Senior Manchester United officials are ‘mortified’ by Sir Jim Ratcliffe‘s comments on immigration, amid fears over the impact on players and plans for a new £2billion stadium.
The club’s co-owner sparked widespread outrage when he told Sky News on Wednesday that the UK had been ‘colonised by immigrants’ that were ‘costing too much money’.
This morning, they were assessing the damage at Old Trafford. Top of the immediate list of priorities was minimising the impact on a playing squad, the vast majority of which comes from outside the UK and pays eye-watering taxes.
Of the current first-team squad, only seven were born in the UK (Englishmen Harry Maguire, Mason Mount, Tom Heaton, Luke Shaw, Kobbie Mainoo, Ayden Heaven and Tyler Fredricson).
It is likely that interim manager Michael Carrick, who has enough on his plate as he battles to qualify for the Champions League, will have to address his players – no doubt to reassure them that such a view is not held within his dressing room.
Ratcliffe has subsequently issued an apology of sorts, but questions are now being asked about whether the ramifications stretch from beyond the walls of the club’s famous stadium to those that have not yet been built.
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that the UK has been ‘colonised by immigrants’
This morning, they were assessing the damage at Old Trafford. Top of the immediate list of priorities was minimising the impact on a playing squad
Ratcliffe is currently trying to secure Government funding to develop the land around his proposed new £2bn stadium for United
To complete their dream of a futuristic 100,000-capacity ‘Wembley of the North’, United need Government support (and lots of it), in particular to pay for the development of the area around the proposed replacement for Old Trafford. Before Sir Jim’s comments, that prospect was already controversial.
The argument against was, and is, relatively simple. Why should taxpayers’ money go on helping a private company make more money? The response to that was that such an investment, in infrastructure, planning and access, would be paid back many times over in increased rates. That this would be an investment not in Manchester United, but in the North.
The man central to unlocking Government funding is the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. Under Burnham’s tenure, Manchester city centre has been rejuvenated beyond recognition with a skyline that now looks more like metropolis than Cottonopolis.
He is a man who gets things done, and he is vital to the project. It would be safe to assume that without Burnham’s backing, the stadium does not happen. He has already taken steps to speed up the process.
Only last month the Old Trafford Regeneration Mayoral Development Corporation was launched, with the aim to build 15,000 new homes and create 48,000 jobs for locals, and 90,000 across the country.
While vowing that not a penny of taxpayers’ money would go on the stadium build, only the land around it, Burnham has spoken of the wider project and its benefits. In November he told a podcast: ‘It’s a major growth project for the whole of the North West. And the enticing prospect in my mind is if we really get it moving.’ He has also spoken of the ‘massive economic boost’ it would bring to Greater Manchester.
On Thursday morning, however, he pulled zero punches in a statement that may well have sent shivers down the spines of many at United and those involved in the stadium project. In a withering attack, he called on Ratcliffe to withdraw his comments, saying they ‘go against everything for which Manchester has traditionally stood’.
For good measure, he then appeared to take aim at United’s majority shareholders the Glazer family, in a thinly veiled send-off. ‘If any criticism is needed,’ he said, ‘it should be directed towards those who have offered little contribution to our life here and have instead spent years siphoning wealth out of one of our proudest institutions.’
Andy Burnham (left) and Sir Keir Starmer (right) have been working with Ratcliffe (centre) on the stadium project
The new stadium proposal envisages a 100,000-seat ‘Wembley of the North’ for United
It is likely that interim manager Michael Carrick, who has enough on his plate, will have to address his players, no doubt to reassure them that such a view is not held in his dressing room
Burnham’s attack followed that of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who demanded an apology, while justice minister Jake Richards poured scorn on Ratcliffe’s claim that the UK population had increased by 12 million since 2020 and spoke of hypocrisy.
‘There’s also something that I find quite offensive, that this man who moved to Monaco to save £4billion in tax is now lecturing us about immigration,’ Richards told Times Radio. These are hardly words of support.
Back in Manchester, senior club officials have told Daily Mail Sport that they are ‘mortified’ and those close to the project have described Ratcliffe’s comments as ‘unhelpful’. There remains, however, hope that they will not have derailed a project that is key to Ratcliffe’s vision for the club.
A clean-up exercise will be needed from the petrochemicals billionaire. His apology may have been the first step but even that came with a caveat. ‘I am sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern but it is important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth,’ he said.
All of a sudden United’s own dreams of economic growth, triggered by a new home, seem further away.