’s just been the culture of the club.”
For Evans it is a family. “It is for a club of such a huge size and the staff turnover – you have family members working there.
“People are married and my wife’s been working at the club, my brother has been at the club, my dad’s been at the club.
“So it’s always had that feeling of people, they give everything they have for the club and it’s such a huge credit to them. That’s just because they love the place so much. That’s always been the beauty of the club – we’ve [the players] always had that connection with our staff.
“The fact that the club is built on the academy also has a big part in that because players have been there for such a long time from a young age and the academy players have always sort of set the culture. And the staff that have been there the whole way through, they promoted them through the club and people who work with the ticket office move through departments.
“That’s been the nature of the culture, how it’s always been built and it’s a huge plus for the club. We want to maintain that as much as possible.”
