Manchester United legend and Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has claimed that the timing to announce Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s deal with the club has been ‘truly awful’.
The Glazers were looking for investors in the club since the end of last year. They initially decided to sell 100% of the club but later changed their mind.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim made offers to buy Man United but the Glazers deemed them not good enough to sell 100% of the club. Sir Jim later returned with another offer to buy 25% of the club and succeeded in making the deal.
Neville believes that the timing to announce the deal on Christmas Eve was a bad decision.
He wrote on his X account:
“Manchester United 2023 has been a disgrace to the end. The timing of this is truly awful and no functioning organisation would even think about it.
“Anyway all the very best to Jim Radcliffe and I hope he can somehow work out a way to get the club right again and back to being something respectable on and off the pitch.”
As part of the deal, Sir Jim will take control of the playing side of the club including player recruitment.
Ratcliffe’s words will give some hope to the fans after he claimed that the potential of the club has not been realised in recent years.
‘As a local boy and a lifelong supporter, I am very pleased that we have been able to agree a deal with the Manchester United Board that delegates us management responsibility of the football operations of the Club.
‘Whilst the commercial success of the club has ensured there have always been available funds to win trophies at the highest level, this potential has not been fully unlocked in recent times.
‘We will bring the global knowledge, expertise and talent from the wider INEOS Sport group to help drive further improvement at the club, while also providing funds intended to enable future investment into Old Trafford.
‘We are here for the long term and recognise that a lot of challenges and hard work lie ahead, which we will approach with rigour, professionalism and passion.
‘We are committed to working with everyone at the Club – the Board, staff, players and fans – to help drive the club forward.
‘Our shared ambition is clear: we all want to see Manchester United back where we belong, at the very top of English, European and world football.’