Who Owns Manchester United?
Manchester United are one of the world's most successful football clubs. They've won a record 20 English top flight titles (including 13 Premier League trophies), as well as three European Cups and numerous FA Cups, with Sir Alex Ferguson's long reign bringing an unprecedented era of success through the 1990s, 2000s and early 2010s. But since the legendary Scottish manager left the club, things have been difficult at Old Trafford. Manchester United have consistently failed to get anywhere near their previous heights despite spending a huge amount in the transfer market, and current boss Erik ten Hag is just the latest in a long line of respected coaches who have struggled to get the first team ticking.
Earlier this year, a high-profile deal was completed which many fans are hoping will go down in history as marking a new dawn for the club. With much of United's core infrastructure crumbling and their stacked trophy cabinet starting to look a little dusty, the Red Devils are pinning their hopes on an experienced sports businessman who now has a key role in influencing the football operations of the club. In this article, we're going to be diving into who the Manchester United owner is and what their role at the club entails, detailing all the recent developments that have taken place at Old Trafford. In order to fully explain the slightly complex issue of the Manchester United ownership, we'll briefly outline who has been in control of the club over the last couple of decades and how fans have responded to their decisions.
Who Owns Manchester United?
The current majority shareholders at Manchester United are the Glazer family, an American family who have been involved with the club ever since billionaire businessman Malcolm Glazer bought a small stake in the club in 2003. Over the next two years, he gradually acquired ownership before finalising a £790m takeover in 2005.
This was amid protests from some sections of the Man United fanbase, who were unhappy about the huge levels of debt the Glazers were burdening the club with, and suspicious of their intentions for the future. When Malcolm Glazer passed away in 2014, his 90% majority shareholding was passed down to his children, split equally between six Glazers: Avram, Bryan, Darcie, Edward, Joel, and Kevin.
However, there has been a significant shift in the makeup of the Manchester United ownership recently. After months of speculation, in February 2024 British business tycoon Sir Jim Radcliffe completed a deal to acquire a minority stake in Manchester United, a club he has reputedly supported since he was young. Ratcliffe, a billionaire who owns multinational chemicals company INEOS, initially purchased a 27.7% stake in the club in a deal reportedly worth £1.25bn.
A key part of the deal was the Brit's acquisition of control of football operations at the club; while the Glazers remain on top of the commercial side of the club, Ratcliffe has been tasked with shaking up day-to-day operations and bringing in members of staff who can transform things on the pitch (with new sporting director Dan Ashworth being a crucial addition).
"This marks the completion of the transaction, but just the beginning of our journey to take Manchester United back to the top of English, European and world football, with world-class facilities for our fans," said Ratcliffe when the deal was done. This quote underlines a key element of the minority investment, which is that most people expect Ratcliffe to increase his shareholding over the coming years in order to gradually boost his influence at the club. For now, though, he remains a minority stakeholder. But what exactly does the Monaco-based billionaire plan to do for the Red Devils?
What Is Jim Ratcliffe's Plan For The Club?
Manchester United aren't the first football club that Jim Ratcliffe has got involved with in a business capacity. Back in 2019, he took over the French side Nice OGC for €110m, but arrived to find the club lacking structure, relying on an aging squad and employing a hire-and-fire managerial policy that was not bringing results on the pitch. While improvements have been made since then, the Nice adventure still hasn't been a huge success, and recent reports have suggested that INEOS could be looking to sell the French club. More broadly, according to the Financial Times, "Radcliffe's overall record across sport is patchy", with his other investments in professional cycling and F1 not always bearing fruit.
How does he plan to change that mixed record during his Manchester United tenure? Well, Ratcliffe immediately got to work promising substantial funds to the Red Devils, with the initial deal costing him roughly £1.25bn including £158m of initial investment in the club followed by a further £79m by the end of 2024. That initial investment is designated for Old Trafford infrastructure, which has consistently been a source of frustration for fans. As our Old Trafford Stadium Guide explains, there has been tons of criticism of the Man United home ground in recent years, with prominent pundit and ex-player Gary Neville calling it "rusting and rotten" following a lack of investment over the last 20 years. The leaky roof that saw huge floods of water crashing down into the stands last season was the perfect summary of the situation, and Ratcliffe has gone on record about his desire to fix things.
"The second big issues really in the club, which a lot of people talk about and are conscious of, is where the stadium sits today," he told club press earlier this year. "It's an impressive stadium and it's the largest Premier League stadium in the country - the second-largest stadium in the country to Wembley… but it's not quite of the standard you would expect of Manchester United today and it's fallen behind."
On top of pumping $300m+ into the Red Devils' home ground, Ratcliffe has also already done plenty of restructuring behind the scenes. Over the summer, the new minority owner brought in well-regarded sporting director Dan Ashworth from Newcastle United, and also appointed technical director Jason Wilcox from Southampton. Omar Berrada came in as CEO, and together the new team of executives and directors appeared to do well in the transfer market. "We have addressed priority positions that were identified very early on and we were able to do it in a financially sustainable way," said Berrada. "I think Dan and the team did a fantastic job in the negotiations process."
Certainly the arrival of players like Matthijs de Ligt, Manuel Ugarte and Joshua Zirkzee for below asking price will be positive news for United fans who have been desperate for this kind of canny operating in the transfer market.
But while it's all change in the boardroom (and significant if not revolutionary changes to the teamsheet), it's important to remember that Ratcliffe still only holds a 28% minority stake at United. The majority of the club is still owned by the Glazer family and it may be a while until that changes. So what exactly is their legacy at the club?
What Is The Legacy Of The Glazers' Ownership?
It's fair to say that the Glazers are not the most popular family in Greater Manchester (although Manchester City fans are probably quite pleased with the way they've run the club in the last decade-plus). Ever since the Florida-based family first took over the club in 2005, supporters have protested their involvement, due to concerns about the levels of debt they were running up and the personal profits they were making from the club, with a very limited amount of genuine engagement with day-to-day operations. The doomed European Super League caused thousands of fans to protest against the ownership, but this was just one of many outbursts against the Glazers, who have consistently angered the people of Manchester with their perceived lack of care for the club.
Writing in The Guardian about how they have benefited financially from Manchester United's huge global commercial power (United being the third-most supported club in the world), Aaron Timms explains how the Glazer family have "repeatedly exploited their ownership to enrich themselves while running operations at a consistent loss and lumping the club with crippling levels of debt. Dividend payments since the Glazers' 2005 takeover have totaled £166 million; the bulk of them have gone to the Glazers themselves."
At the same time, the Glazers have repeatedly failed to invest money back into the infrastructure and facilities that both the men's team, the women's team and the Academy sides rely on. For example, as well as refusing to renovate Old Trafford, they've failed to pump extra cash into developing their AON Training Complex, with the ever-critical Gary Neville stating that the training ground is "probably not even in the top five in this country."
This is an area that Jim Ratcliffe will have to invest in if he wants to turn Manchester United back into a world-beating club. But the new Man United ownership have a real task on their hands after decades of under-investment and controversy from the Glazers. A huge part of the job will be rebuilding trust. The Glazers have caused many supporters to become disillusioned with United — their 2005 takeover encouraged a number of fans to support the formation of a new community-owned club, FC United of Manchester, in protest of "the material theft of a Manchester institution, forcibly taken from the people of Manchester" — and for those who do still support the club, it will take time, patience, and a ton of resources to transform the Red Devils into a giant of the Premier League once again.
If you'd like to find out more about the current situation at Manchester United, check out our detailed guide to Old Trafford, which is packed with information about the history of the club as well as details about its failure to invest in infrastructure in recent years.