The Political Economy of Football V2

Ruben Amorim has been sacked by Manchester United.  United have had six permanent managers since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 and have finished no higher than second in that time, achieved by both Jose Mourinho (2017-18) and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (2020-21). The club have spent more than £50million ($67m, €57m) on removing managers since Ferguson left the role. The Portuguese’s final game of his 14-month spell as head coach was the 1-1 draw against Leeds United on Sunday that leaves them sixth in the Premier League after 20 matches. Former midfielder and current Under-18s coach Darren Fletcher will take charge on an interim basis, with his first game being away at Burnley on Wednesday night. A permanent appointment is likely to wait until the summer. The club’s leadership team, including chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox, arrived at the decision after a breakdown in relations behind the scenes. In his press conference ...

The huge projected cost of Manchester United’s new stadium may have contributed to the club’s share price hitting a 52-week low.  As well as the £2billion price tag — and some well-placed figures believe that is a conservative estimate — there has been no confirmation by the club how the new 100,000-capacity stadium next to Old Trafford will be funded. The announcement of the stadium plans on Tuesday was followed by the share price on the New York Stock Exchange falling to $13.22 the following day — more than $5 less than the highest price over the past year. Kieran Maguire, the football finance guru, said: “It suggests the markets are cautious about the club’s prospects following the announcement of the new stadium and will await details of how it will be funded with interest.” The share price may also reflect United’s struggles on the pitch, while their co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s description of players as “overpaid and underperforming” cannot have helped sh...

Last week was rather tempestuous  for the sporting empire of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Following a 3-1 home defeat to Brighton last weekend, Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim labelled his team “the worst” in the club’s history and apparently damaged a television set in the dressing room.. United now sit 13th in the Premier League, closer to relegation than the Champions League. Amorim’s appointment was a key moment in Ratcliffe’s stewardship of the club. Since buying a minority stake last year, the UK chemicals billionaire has overseen a mass clear out of senior executives and cut headcount by 250 people. This is now his operation, and things are not going to plan. His sailing operation has also run into choppy waters. On Thursday, Ineos announced that its America's Cup team was parting ways with legendary British sailor Sir Ben Ainslie after failing to “find agreement on terms to move forward”. Ainslie responded soon after, saying he was “astounded” and threatened lega...

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos has agreed to inject $100mn into Manchester United, cementing the billionaire’s influence at the English football club.  The move completes the $300mn worth of funding into the company pledged by Ratcliffe when he agreed a year ago to become a co-owner alongside the six Glazer siblings who still have majority voting control.   The $100mn, which will reinforce the club’s balance sheet, has been earmarked for infrastructure investment rather than signing players in the transfer market, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.  After the latest capital injection, Ineos will hold almost 29 per cent of Manchester United shares, according to people familiar with the matter.  Ratcliffe has already put money towards improving the club’s training facilities, and he has wider ambitions of renovating Old Trafford or building a new stadium altogether. Under Ratcliffe, Man United has made redundancies and slashed other costs in order ...

Football is full of rich businessmen who naively imagine their success in another field will easily translate to a sport and an industry they have followed from afar. How hard can it be, right? And so many of them start out by talking a good game and end up making a total mess of it. Or if they get things right, it is only after learning from a lot of mistakes. Football is a sector of ‘business’ unlike any other, one in which the short term often rules and emotions run high.    It is more difficult to calculate the potential of a manager or player than a petrochemical plant.    Or are such individuals targets of the tall poppy syndrome which is largely absent in the US but all too prevalent in the UK? If you were feeling extremely generous, or if your instinct was to regard billionaires with an awe-struck reverence, you might look at the latest news out of Old Trafford and persuade yourself that Sir Jim Ratcliffe is bringing back the ruthlessness that...

Manchester United already seem to be getting their mojo back if yesterday’s win against Everton is anything to go by.   The gloomy Ten Hag has been replaced by a coach with passion and new ideas. As forklift trucks ferried building materials across Manchester United’s Carrington training centre this week as part of a £50mn upgrade, another reboot got under way at one of the world’s most famous sports teams. On Thursday Ruben Amorim made his debut at Old Trafford as United’s new head coach, the latest move by Sir Jim Ratcliffe to restore the club’s fortunes since his company Ineos acquired a 27 per cent stake in February.   In the months that have followed, United have cut a quarter of the club’s staff, while Ratcliffe has appointed his own people to all the top executive positions. Amorim’s arrival is meant to be the final piece in the puzzle. While the Glazer family still owns a controlling stake in United, this is now Ratcliffe’s operation.   “We have to i...

Jim Ratcliffe, the multi-billionaire founder and chairman of the UK petrochemicals company Ineos, is buying Swiss club FC Lausanne Sport for an undisclosed sum. The club plays in the country's top tier Super League. It enjoyed its glory days between the 1930s and 1960s and is currently mid-table. The company has invested over many years in youth and community sports in Canton Vaud where it has headquarters for many of its businesses. The company is not seeking to make a profit out of its acquisition, seeing it as an investment in the community. However, should they sell in the future, they are not anticipating having lost any money. The company insists that it is not a vanity project. David Thompson, the chief executive of Ineos Football, a newly created business within the group, says that the target is to have a team that can qualify for European football in four years' time. The deal requires approval by the Swiss Football League.