GARY NEVILLE has once again slammed the Glazers’ “negligent” ownership of Manchester United.
Red Devils fans were left gutted this week when Sir Jim Ratcliffe admitted that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to buy his beloved club from the American family.
Ratcliffe, 69, revealed his interest in the club in August but hasn’t been able to make any headway in convincing the Glazer family to sell up.
Some reports even claim that it would take an eye-watering £9BN offer to change their minds.
Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man, possesses a personal fortune thought to be around £6.33bn.
Speaking at a Financial Times event in London this week, Ratcliffe said: “I’m a lifelong Manchester United fan.
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“I was there in 1999 for the most remarkable match of all time in Barcelona. So, you know, the club is deeply etched in my mind.
“But Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family.
“I have met Joel and Avram, who are the nicest people, proper gentlemen, and they don’t want to sell.
“The club is owned by the six children of the father, Malcolm, and they don’t want to sell it.
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“If it had been for sale in the summer, yes, we would probably have had a go, following on from the Chelsea thing.
“But we can’t sit around hoping that one day United will become available.”
Quizzed how United fans will react to Ratcliffe’s comments, Neville told the Mail: “I think they will be frustrated – but I think they will also recognise that Jim Ratcliffe was very respectful towards the family.
“I think if you’re going to be disrespectful to the family, they’re not going to do business with you in the future.
“What he did felt like to me ‘look, the owners don’t want to sell but they were very decent with me’ and if that changes in the future, then maybe he’ll be there.
They haven’t got the money to be able to do what Manchester United need
Gary Neville
“I can’t see how this is sustainable, how they can’t bring in investment, or a partner or sell. I just can’t see it. They haven’t got the money to be able to do what Manchester United need.”
On the Glazers’ incompetence, Neville added: “United cannot continue to have a stadium like they have, when the rest of the stadiums in Europe and in the Premier League are improving on the scale that they are.
“It would just be absolute negligence to not get that stadium up to the level it needs.
“That is half a billion on a refurb, a billion plus on a new stadium. Then you’ve got the training ground investment.
“You see what Chelsea are spending, what Arsenal have spent this year, what City have got.
“United need to spend big money every single year and what they spent in this summer was well above the budget that they wanted to spend – they said that on the investor call last week.
“And it leaves them perilously low on cash, with a loan that they have to continue to keep paying. The debt market isn’t strong, the investment market is weak… so they are going to have to do something and they will be working on something.
“So I was a little bit frustrated that the conversation with Jim Ratcliffe wasn’t extended but on the other hand they must be up to something.”
Asked what has gone wrong at Old Trafford in recent years, Ratcliffe hinted that the Glazers’ investment hadn’t been up to scratch.
The biggest correlation to success in football is money, without question
Jim Ratcliffe
He said: “I think the answer about performance with United is a simple one, really.
“The biggest correlation to success in football is money, without question.
“It’s not the only correlation — because you’ve got outliers like Brighton — but it’s the biggest correlation by far.
“If you’ve got the highest revenues, you can sign the best players, you play the best football.
“Manchester United was one of the top three clubs. We had the two in Spain, Madrid and Barcelona, and United, all with revenues of around £800million.
“Now a few more have joined that club, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, while Liverpool are a little bit closer.
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“But Manchester United are not playing in the same league as those teams at the moment — and they haven’t done for a few years, not really since Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down.
“So they are not firing on all cylinders. That would be my point on performance.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
