'Ratcliffe's Man Utd stadium plan is an embarrassment and bordering on disgrace'

10 March 2024 , 00:58

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Monaco-based Sir Jim Ratcliffe has rarely been seen in Manchester since becoming one of United's co-owners (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

According to figures published last week, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s personal fortune has dropped to £13.8billion, which means he is now only the 110th richest person in the world.

Quick, let’s get a crowd-funder going for the poor guy, do a sponsored walk or whatever for him, Andy Burnham will help. As slightly surreal moments go, just before the start of a poor game between Manchester United and Everton was right up there.

Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester and someone who purports to be a socialist politician, tried to convince a collection of reporters that it would be brilliant if we all chipped in to help out skint Sir Jim and a family of American vulture capitalists who have rinsed a great football club for hundreds of millions of pounds.

Let’s help them redevelop or build a new Old Trafford so they can make even more obscene amounts of money. Forget the multitude of poor and homeless in Burnham’s manor, let’s have a whip-round for the fantastically wealthy in Florida and Monte Carlo.

Ah, but Sir Jim says it is all about levelling up, all about trying to redress the power bias of the south. It’s all about trying to make the idea of a northern powerhouse a reality, suggests the new United co-owner who has not been seen in Manchester since he completed his purchase, suggests the new United co-owner who conducted his takeover media interviews from his office … in Knightsbridge, next door to Harrods.

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And as far as we know, he has not been further north since. How many times he has visited Old Trafford is anyone’s guess but when he occasionally does, Ratcliffe will see a stadium that is, obviously, in need of a revamp.

Everton fan Andy Burnham is now on a task-force that will ask for taxpayers' money to redevelop Old Trafford or build a new stadium (Julian Hamilton/Sunday Mirror)

But it is still fit for purpose - if you think the real purpose of a football stadium is staging a football match for the fans. If you think the real purpose of a football stadium is to make commercial gazillions for tycoons, to have huge swathes of hospitality suites, to be a cash-cow that feeds on tourists, then maybe not.

Ratcliffe and Burnham - whose team leader on a ludicrous task force will be Lord Sebastian Coe, a Tory and one of Sir Jim’s fellow Chelsea followers - talk about a national stadium in the north, to rival Wembley. We do not need a national stadium in the north. We have a glut of brilliant stadiums in the north.

On top of all the money they have taken out of the club, Avram and Joel Glazer would stand to make even more millions if Old Trafford became a Wembley of the north (AFP via Getty Images)

We have Anfield, we have Old Trafford, we have St James’ Park, we have the Etihad, we will have Everton’s new arena - we can’t move for great footballing venues. What we need is more pressure on the Football Association to stage prestige matches at these venues. Like it or not, this sporting country does not need a Wembley of the north. And I live in the north.

If Ratcliffe, from his Monaco bolthole, is worried Old Trafford is a little jaded, then spruce it up. Liverpool have done exactly that with Anfield. And it goes without saying that Ratcliffe’s priority should be redeveloping a team that is currently not fit for purpose rather than an arena that still is.

That the likes of Burnham is getting involved is utterly dispiriting. The last time I looked, he was a devoted fan of the people’s club. And now he wants to curry favour with a tax exile and absentee American owners who have taken the multi, multi, multi pound p*** out of an iconic institution. If a single penny of taxpayers money goes towards a new Old Trafford, it will be a disgrace.

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Andy Dunn