THE MAN FOR MANU
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Red Devils’ new part-owner, has big plans to restore the club to its former glory
ACOMPLETE misery – that’s what being a Manchester United fan has been for him over the past decade. His beloved club is one of the biggest in the world and it should be playing the best football, he says. “And it hasn’t been doing that for 10 or 11 years. I want to see it back where it should be.”
And Sir Jim Ratcli e, the Red Devils’ new multibillionaire part-owner, is making bold moves to ful l his dream.
Fans sat up in surprise recently when Jim announced his plan for the summer transfer season: all senior players except Kobbie Mainoo (19), Rasmus Højlund (21) and Alejandro Garnacho (19) would be up for sale.
It’s been described as a brutal cull – but it also shows Jim means business.
Selling expensive older players will allow United to shop around for a few good players, experts say, and then build up a team of young stars to see them into the future.
“United cannot a ord to lose Mainoo, Højlund or Garnacho and Ratcliffe is right to keep them o the market,” says sports writer Kieran King. “It makes sense.”
Jim is also hoping it will be a revival of the glory days. He was in Barcelona in 1999 when Sir Alex Ferguson’s team won the treble, adding the Champions League trophy to their Premier League and FA Cup titles, and he wants it all again.
Winning is his only interest, says the 71-year-old British business tycoon, who paid £237 million (R5,4 billion) for a 27,7% stake in United.
“e club owes it to the fans. ey are the true owners of the club – we’re just guardians or stewards for a period of time.
“e club is a community asset and it’s really important to those people who live in Manchester go to the game each week to see the team winning. at’s what’s so enjoyable for everybody. And we recognise that.”
For Man U’s millions of fans, Jim is like a breath of fresh air. e Glazers – the American family who own the majority stake in the club – are reviled by supporters, seen as remote money-grabbers interested only in the bottom line.
Jim is all about the game: he wants to create the best team in the world and he’s given himself three years to do so.
“It isn’t a light switch,” he says in an interview with e Atlantic. “We have to be careful not to rush at it – you don’t want to run to the wrong solution.
“Look at Pep Guardiola at Man City. It takes time to build a squad.”
IT ALSO takes time to build up the kind of money he has. Jim, with a personal fortune of £29,7bn (R683bn), is the second-richest person in the UK after Gopichand Hinduja, owner of Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group. He was born in Failsworth, Manchester, the son of a joiner and a secretary, and spent the rst 10 years of his life in a humble council house.
“You should see a picture of the house I grew up in,” he says. “I just played football, really. at’s all I was interested in.”
e family later moved to East Yorkshire and after school Jim studied chemical engineering at Birmingham University before getting an MBA from London Business School.
‘WE HAVE TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO RUSH AT IT – YOU DON’T WANT TO RUN TO THE WRONG SOLUTION’
He spent several years at oil rms BP and Esso and then joined fabric and chemicals producers Courtaulds and Exxon. In 1998 he started his own company, Ineos, and built it into the fourthlargest chemical conglomerate in the world.
A key part of his success, the Manchester Evening News reports, was his decision not to float Ineos on the London Stock Exchange which meant he had no shareholders to consult and could execute deals quickly as the majority shareholder.
“He also has a reputation as a tough negotiator particularly regarding industrial disputes,” the publication says.
He earned the nickname of James Bond villain Dr. No after facing down unions in the face of widespread strikes over pay and pensions.
Jim was also embroiled in a fracking controversy in 2016 when he imported shale gas from the US to the UK. He defended his decision by claiming the gas had secured 10 000 jobs although he admitted the chemical industry “isn’t perfect”.
“There will always be the occasional environmental issue,” he said.
Jim was knighted in 2018 for services to business and investment – the same year he relocated to the tax haven of Monaco, saving himself an estimated £4bn (now R92bn) in tax.
“I paid my taxes for over 40 years in the UK,” he told The Atlantic. “And then when I got to retirement age I went down to enjoy a bit of sun. I don’t have a problem with that, I’m afraid.”
MANCHESTER United is hardly Jim’s rst foray into the world of sport. His company was the front-of-shirt sponsor for the Lausanne Hockey Club in Switzerland – where Ineos had its headquarters – and took over control of Swiss football club FC Lausanne-Sport in 2017.
Two years later he acquired the British cycling team and changed the name to Ineos Grenadiers and then bought French football club Nice.
He’s part-owner of the Mercedes Formula 1 team and in 2022 he formed a partnership with Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge and his running team.
Jim had long wanted a slice of the Premier League pie and two years ago he tried to buy Chelsea for £4,25bn (now R97,75bn), losing out to the consortium led by American businessman Todd Boehly.
Then in February last year Jim and Qatari multimillionaire Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al ani started bidding for stakes in United. Jassim withdrew nine months later after becoming frustrated by the negotiation process, paving the way for Jim to secure his share.
In addition to his $237-m (R5,4bn) investment he has also pledged $300m (R6,9bn) towards the club’s infrastructure and has plans to either overhaul Old Trafford or build a new stadium altogether.
“It’s neglected and run down in places,” he says. “Manchester United needs a stadium befitting its status and at the moment it’s not there.”
Vast wealth has brought Jim many assets: mansions in London and Hampshire in the UK, property in Monaco, an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva and hotels in France and England.
He owns ve private jets, a helicopter, a eet of luxury cars and several superyachts –including the Hampshire II, which has a beach club, ball court, helicopter deck and an onboard zipline experience.
He has two sons, George and Samuel, with his first wife, Amanda Townson, and a daughter, Julia, with his second wife, tax lawyer Maria Alessia Maresca. He’s now said to be dating Catherine Polli, but Jim is notoriously private and not much is known about Catherine.
He’s also enjoyed many expeditions over the years, including journeys to the North and South Poles and a three-month motorbike trek across South Africa. Right now, however, his energy is focused on the Red Devils. “is is the biggest challenge in sport I’ve undertaken,” he says.
“The club is enormous – everywhere I go, it’s Manchester United.
“It a ects an awful lot of people on the planet and getting it right is not going to be easy.”
‘UNITED CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE MAINOO, HØJLUND OR GARNACHO AND RATCLIFFE IS RIGHT TO KEEP THEM OFF THE MARKET’