Man Utd takeover: What can fans expect from Sir Jim Ratcliffe?

Jacque Talbot

• Updated: 16 Oct 2023 08:33 BST
• 4 min read

Sir Jim Ratcliffe looks set to claim a 25% stake in Manchester United following almost a year of uncertainty.

Months have dragged on, bids made, and rounds completed, but now we are closer than ever to the finish line - even if it's not the result some Man Utd fans would have hoped for.

The Qatari group had bid with the intention of landing a 100 percent stake in the club - it was the offer that would have brought an end to the Glazers’ 18-year reign. But the American family had other ideas and opted to accept the minority purchase bid from Ratcliffe.

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Ratcliffe is no stranger to running football clubs. His company - Ineos - owns French side Nice. His tenure there is coming up to five years, but in that time the club have still remained relatively standstill, just off the cusp of Europe.

Ratcliffe is rarely seen at the Allianz Riviera. He lives in Monaco, just 30 minutes down the road, but has only been to a handful of games, usually making an appearance when both clubs face off in the Derby de la Cote d'Azur at the Louis II Stadium.

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He loves the region but isn’t the most present with the day-to-day running of the club. Ratcliffe instead people feeding back to him regularly.

He is a Man Utd fan, having been born in born in Failsworth, Greater Manchester, a town situated between Oldham and the city centre. It's likely he does have an affection for the club, but the Ines chief also claimed to be a Chelsea supporter when he tried to buy them last year.

Ineo's worth

Ineos, a global chemical company, boasts obscene wealth. There was a huge wave of excitement when they bought Nice in 2019 - but so far their worth has not correlated with success. People were waiting for an uptick but it didn’t come to fruition. That is because of the dominance of teams around Ligue 1 - Paris Saint-Germain being the most prominent.

That has been an investment, but their recruitment hasn’t always been the smartest. They shook up their personnel, with a coup being their managing to get Florent Ghisolfi in from Lens last year as their sporting director.

Ratcliffe’s ambition was to turn Nice into a club that could challenge PSG for the title. He has a holistic idea of this, even looking to incorporate new different sports, to learn things from one to maximise advantages.

Despite the pursuit of Man Utd, Ratcliffe remains very committed to Nice - he wants to see the club thrive and be able to compete for the title in years to come. His hands-on approach means that he is going to be running the football operations day-to-day at Man Utd.

His time there speaks of a man with good intentions but a lack of know-how. For some, Qatari ownership was the best course of action in a sporting sense for Man Utd, though there will be questions raised around the ethics..