Speaking to Bloomberg, Sir Jim Ratcliffe first touched on Manchester United’s immeasurable popularity all around the globe.“Everybody in the world knows of Manchester because of Manchester United. Manchester United is like Coca-Cola, isn’t it? Everybody knows it. I’m not sure I know why, But it’s a fact,” Ratcliffe stated.He then highlighted Real Madrid as a role model to whom he aspires, especially focusing on finances.“There’s room for improvement everywhere we look at Manchester United, and we will improve everything. We want to be competing for the Premiership every year and the Champions League every year. That’s where we need to be, where Real Madrid is today, but it’ll take time. I think Real Madrid have done a fabulous job. There’s an interesting statistic. If you look at the 10 seasons since Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill left. Manchester United’s net spend on players is £1.1billion. United have not been mean with the chequebook. Real Madrid’s over the same time is £200m, which is surprising when you hear that because today they have a squad where six or seven players are valued at more than 100m euros and Manchester United don’t have any. And Real Madrid have probably built probably the finest football stadium in the world using the same chequebook,” claimed Ratcliffe.Mainoo on Ten Hag: ‘I can’t thank him enough’The 71-year-old didn’t miss the opportunity to comment on Kylian Mbappe’s transfer as well.”You have to look at the balance sheet. I don’t think the solution is to buy a Mbappe. We’re more grassroots. One player isn’t going to solve the problem at Manchester United. We need to build a balanced squad and we need to make progress with the squad. Ultimately maybe you top, top it off with one or two players like Mbappe, it’s not the solution today,” he explained.Sir Jim Ratcliffe kept it honest 👀 pic.twitter.com/KLP2Sl0qjo— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) June 20, 2024 Several Premier League sides had problems with the regulations regarding finances and financial fair-play. Man United co-owner doesn’t want to jeopardize his club in that way.“If you start interfering too much, bringing too much regulation in, then you finish up with the Manchester City issue, you finish up with the Everton issue, you finish up with the Nottingham Forest issue – on and on and on. We’ve got more accountants than we’ve got sporting people at Manchester United. If you’re not careful the Premier League is going to finish up spending more time in court than it is thinking about what’s good for the league. We have got the best league in the world, don’t ruin that league for heaven’s sake. Anchoring would inhibit the top clubs in the Premier League. And the last thing you want is for the top clubs in the Premier League not to be able to compete with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG – that’s absurd. And if it does, it then ceases to be the finest league in the world,” asserted the INEOS boss.##NAJAVA_MECA_8168017##The unavoidable topic was Erik ten Hag and his stay at the club from Old Trafford. Ratcliffe claimed the coach is not a problem.”The coach isn’t the central issue at Manchester United. Ten Hag at least is not deemed the problem. It’s a sports club. It needs to be competitive, it needs a degree of intensity, but with a supportive side to it because you are dealing with players who are relatively young. It hasn’t had that type of environment historically,” he concluded.
