Sir Jim Ratcliffe has promised to “unseat” “noisy neighbours” Manchester City and Liverpool within three years, echoing two famous quotes from Sir Alex Ferguson, as he laid out his vision for rebuilding the Red Devils.
Ratcliffe, 71, became co-owner of the club he has supported since he was six years old after purchasing a 27.7 per cent stake, which handed over control of football operations to his company Ineos.
Using United’s former great manager’s famous musings, he revealed his ambitions to challenge City and Liverpool for domestic and European silverware but urged fans to be patient, insisting it would take at least two or three seasons for Ineos to acquire the club. where he wants them to be.
In 2002, Ferguson branded City “noisy neighbours” and said their “biggest challenge was to beat Liverpool to the ground and outshine their rivals for the league title”.
In the longer term, it is considering working with the public sector to build a new £2bn stadium or redevelop the existing ground at a cost to regenerate the area around Old Trafford, which it envisions will host England matches and the FA Cup finals. £1bn.
“We have a lot to learn from our noise neighbor and our other neighbor (Liverpool). “At the end of the day, they are the enemy,” Ratcliffe said.
“There’s nothing I’d rather do than knock them both off their feet. Likewise, we are three big northern clubs very close to each other.
They’ve been in a good place for a while now, and there’s something we can learn from both of them. They have sensible organizations, great people within the organization, and a good, motivated and elite environment in which they work.
“I respect them very much, but they are still enemies.”
Asked about the timeframe to make United truly competitive, Ratcliffe added: “This is not a light switch. This is not an overnight change; it will take two or three seasons.
“You need to ask for some patience from the fans. I know the world loves instant gratification these days, but that’s not the case in football.
“This is not a 10-year plan. If it were a 10-year plan, the fans would lose patience. But getting there is definitely a three-year plan.”
Ratcliffe, whose stake in United will rise to 28.9 per cent by the end of the year thanks to his investment in the club’s infrastructure, agrees that having a modern stadium fit for purpose is vital.
He said the focus would be on a stadium in the north to rival Wembley for big matches in England or on redeveloping Old Trafford.
“There’s a really good case for renovating Old Trafford, probably costing around £1bn or something like that,” he said.
“You end up with a great stadium, probably 80 or 90,000 people. But it’s not perfect because you’re replacing a stadium hitting a railway line and things like that, so it’s not an ideal world. But you finish with a very good answer.
“There is a wider debate within the community about whether this could be used as a catalyst for a more ambitious project on the site to regenerate the Old Trafford area. As with the Olympics, there is a strong case for a stadium to be used to regenerate the area, as Seb Coe has done so successfully in that part of East London. “City have done that and done a pretty good job (of reviving the Eastlands).”
Both of these projects had government support to achieve this and Ratcliffe saw no problem in doing the same thing at United.
“People in the north pay their taxes just like people in the south pay taxes,” he said.
“So where is the national football stadium? In the south. Where is the rugby national stadium? In the south. Where is the national tennis stadium? In the south. Where is the national concert stadium? O2 is in the south. Where is the Olympic Village? In the south.
“All this talk of leveling up and the Northern Powerhouse… where is the northern stadium? How many Champions Leagues has the North West won and how many Champions Leagues has London won? The answer is: Northwest won 10; Liverpool won more than us and London won two.
“If you get to the semi-finals of the FA Cup and you’re a northern club, where do you need to go? You have to go to London, right? People in the north pay their taxes and the north is good for England, the Champions League final or the FA Cup final, and the south is for the regeneration of Manchester.” There’s an argument that you could consider a more ambitious project that would act as a catalyst – it has quite a history in the UK.