Ruthless Ratcliffe prepares to sack more long-serving staff

Manchester United staff have been shaken after learning the club have told their longest-serving employee, and their main point of contact with Uefa and the Premier League for match operations, that her job is at risk of redundancy.

Marie Marron has been at Old Trafford for 47 years, initially serving as the personal assistant to the club secretary at the time, Ken Merrett, but becoming a key figure in first-team logistics, acting as the liaison with Uefa and the Premier League as well as the FA and opposing teams before matches. She is also the voice of VAR on match days at Old Trafford.

Marron was the chief co-ordinator for United’s historic Treble in 1999 and was among five long-serving staff who were honoured by the club sponsors in 2013 for their “exceptional dedication and commitment” to the United team.

But in a week when United moved a significant step closer to reaching another major European final with their stunning 3-0 victory in Bilbao, The Times understands the news was broken to Marron in a face-to-face meeting that she was expected to leave at the end of the season.

The new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made no secret of the need to make significant savings to ease United’s financial problems, with widespread redundancies aimed at reducing the club’s overall workforce from 1,250 to about 700. In a recent interview with The Times, the British billionaire said the Premier League club needed to make these savings to avoid the risk of “insolvency”.

Ratcliffe is exploring the sale of French side Nice. New York-based investment bank Lazard has been tasked with finding a buyer for the Ligue 1 club and is looking for a price of €250m ($283.2m, £213m at current exchange rates).

INEOS has invested significantly in Nice, with accounting showing it has put in €216million ($245m) in shares, which does not include other loans they may have made. However, INEOS’ ownership has not always been hugely popular with the Nice fan base, who have viewed themselves as an afterthought in the company’s multi-club model.

Speaking in March, Ratcliffe said he did not enjoy watching Nice due to the standard of football and conceded the club had been running successfully this season without the input of INEOS. “I don’t particularly enjoy going to watch Nice because there are some good players, but the level of football is not high enough for me to get excited,” Ratcliffe told The Times.

When both United and Nice qualified for the 2024-25 Europa League, UEFA rules required a temporary arrangement which saw a “blind trust” operating Nice. As a result, Nice describes neither INEOS or Ratcliffe having “control or decisive influence” at the club. This was only a temporary solution to enable Nice to play in the same UEFA club competition as Manchester United this season.

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion. Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs. An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site. He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned. He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long. What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do

The Political Economy of Football V2

Search This Blog