MANCHESTER (United Kingdom): Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe said he will walk away from the club should the abuse he has received reach the same level endured by the Glazer family.
Ratcliffe bought a minority stake in United a year ago but has drawn the ire of fans as fortunes have continued to fade on the field, while he has raised ticket prices and made swingeing cuts to the club’s staffing.
The British billionaire has not yet received the same level of backlash as the Glazer family, who have owned the club since a controversial leveraged takeover in 2005.
Protests against the Americans are commonplace at Old Trafford and Ratcliffe said he had barely seen the Glazers since buying a 29 percent stake in United for a reported £1.3 billion ($1.7 billion).
“I can put up with it for a while,“ Ratcliffe told the Sunday Times.
“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.”
Hopes that Ratcliffe’s arrival could herald a new era of success for United have so far been unfulfilled.
The decision to hand former manager Erik ten Hag a new contract at the end of the last season before sacking the Dutchman in October and the swift departure of sporting director Dan Ashworth have proved expensive mistakes.
Ruben Amorim has struggled to make any tangible improvements since replacing Ten Hag, with United languishing in the lower reaches of the Premier League table.
Ratcliffe also riled United players this week with comments that some of them are “overpaid” and “not good enough”.
The club unveiled plans for a new 100,000-capacity stadium earlier this week at a reported cost of £2 billion.
An ambitious project hopes to complete the stadium build within five years, but Ratcliffe said he would not hang around if the abuse coming his way got worse over a prolonged period.
“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,“ he added.
“We bought in and I haven’t seen them since. It’s, ‘thank you, Jim, you’re doing a really good job’.
“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.”
