12 Mar 2025 02:50:39
Ratcliffe making it out in his interview that he has been forced to take drastic measures because he discovered how bad the clubs finances were AFTER he bought into it is just a load of BS, and here's why

- I am an investor in private companies (much smaller cheques, very young cos) but even I would do the basic due diligence of assessing liabilities upfront. It's not rocket science when you are looking at a football club as the underlying asset that you need to know about transfer payments and player contracts, since those are your two big cost items. It beggars belief that Ratcliffe, with his prior experience of owning clubs, and with much more diligent advisors available to him, was unaware of the state of affairs

- what's a lot more likely is that it was always part of the plan to penny pinch wherever possible, while massively screwing up on major decisions, and this interview is kind of the perfect opportunity to control the narrative a bit. From what I understand, GN grills him a fair bit, but if you read the BBC story it's a lot more sympathetic to Ratcliffe in its tone.

- i would argue that blundering on EtH and Ashworth, which probably cost us 30M in comp fees (also for getting RA, lest we forget), and God only knows how much because of the rubbishty season we are having, is the real money sinker. which is fully on the new management team.

- I am fully sympathetic to them ie Ratcliffe and his team for the really big task they have ahead of them, and i actually think we will emerge stronger over 2-3 years provided we stick with the manager and tell the players to get on with it. However, this i-am, -just-a-poor-billionaire-trying-my-best sob act is pathetic.

1.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 05:50:42
AM2. 100% agree, but his sob story is aimed at the masses, who don’t understand business and are easily led and believe all that’s fed to them…. which in 2025 is vast majority, he just used that interview for warm up the very next day new stadium…… take it all with a pinch of salt, his advisors/ accountants etc would have gone over and accounted for every penny, trying to get anyone to believe he was shocked is laughable! But the majority will believe it and that’s all he wants.

2.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 06:16:32
AM2

I agree to a point about them only finding out how bad the clubs finances were after he bought. I know and have seen and been involved in due diligence undertaken but, without going into it in too much detail, it depends on who did the work. Usually it will be expert financial accountant/ auditors, yet did they use experts in all fields who understand just because it says in the books we owe x, do we? How deep a dive was it? I suspect there would have been expertise in reviews of players contracts and clauses.

Who paid for the DD? Was it included in the £30m costs foisted on the club? Or did SJR instruct his own?

However it was done. Now, to add to your point, if it was done so badly there were major issues that were not discovered, which needed such drastic action, I am sure he would be openly taking legal action against the company who did the due diligence, either himself or the club seeking recompense. There are always contractual caveats but something so significant would surely be unacceptable. Opposite is that he is in effect besmirching the due diligence company, will they sue him?

At least he made a confession to the ETH error, which some of us said on here. £30m in comp fees, and it was emotionally driven. That has to stop.

However, people are still missing
1. The £30m in costs foisted on the club by the Glazers so they could pick up SJR share funds. Was it including the Due Diligence fees? Another millstone round our necks. Why didn’t SJR pay it? (If allowed) or did he?

2.The Glazer debt that costs us £60m a year. Will SJR cost cutting pay for that? No, he can only do such cost cutting so many times. What covers that next financial year?

All the great stadium talk, yet has there been anything on how that will be paid. Or how we get those Glazer leeches out?

3.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 07:33:48
The clubs not profitable and of course he would of known this when looking at the numbers, hence the changes and removing bloat, like the club hiring c200 extra employees when the club was running at a loss, did you watch the interview? He also said that he had a view of numbers with different with different scenarios around certain aspects around league finishes, CL, and Europa determining the state of finances. I’m pretty he did know some figure and it was painted in some better shape than it was but I’m sure as a person who works in “investing” would also know that things aren’t always black and white.

4.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 09:32:58
Think it's also got something to do with the 200m he brought in to give the club a boost which Ashworth and co pissed up the wall in about 5 minutes. Realistically he needs to find that kind of sum again to push on and I don't think they have it spare at the mo. I don't think there's any question he wants the club to succeed on the pitch. It's the basis for everything else.

5.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 09:49:56
AM2 unless you know the inner workings of the club and its finances, which is pretty evident you don't. I don't think anybody will pay mind to your opinion on the issue.

6.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 12:35:00
Am not saying I have insider knowledge. All I'm saying is either Ratcliffe employed really inept due diligence folks, and hence all this is genuinely a surprise to him; or he is trying to leverage that interview to generate some positive PR for himself.

Both imo are bad and make me upset, for different reasons (one is incompetence, the second is using the club for his own benefit and nothing else), especially since the club is penny pinching on stuff which really doesn't change anything.

And yes, I do agree that all his incentives are aligned with on pitch success and to reiterate i sympathize with him and the team. I think it's possible to have that belief and yet not agree with a lot of what he does. I just think this interview could have been done a lot better - a lot of it is a bit rich given his own decision making has been questionable.

7.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 13:05:42
Let’s remember that we’d still have needed to pay compensation for Amorim if we’d brought him in last summer, and would still have had to pay Ten Haag off had we let him go earlier as well. The latter’s compensation was probably a bit higher due to his deal being extended three months earlier and the whole Ashworth situation was a shambles from start to finish, but this £30m figure being bandied about seems a little misleading.

Now the money wasted on transfers last summer, on the other hand….

8.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 14:58:12
Fair questions redman and good point redseven
Simply nobody knows the detail on here so don't make assumptions.

9.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 15:47:55
Of course he did his due diligence and of course it was his intention all along to take whatever action was required to make the club profitable. You can call that penny pinching if you will, and, yes, some of the actions (exaggerated by press hyperbole) seem unnecessarily Scroogey, but if I were persuaded to make a large investment in a persistent loss making enterprise I can assure you I would insist on draconian action too.

As for the stadium cost do any of us know how it will be financed, other than it won't be by public money? Do we even know it will be owned by Man Utd PLC?

10.) 12 Mar 2025
12 Mar 2025 16:26:59
The money will be borrowed and like in all other aspects of life the customer will pay.
Same as when BA or Ryanair buy me aeroplanes or when you local taxi man buys a new car etc etc.