Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has poured cold water on speculation that he could take over Manchester United from the Glazer family.
Ratcliffe, who is the owner of chemicals company Ineos, has frequently been linked with a takeover attempt of United. The 69-year-old was born in Manchester and is a United fan, but despite recent calls from the club’s fanbase and ex-United director Michael Knighton to get involved, Ratcliffe says the idea isn’t feasible.
“Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family. I have met Joel and Avram. They are the nicest people, I have to say, proper gentlemen,” he said at a Financial Times Live event on Tuesday evening.
“They don’t want to sell it (the club). It’s owned by the six children of the father. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes we would probably have had a go following on from the Chelsea thing. But we can’t sit around hoping one day Manchester United will become available.
“So what will happen now? We have a sports franchise. We own a third of Mercedes’ Formula 1 team. Robbed last year. The one thing we don’t have… Football is the most popular sport in the world. We should have a premier club. Nice has got a very interesting history. We’ll have a look at what we might be able to do with Nice.”
Ratcliffe is already heavily involved in sport as owner of Ligue 1 side Nice, professional cycling team Ineos Grenadiers and Sir Ben Ainslie's sailing team, Ineos Team UK. Ineos are also one of the primary sponsors of the Mercedes Formula One team.
While United appears to be a non-starter, Ratcliffe did make an unsuccessful bid to buy Chelsea from Roman Abramovich in April for £4.25billion. According to the Forbes 2022 billionaires list, Ratcliffe is worth around £13.48bn ($16.3bn) – a wealth that makes him Britain’s wealthiest person and the 111th richest person in the world.
Ratcliffe was also asked about United's recent performance. He said: “Might I run it differently? Or might I run it? I think the answer about performance of Manchester United is a simple one. The biggest correlation of success in football is money. Without question. It’s not the only one because you have outliers like Brighton.
“But the biggest one by far is – if you’ve got the highest revenues you can afford the best players, you play the best football. Manchester United is one of those. It was one of those top three clubs. The two in Spain, Madrid and Barca, then Manchester United. They all earned revenues of about £800m.
“A few more have joined that club now, of course. You’ve got Bayern Munich, you’ve got PSG. You’ve got, I can hardly say it, Manchester City. And Liverpool. But Manchester United are not playing in that league of those other teams, at the moment. And they haven’t done really since Sir Alex stepped down. So something is not… they are not firing on all cylinders. That would be my point on performance.”
Although Ratcliffe was complimentary of the Glazer family, who have owned United since 2005 and also own NFL franchise Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he has previously criticised the way they have run the club.
"[Ineos] never wants to be the dumb money in town, never, never," he told The Times in 2019. "[United] haven't got the manager selection right, haven't bought well. They have been the dumb money, which you see with players like Fred.
"We won't look elsewhere until we have had a good run here (at Nice). We need to find out how to be successful before you ever want to write a big cheque. It's quite difficult."
The Glazer family are deeply unpopular with a large number of United supporters, who are desperate to see an end to the Glazers' tumultuous 17-year-old reign and have frequently held protests against the American billionaires.
