Ratcliffe vs Man Utd fans: The Glazers are 'the nicest people on the planet'

Tom Weber

Updated: 15 Mar 2025 13:37 GMT
3 min read

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, The Glazers, Man Utd — © IMAGO

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has again raised eyebrows among Manchester United supporters with his latest comments.

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The INEOS billionaire has been on a tour de force with interviews over the past week as Man Utd revealed their plans to build a new 100,000-capacity stadium.

Ratcliffe made waves earlier this week by claiming that several Man Utd players were 'not good enough' and 'overpaid,' while he also stated that the club could have gone bankrupt by the end of this year.

The Times has now published a new discussion with Britain's richest man and it is fair to say that his comments are once again stirring the pot.

Ratcliffe discussed the running of Man Utd and, incredibly, heaped praise on the club's hated majority owners, the Glazers, before going in two-footed on former executives Ed Woodward and Richard Arnold.

Ratcliffe praises the Glazers

"The people who advise me say the fans don't want to hear it. So I've got to be cautious," Ratcliffe began. "I get a lot of criticism if I support the Glazers, but the fact is they're really decent people.

"They're East Coast, you know - that old East Coast America, they're very polite, they're very civilised, they're the nicest people on the planet. I mean, there isn't a bad bone in Joel Glazer's body. I mean, part of the problem is there isn't a bad bone in his body."

"I mean, I wouldn't have tolerated Ed Woodward or Richard Arnold," Ratcliffe's tone suddenly changed. "Richard was a rugby man, he didn't even understand football. Ed didn't have the credentials to manage the club. He was a merchant banker, an accountant. He wasn't the chief executive.

"The management of Manchester United have been given a huge amount of rope. The owners just managed the club and left the football side alone and they've made a lot of very poor decisions over 12 years, stupid things. They made a complete cock-up of it, shocking really.

"They couldn't see where they were headed. The first management group, they thought they understood and wanted to get involved in buying footballers but they didn't have the knowledge to buy footballers, you know, so they went in the marketplace, spraying money around and it was just random, wasn't it?"