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

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

Manchester United's Diogo Dalot, left, and Joshua Zirkzee react after the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United in London, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)

Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim reacts after Leicester's Bobby Decordova-Reid scored the opening goal during the English FA Cup fourth round soccer match between Manchester United and Leicester City at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

FILE - Jim Ratcliffe, center, in the stands during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Arsenal at the Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, file)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ahn Sung-ki, one of South Korean cinema’s biggest stars whose prolific 60-year career and positive, gentle public image earned him the nickname “The Nation’s Actor,” died Monday. He was 74.

Ahn, who had suffered blood cancer for years, was pronounced dead at Seoul's Soonchunhyang University Hospital, his agency, the Artist Company, and hospital officials said.

“We feel deep sorrow at the sudden, sad news, pray for the eternal rest of the deceased and offer our heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family members," the Artist Company said in a statement.

President Lee Jae Myung issued a condolence message saying Ahn provided many people with comfort, joy and time for reflection. “I already miss his warm smile and gentle voice,” Lee wrote on Facebook.

Born to a filmmaker in the southeastern city of Daegu in 1952, Ahn made his debut as a child actor in the movie “The Twilight Train” in 1957. He subsequently appeared in about 70 movies as a child actor before he left the film industry to live an ordinary life.

In 1970, Ahn entered Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies as a Vietnamese major. Ahn said he graduated with top honors but failed to land jobs at big companies, who likely saw his Vietnamese major largely useless after a communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975.

Ahn returned to the film industry in 1977 believing he could still excel in acting. In 1980, he rose to fame for his lead role in Lee Jang-ho’s “Good, Windy Days,” a hit coming-of-age movie about the struggle of working-class men from rural areas during the country’s rapid rise. Ahn won the best new actor award in the prestigious Grand Bell Awards, the Korean version of the Academy Awards.

He later starred in a series of highly successful and critically acclaimed movies, sweeping best actor awards and becoming arguably the country’s most popular actor in much of the 1980-90s.

Some of his memorable roles included a Buddhist monk in 1981’s “Mandara,” a beggar in 1984’s “Whale Hunting,” a Vietnam War veteran-turned-novelist in 1992’s “White Badge,” a corrupt police officer in 1993’s “Two Cops,” a murderer in 1999’s “No Where To Hide,” a special forces trainer in 2003’s “Silmido” and a devoted celebrity manager in 2006’s “Radio Star.”

Ahn had collected dozens of trophies in major movie awards in South Korea, including winning the Grand Bell Awards for best actor five times, an achievement no other South Korean actors have matched yet.

Ahn built up an image as a humble, trustworthy and family-oriented celebrity who avoided major scandals and maintained a quiet, stable personal life. Past public surveys chose Ahn as South Korea’s most beloved actor and deserving of the nickname “The Nation’s Actor.”

Ahn said he earlier felt confined with his “The Nation's Actor” labeling but eventually thought that led him down the right path. In recent years, local media has given other stars similar honorable nicknames, but Ahn was apparently the first South Korean actor who was dubbed “The Nation's Actor.”

“I felt I should do something that could match that title. But I think that has eventually guided me on a good direction,” Ahn said in an interview with Yonhap news agency in 2023.

In media interviews, Ahn couldn’t choose what his favorite movie was, but said that his role as a dedicated, hardworking manger for a washed-up rock singer played by Park Jung-hoon resembled himself in real life the most.

Ahn was also known for his reluctance to do love scenes. He said said he was too shy to act romantic scenes and sometimes asked directors to skip steamy scenes if they were only meant to add spice to movies.

“I don’t do well on acting like looking at someone who I don’t love with loving eyes and kissing really romantically. I feel shy and can’t express such emotions well,” Ahn said in an interview with the Shindonga magazine in 2007. “Simply, I’m clumsy on that. So I couldn’t star in such movies a lot. But ultimately, that was a right choice for me.”

Ahn is survived by his wife and their two sons. A mourning station at a Seoul hospital was to run until Friday.

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki smiles for a photo on the red carpet at the 56th Daejong Film Awards ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, June 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki attends an event as part of the 11th Pusan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 13, 2006. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)