Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe's first year at Man United has not gone to plan

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Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe's first year at Man United has not gone to plan

2025-02-18 20:55 Last Updated At：21:00

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — It's been a year since one of Britain's richest men bought into its most famous soccer team and vowed to bring the good times back.

So far, it hasn't gone to plan for Manchester United or Jim Ratcliffe.

The record 20-time English champion is languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League, losing vast sums of money every year and facing fan unrest.

Even head coach Ruben Amorim said recently that this might be the worst team in the club's storied history.

That's not all on Ratcliffe, the billionaire owner of petrochemicals giant INEOS, but it has been a rocky start since he paid $1.3 billion for an initial 25% stake in United and assumed control of its soccer operations.

There have been high profile hirings and firings, brutal cost cutting, a hike in ticket prices and new lows on the field for a team that had been in decline for more than a decade before he became minority owner.

While there was triumph in the FA Cup last year, that success has been overshadowed by supporter protests, job losses, unconvincing transfers and humbling defeats.

Ratcliffe said his investment was “just the beginning of our journey to take Manchester United back to the top of English, European and world football.”

Those ambitions feel further away now than they have in decades, with United 15th in the standings and closer to the relegation zone than the top six after a woeful campaign. Sunday's 1-0 loss to Tottenham was the 12th in the league this season and an eighth under Amorim, who only took charge in November.

Amorim said: “I have a lot of problems, my job is so hard, but I am here to continue my job to the next week with my beliefs."

He was one of a number of key hires made as part of Ratcliffe's overhaul of United's soccer operations.

Omar Berrada was lured away from Manchester City to become CEO and Dan Ashworth left Newcastle to take up the role of sporting director. Jason Wilcox, formerly director of City's academy, became technical director.

Key figures at Ratcliffe’s Ineos Sport, Dave Brailsford and Jean-Claude Blanc, were appointed to the board and Amorim became the final piece of a new leadership team after former manager Erik ten Hag was fired in October.

But that restructuring has been far from a smooth process.

Ten Hag was fired three months after being handed a one-year contract extension with United having lost four of its opening nine league games.

Ashworth left the club less than six months after taking up his role, and after months of negotiations to take him away from Newcastle.

They were expensive missteps.

In total it cost United 10.4 million pounds ($13.09 million) to pay off Ten Hag and his staff and another 11 million pounds ($13.85 million) to trigger Amorim's release from Sporting Lisbon.

It was reported it cost between 2 and 3 million pounds ($2.5-3.78 million) to hire Ashworth, who spent five months on gardening leave during negotiations with Newcastle.

Those numbers make uncomfortable reading at a time when United has implemented cost-saving initiatives that it said included staff redundancies of around 250 roles. More could be on the way, according to reports.

In October it emerged that managerial great Alex Ferguson was not beyond the reach of those measures. He will step down from his lucrative role as club ambassador at the end of the season.

In addition to cuts, United raised its lowest-priced tickets to 66 pounds ($81) partway through the season, up from 40 pounds ($49).

It defended that decision by telling fans it could not sustain its current financial losses and was in danger of breaching league rules if it did not act. United reported losses last year of 113.2 million pounds ($140 million).

“We will get back to a cash positive position as soon as possible and we will have to make some difficult choices to get there,” it said in a letter to fans.

That explanation has not gone down well with supporters.

“Fans should not be paying the price for previous bad ownership & bad management,” Manchester United Supporters Trust posted on X. “The supporters bring far more value than the simple collective ticket revenue.”

Supporters spent years trying to drive out the American Glazer family, which is still majority owner, and there continues to be anger towards them after Ratcliffe's investment.

There have been jeers for the team while United's performances on the field have continued to slide.

Ratcliffe's first season as co-owner saw United endure its worst league campaign in 34 years when it finished in eighth place.

The end of his first full season could be even worse.

The last time it lost 12 of its first 25 games in a league season was in the 1973-74 campaign when it was relegated from the top flight.

United has spent around $260 million on players in the two transfer windows under Ratcliffe, but the squad still looks well short of the quality required to challenge for the title.

Forward Joshua Zirkzee has struggled to adapt to the Premier League and defender Leny Yoro missed a large part of the season through injury.

The pressure of complying with the league's financial rules has placed uncertainty on United's ability to spend big in the summer to bring in players to suit Amorim's preferred system, and there is unlikely to be a quick fix.

Ratcliffe wants a world class stadium, either by way of redeveloping United's iconic Old Trafford or building one from new.

His plans, which include an ambitious redevelopment of the surrounding area, have been backed by the U.K. government. Financing them, however, is another issue and it is not yet clear where that money will come from.

The modernization of United's Carrington training ground is well underway after 50 million pounds ($63 million) of investment.

United hasn't lifted the league title since Ferguson's last season in 2013 and behind the scenes the focus is on winning it for a record-extending 21st time. But with Liverpool on course to equal United's haul of 20 this season, it is the club's great rival from Merseyside that could set that new bar first.

Ratcliffe is a hugely successful businessman but, as he is discovering, that does not guarantee success in soccer.

James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

What to know about the protests now shaking Iran as tensions remain high over its nuclear program

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Widening protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are putting new pressure on its theocracy.

Tehran is still reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has put Iran's rial currency into a free fall, now trading at some 1.4 million to $1.

Meanwhile, Iran's self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of countries and militant groups backed by Tehran — has been decimated in the years since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.

A threat by U.S. President Donald Trump warning Iran that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the U.S. “will come to their rescue," has taken on new meaning after American troops captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran. Iran has installed a banner in Tehran warning the United States and Israel that their soldiers could be killed if they take military action there.

Here's what to know about the protests and the challenges facing Iran's government.

Demonstrations have reached over 170 locations in 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported early Sunday. The death toll had reached at least 15 killed, it added, with more than 580 arrests. The group, which relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting, has been accurate in past unrest.

Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire. Journalists in general in Iran also face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country, as well as the threat of harassment or arrest by authorities.

But the protests do not appear to be stopping, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said “rioters must be put in their place.”

The collapse of the rial has led to a widening economic crisis in Iran. Prices are up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%.

In December, Iran introduced a new pricing tier for its nationally subsidized gasoline, raising the price of some of the world’s cheapest gas and further pressuring the population. Tehran may seek steeper price increases in the future, as the government now will review prices every three months.

The protests began first with merchants in Tehran before spreading. While initially focused on economic issues, the demonstrations soon saw protesters chanting anti-government statements as well. Anger has been simmering over the years, particularly after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody that triggered nationwide demonstrations.

Iran's “Axis of Resistance," which grew in prominence in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is reeling.

Israel has crushed Hamas in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, has seen its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling since. A lightning offensive in December 2024 overthrew Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, after years of war there. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels also have been pounded by Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.

Now Venezuelan ally Maduro is in U.S. custody. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the “illegal U.S. attack against Venezuela." U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likened the attack to the U.S. strikes in Iran last year, saying that “Maduro had his chance, just like Iran had their chance.” He added that adversaries of the U.S. should “remain on notice” that “America can project our will anywhere, anytime.”

China meanwhile has remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, but hasn't provided overt military support. Neither has Russia, which has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.

Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels prior to the U.S. attack in June, making it the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Tehran also increasingly cut back its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, as tensions increased over its nuclear program in recent years. The IAEA's director-general has warned Iran could build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program.

U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. But there's been no significant talks in the months since the June war.

Iran decades ago was one of the United States’ top allies in the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then came the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed.

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the U.S. launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the U.S. military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, and relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran greatly limit its program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that intensified after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.