On Thursday, Manchester United, one of the world’s biggest clubs, fought their way to the quarter-finals of the Europa League. This came a few days after United boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe presented the plan for the world’s largest and most spectacular stadium. On Thursday, Bødø/Glimt also fought their way to the quarterfinals in the same tournament. After following Ratcliffe’s arrival at United and the changes that have been pushed through over the past year, we believe Bodø/Glimt is a case Britain’s richest definitely need to see.
“There are a billion Manchester United supporters worldwide,” Ratcliffe stated, when explaining why the club should invest billions in a stadium for 100,000 and create a new destination in Manchester. Ratcliffe is a businessman and investor, but Manchester United supporters probably imagined that the INEOS founder understood and respected the tradition and culture of Manchester United. The past year has shown a United owner aiming for the stars, while at the same time tearing away the foundations of the club.
Is it high time that Manchester United look beyond the decades of Alex Ferguson and the giant success, and instead look ahead to running a modern football club with an eye on the future? Many will agree with this. The dive from the post-Ferguson era in 2013 to carry on as before and maintain the flow of trophies that have been bussed to Old Trafford annually has yielded very meagre results.
In the past year, Ratcliffe has eliminated 250 positions at the club, increased ticket prices, removed Sir Alex Ferguson from the salary budget as the club’s ambassador, announced new redundancies of 200 positions and cut the canteen offer for staff. In the scout department, with employees who have been in the club for a decade or two, it will be cut and modernized. Now technology will be relied on to a greater extent in the analysis work. Former chief scout at United, Mick Brown, stated in an almost state of shock that Ferguson’s employees had been involved in handpicking in his time, were now removed.
This comes in the same period where Ratcliffe and the United management, in turn, have burned over £20 million by sacking their defined long-term United manager Ten Hag, buying Ruben Amorim, buying a new sporting director from Newcastle, and then paying for his disappearance 159 days later. This week, not many hours before the Manchester United players were due to go out in the second leg against Real Sociedad in the Europa League, Ratcliffe stated in an interview that the players were largely overpaid and too poor to wear the United shirt.
When we hear stories from the good old days with Alex Ferguson at the helm, we hear about so much more than a single genius coach and star player who happened to make it to Man Utd. It’s about the people in the whole club. The management, the coaching staff, the players, the academy, the canteen, at Old Trafford. The story also tells of the closeness to the supporters and the local community, continuity and unity. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer highlighted precisely this as a success criterion when he was called in as a substitute in 2018 and led Manchester United out of the mud.
Ratcliffe distances himself from this and aims to provide “1 billion Manchester United supporters with a tourist destination”. On Thursday, Bodø/Glimt qualified for the same quarter-final in the Europa League. They have succeeded in standing by many of the same values that Manchester United are built on. In between all necessary spending cuts and firefighting, we recommend Ratcliffe to turn his attention to Bodø/Glimt.
Manchester United cannot go backwards into the future, but neither can it move away from the “non-materialistic” that contributes greatly to long-term success in a world where communities, clubs and “the people” are so closely connected.
