Football Daily - Sir Jim Ratcliffe talks Man Utd finances, stadium plans & Ruben Amorim

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe sits down exclusively with BBC Sports Editor Dan Roan. They discuss his ‘challenging’ first year at the club, manager Ruben Amorim, the club’s finances, ticket price rises, his cost-cutting programme, plans for a new stadium and more. Find more on this interview across the BBC Sport website and app and watch the conversation on BBC iPlayer.BBC Sounds / 5 Live commentaries this week: Tue 11 Mar 2000 Liverpool v PSG in the Champions League, Wed 12 Mar 2000 Aston Villa v Club Brugge in the Champions League, Thu 13 Mar 2000 Man Utd v Real Sociedad in the Europa League.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn. It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.

And also in this series we're discussing history music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC sounds music radio podcast. This is Five Life Sports. The football daily podcast. Hello and welcome to an exclusive Football Daily podcast with me, Dan Rowan, as I sit down with Manchester United co-owner and INEOS billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, where we talk his challenging first year as co-owner, manager Ruben Amorim, the club's finances, ticket price rises, his cost-cutting programme, plans for a new stadium and lots more. You'll find more on this interview right across the BBC Sport website and app, plus you can watch the full conversation on the BBC iPlayer.

This is Five Live Sports. The Football Daily Podcast. So Jim, good to see you, thank you for your time. How would you describe your first year as co-owner of Manchester United? Well I think we are sort of roughly where we thought we would be but it's obviously been quite challenging because there's been a lot to do and quite a lot of issues in the club that we've needed to resolve. You said it's kind of where you expected to be but is the challenge facing you even greater than the new anticipated? I mean the nature of the challenge is is what we thought it would be but the scale of it probably is slightly bigger But I mean we sort of at the moment in the process of change

Because you know United obviously has had to work since since Alex or Alex retired in 2013 the club's not performed at the level that's been expected of it and there are reasons for that clearly and I think unless you want that to continue there has to be a period of change and we're in the middle of a period of change at the moment and that you know nobody likes change it's uncomfortable and we're in the midst of it. You've said that you're aiming for the Premier League title again within three years by 2028. You've dubbed it Mission 21, a 21st title. When you look at the table, does it seem like Mission Impossible rather than Mission 21 right now?

No, I don't think it's Mission. I think it's good to have goals and objectives and it's quite good to put a time rather than just a bland statement that at some stage we're going to win the premiership premier league again so i think putting a time table is fine and obviously it's the it's the 150th anniversary of you know what i think is the world's greatest football club in 2028 so i think it's a very fine target whether that's I mean you you know I don't I'm not mystic meg I don't have a magic one I wand, I can't see into the future obviously. I think if you look at Arsenal, you look at Liverpool, you look at the period of time it took them to get the house in order and get back to winning ways.

That's probably maybe slightly on the short end of the spectrum but it's not impossible I don't think. If I look at Liverpool when Klopp arrived in 2015 with Michael Edwards and Ian Graham on the data side, they rebuilt the squad over 15, 16, 17 and 18 and then they won everything in 1920 and 21. And Michael Arthett has been there for four or five years now and you can see Arsenal's in a very different place than where it was five years ago. So I think we're talking about three years, that's slightly ambitious but I think you know it is the 150 year anniversary so it's a good target for us and we're here we have to measure

ourselves you know whether we're doing the things that we've we said we would do which is to get United back to where it should be. But when you look at the table you see yourself down in 14th, 36 points behind Liverpool, how does it make you feel when you see that? Well it's not, it's obviously not where we would like to be but you know we are in a period of change. We haven't had much time to change the squad. We've got a new coach who came in mid-season and we've got a long list of injuries. If you look at the top eight earners in Manchester United Ruben's only got four of those because four are not available to him so if I actually

look at the squad that's available to Ruben I think he's doing a really good job to be honest. Have there been times over the past year Jim where you've regretted investing in United? Regretted the transaction? Yeah. No not at all. No, I think, I didn't expect it to be a walk in the park. It's quite tough sometimes reading the press, obviously, but in a way I'd rather the press had a go at me than Ruben the coach, you know. And

you know, I've stood out there and I've said, I think we can make Manchester United great again. So you know people are entitled to their opinions and but in my view I think we are on the trajectory that I thought we would be on. We're in a process of change at the moment. We put a new management team in place. We didn't get that all right at the beginning obviously but I think today we've got a very good management team in place. We're dealing with the financial issues in the club because the club has got financial issues and we need to address those.

And then we need to move on to the squad and recruitment and data analysis and those types of things. So we are on the path that we anticipated we would be on. You mentioned criticism. There's been criticism as well from the media but from fans too. You'll have seen the protests before the match against Arsenal do you understand those fans anger yeah and I sympathize with them because Manchester United is not where it's expected to be you know we're expected to be winning the Premier League and and you know challenging for the Champions League we're not there at the moment but I think we need to get the house back in order before we can get back to our winning ways and you know, that's a proceed takes takes not a light switch

I mean just to give you an example if you look at the players that we're buying this summer That we didn't buy We're buying Anthony We're buying Casamero. We're buying a Nana. We're buying Hoyland. We're buying Sun show You know, these are all things from the past but you know, we're like not we're we've inherited those things So we have to sort it out So, you know for Sancho who now obviously plays for Chelsea and we pay half his wages

We're paying 17 million pounds to buy in the summer You know, so it takes time for for us to move away from the past into you know A new a new place in the future from the past into a new place in the future. To what extent are you still dealing with the problems of the past or after a year though is this on you to some extent now? Do INEOS have to share some of the responsibility? No, no, I think we absolutely... I just think if you're in a period of change it is disruptive and it does excuse the pun but it does take people's eye off the ball a bit but we have got a club which was in a level of financial difficulty Manchester United would have run out of cash by the end of this year by the end

of 2025 after me having put 300 million in, and if we buy no new players in the summer, if we hadn't implemented all the cost programs and restructurings that we have done over the last 12 months. So we have to deal with all those things and there's only so many things you can deal with at once. So we've got a new management team, we have to deal with the financial restructuring and then we have to move on to the squad, data analysis and moving forward. But we're in the process of change and it's an uncomfortable period and it's disruptive and I do feel sympathy with the fans but I'm not actually surprised at where we are in the league because Ruben's only got a certain size of squad he can do.

Quite a number of those players are either injured or they're not available to him. A year ago you were seen as a saviour for the club by many fans but now a lot of them also see Ineos as part of the problem and they will look to some of the decisions that have been made and the cost of some of those decisions financially. So do you accept that you've contributed to the predicament that the club finds itself in? We're not perfect and we're on a journey and there have been a couple of errors along the way but I think in the main all the things that we're doing are the right things for

the club and the club's going to finish up in a very, very different place in three years time to where it's been in the past in my view I think it will become the most profitable club in the world in three years time Manchester United will be that will be my prediction for Manchester it will become the most profitable club in the world I think we may well finish up with the the most iconic football stadium in the world and I think we will finish up winning Silverware again. Can you tell us about the stadium? There's obviously been a task force looking at what the course of action is to do, whether to rebuild or replace Old Trafford effectively.

What is the latest on that? Well, we obviously have the day tomorrow where we'll talk about that in quite a bit more detail, but we have got those two alternatives and we've looked at them in great detail. The government has announced three major growth projects for the UK of which the regeneration of southern Manchester is what they describe as a shining example of their growth strategy for the future and it would be the biggest regeneration project in Europe, assuming it goes ahead. And if it goes ahead, then we, I think, would underpin that with a new stadium.

Because with regeneration, you need a nucleus, you need a heart to a regeneration program, otherwise it's just a housing estate. But I think if we were to build the most iconic football stadium in the world, which I think we will do, then that will attract the billion fans we've got around the world. They'll all want to come to Manchester. And the value added to Manchester of that

and to the north of England is enormous. It's five, seven billion a year. It's an enormous number. I know we're going to hear more. You'll hear more about that tomorrow. But just in general, I guess the big question is how will you pay for this? I don't think the financing is not the issue. I think it's it's eminently financeable but the detail of that I think we'd rather talk about in the future but it will be financeable I

think. Just go back to the financial situation that the club was facing. Just just again for those who need to understand this, explain how precarious it was and what is the prospect going forward right now? How close was the club coming to being going bust? Well, it's a simple equation, you spend more than you earn and eventually that's the road to ruin. So for the last seven seasons, if you include this season,

the club will have lost money, seven consecutive seasons. And I think it totals about 330 million pounds, so it's about a third of a billion of cash that's gone out of the club in the last four or five seasons. The costs of running the club in the last seven years have increased by 100 million pounds. The cost of the player Wage bill in the last seven years or so is 100 million pound and the increase in the revenue during that period is

100 million pounds so that some Doesn't work if you're losing money every year and at the same time you're increasing your costs are running a club. It doesn't work and it ends in trouble. And that's where this club would have finished up at the end of this year. So all of the things that we're doing are essential and necessary to the club. And they're not easy things to do, but we'll get through that process and we'll come out the other side in the summer. At the summer that's all finished and done with. How close were you to breaching PSR?

PSR, I mean the principle of PSR is a good principle which is that you live within your means. That's basically what it says, a football club has to live within its means. So it doesn't go bust. But there are lots of variables in PSR and you're not always in charge of those variables. So if you qualify for the Champions League

then that's an income of 80 or 100 million. If you qualify for Europa, it's an income of 40 million. If you don't qualify for either, it's an income of nothing. So that's one variable. And where are we going to be at the end of this season? Are we going to be in the Champions League, or are we going to be nowhere? We don't know the answer to that.

And then there are all sorts of other variables with player movements and things like that as to how you predict. So there are many moving parts in PSR, but you need to be all over that and you need to be sure that you're always going to sit comfortably in the middle of it, which Manchester United is comfortably in the middle of it. So we're not going to breach PSR, but it's quite a complicated business. One of the reasons the fans were protesting was over ticket price increases. Explain again why you had to do that and how you feel about that.

Well, I don't get involved in the detail of ticket pricing. That's for the management of the club, not for me really. My sort of general principles on ticket pricing should be fair, it should be affordable for the people in Manchester And you know, we do need to look after the under 16s and and the older people who don't don't have as much money but at the same time Ticket income is a part of the overall income of the club We you know, the club receives income from ticketing from merchandising and from from TV And and they're all major components of how much money we have

to spend on new players and the squad. I know there was a... we got a lot of criticism and I think it was somewhat inadvertent a few months ago on ticket pricing, but the reality of that was that 500 tickets out of 75,000 were returned to the club by people who bought those tickets, but they didn't want to go to the game, they wanted their money back. And they had been discounted, either because they were young people or they were older people. So we gave those 500 people their money back, and then the club sold the tickets at

face value which was 66 pound but it was only 500 tickets so you know I know that caused quite a lot of excitement it wasn't it wasn't an enormous thing in the great scheme of things we have you know 49,000 season tickets and most of them are reasonably priced so are they likely to be more increases for season tickets next season? That's really at the end of the day for the management. We have some financial issues in the club and ticketing income is part of our income. So they have to look at

ticketing income as one of the major sources of income. So I think there will be some modest price increases and I think we will try to hold the under 16 tickets at the prices that they sold last season, we'll try to, but management have got to deal with that and we've got a couple of weeks before they'll announce the final conclusions. Some would say the money you're going to make from these increases is dwarfed by the debt repayments as a result of the debt that the club is settled with and

they would argue that fans are paying the price for the decisions of the past would you have some sympathy for that? I understand the comment but the issue really isn't the debt the issue is that we're spending more than we're you know if you spend a hundred million more than you're earning every year then that's how that do tens of millions of pounds go out of the club currently each season to service that debt. Yeah Yes, about 35. Indeed. But the 35 was only 20, four or five years ago because the club hadn't lost 330 million

in the last five years. So if you lose 330 million in five years the debt goes up by 330 million. That's the biggest issue. I know the interest costs money but in the great scheme of things, you know, our salary bill for the players is 250 million million a year, you know. Interest is one of the costs but it's not the biggest cost in this club and the club needs to get its house back into order so it's on a very good financial footing for the future and can survive years where maybe it's not as successful as other years and

it doesn't get its Champions League income. Some of those loans may mature in years to come and will have to be refinanced at higher rates of interest than the current debt's at. So won't that bill for servicing that debt rise as well in years to come? Isn't that an issue? Debt has got a cost to it but most clubs in the UK have got some debt, most companies have got debt of some form. But if the club is really profitable, which I think it will be in years to come, then you can do the reverse, you can start paying down the debt.

And that's where I think Manchester United should be in a good fiscal position. It's not just the ticket price increases, is it Jim? It's also the cost cutting that you've instigated and obviously there's been hundreds of redundancies last year and hundreds more to come. Again, why is there a need to do that? Because many would argue that again the money you're going to save is dwarfed by the amount that's been spent on interest repayments, on player salaries and signings, on decisions around managers and executives. I mean the simple answer is the club runs out of money at Christmas if we

don't do that, if we don't do those things. But ultimately if you look at running a club the South of Manchester United with income of about 650 million pounds you spend a part of that 650 on operating the club and a part of it on the squad. Where do you want to spend the money? Do you want to spend it on operating the club or do you want to spend it on the squad? Because if you spend it on the squad you get better results and you know at the end of the day what's Manchester United here for if it's not to win trophies and silverware? What we want to do is invest in the best players in the world if we

can rather than spend it on I'm afraid free lunches. But when it comes to cost cutting whether it is free meals whether it's doing away with ambassadorial roles for Sir Alex Ferguson for example or former players or cutting the costs there. Is there a danger that you cross the line between efficiency and ruthlessness that potentially could taint the brand of United? Well I know, I don't enjoy reading the newspaper very much these days, I have to say, but I know it's unpopular and this period of change is uncomfortable for people and some of the decisions we have to make are unpleasant, but they are necessary to put Manchester United back onto a stable footing.

If people want to see Manchester United winning trophies again, we have to do all this stuff. I mean it's difficult stuff, it's unpopular, it would be much nicer if we, we have to do all this stuff. I mean, it's difficult stuff, it's unpopular. It'd be much nicer if we didn't have to do it. But if we don't do it, we'll just finish up where we've been for the last 12 years. And it's a choice, which do we put? I don't want to be, I don't want to see Manchester United where it's been for the last 12 years.

I want to see Manchester United where Real Madrid is, or where Manchester City has been, or where Liverpool is. That's where I want to see Manchester United. My only interest here is returning Manchester United back to greatness again, where it should be. But again some would say well if we hadn't kept Eric Tenhag and backed him to the tune of 200 million pounds in the summer and then sacked him a few weeks later, if we hadn't paid millions to secure Dan Ashworth and then let him go a few months after he started I mean this is tens of millions of pounds worth

of compensation cost that we've racked up. Probably 20 million. Yeah maybe we wouldn't need to cut as many jobs, cut these perks, raise ticket prices. But also remember I put 300 million dollars into the club in January and that's all gone. That's 300 million So yeah, I agree, you know the Eric ten hog the Dan Ashworth decisions were errors I think that there were some mitigating circumstances, but in the ultimately they were errors big I accept that and I apologize for that But you know at the end of the day we have to get the fundamentals right in the club. They're tens of millions. The numbers we're talking about much bigger than that. The costs that we will

have taken out of the club over the course of this last what 15 months we've been there will be about 125 million pounds and that puts Manchester United. It will finish up being an organization of about 700 people rather than 1100 people. It will be lean, it will be efficient, it will be an elite sports organisation and it will be, hopefully, primed to take Manchester United back It's pandemonium, it's ecstasy. It's an authoritarian regime. For the past 15 years English football has been dominated by Manchester City. Eight Premier League titles, six league cups, three FA Cups, one Champions League. And more than a hundred charges.

Somebody turned up at the Etihad Stadium and effectively served papers. I'm Clive Myrie and this is Football on Trial. The Manchester City charges. They believe they've got irrefutable evidence. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off.

Jupiter versus Saturn! Well, it's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series, we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is Five Live Sports, the Football Daily Podcast. The Dan Ashworth situation, you told me last February this is somebody's best in the world at what they do, you were prepared to wait a long time to secure his services and then he spent around as much time on gardening leave as he actually did in the job before

you went your separate ways. Can you explain what exactly went wrong there? No. It was an error on our part and all I would say is chemistry really. I don't really want to go into the details. I think we are where we are, we've moved on, the chemistry issue. And with Eric, it's been suggested that you, after the club finished eighth last season, were keen to make a change but others perhaps felt differently. Is that

the case? Can you explain to shed any light on that at all? At the end of the day we're a consensus organisation so there's a collection of us that make decisions. So it's not just me that makes the decision, it involves that management team and if you look at the time that we made the decision about Eric, the management team hadn't been in place more than five minutes, really. Omar had only just arrived. Jason had not been there terribly long.

So we didn't really have the management team in place for very long to make. It was a very difficult decision to make at short notice. And also, it's quite difficult to extract Eric from Eric's performance in the previous season from the management team he had been working with in the previous. If I look today there's a great relationship between Ruben and Jason, Jason Wilcox, the sporting director and Jason gives

Ruben a lot of support but Eric didn't benefit from that. It's quite difficult to understand in that previous season to what extent Eric maybe wasn't performing as we'd hoped or it was the circumstances in which Eric was trying to perform and We couldn't get to the bottom of that problem. It became clearer obviously three months later And you know we got it wrong, but We've moved on I think we've corrected it and we're in a very different place today. You said a year ago, we don't mind people making mistakes at INEOS,

but try not to make the same mistake twice. Do you accept that those two episodes, Ten Hag, Ashworth, given the cost of it, has called into question INEOS's decision making at United? And do you feel confident that you've kind of learned from those experiences sufficiently? Yeah, no we have, I mean there's no question we've learned and I hope we don't we don't make those types of mistakes again but I mean one needs to be careful we don't just focus on two

things that we're, because there are many things that we've done which I think are going quite well and I think broadly speaking I think all the things that we're doing at this club are good. I think Ruben's a great coach, I think, broadly speaking, I think all the things that we're doing at this club are good. I think Ruben's a great coach, I think he's doing a great job, in the circumstances in which he arrives mid-season, he's got a squad which is obviously quite depleted, he's doing a great job. I think we've got a good new coach, we've got the attitude and the atmosphere in the club is much better than it was when we arrived.

I think there are many things that have changed. You referenced last February to me just how the chopping and changing of managers hadn't achieved any success and it was now time to look at the recruitment, the decision making. Has it got to a stage with Ruben where you just have to stick with it now, come what may? It's not have to stick with Ruben. I think Ruben is an outstanding young manager. I really do.

I think he's an excellent manager and I think he'll be there for a long time. But he's lost ten matches in 25 or so games. I mean you're down to 14th. This is historically bad. Decades have passed. I think if you look at the squad he's got at his disposal with the injury list he's got at his disposal. And he comes in mid mid season where he's had no time to train the players in his style of play. I think he's done really well and I think you're beginning to see a glimpse of what Ruben can produce. I think you saw a glimpse of it yesterday against Arsenal. I mean look at that game against Arsenal yesterday. How many of those

players on the bench did you recognise? How many of those players on the bench have ever worn a Manchester United shirt and fur? Because there's no squad left, we're down to the last 10 or 11 men in the squad really, of proper first team players. No, I think Ruben's doing a super job. How much money will he have to spend in the summer to reinforce the squad and get the players he needs to play in the way he wants to? Or does that depend on selling players as well? It's a combination. There will be a budget for him and I'm not going to reveal that but obviously that budget changes depending upon who we may choose to sell because that would supplement the budget. But that's, we're not at a place where we could reveal that at the

moment. A lot of fans were upset to hear that Kobi Menu, Garnacho could be for sale because of the state the club was in financially. I know you're a fan of these players. No, no, no. We won't be selling players because of the state we are. The way we're resolving the financial issue is to cut the... I mean, the club had got bloated, so we've reduced that and we'll finish it with a lean, efficient organisation. That's how we'll address the cost. And the player decisions will be decisions that

Omar Rubin and Jason and a bit me will will make in the summer about then that will all be focused on How we're going to improve performance? Ruben Amram said that this was maybe the worst team in United history Do you commend the brutal honesty of that or you quite surprised that he said that because that could affect confidence of players? No, I know, I think, I mean you have to sympathise a little bit with Ruben, he's come in mid-season English is not his natural language, he's come into the Premier League which we know is the toughest league in the world and he's come into a squad which, you know, has got a series of injuries and other issues and, you know, he he's a which most great coaches are is an emotional character and you know that you know no one's

perfect I mean we've made mistakes I've made mistakes as you've you know you've brought out in this interview and no Ruben's not perfect but I'm a great sport I'm a great sport of room what did you make of the the hardline stance he took with Marcus Rashford? Did that have your support? Yep. And why was that stance taken? Because he wants a dressing room that is full of people who are totally committed to winning football matches.

And he won't tolerate people who don't have 100% that attitude. So this is about a culture was it do you think? That's Ruben really. And the players have to be in the same box. Was it frustrating to see him now do well at Villa when he didn't seem to be performing? No I'm pleased, maybe it's like, you know, he's moved out of Manchester, maybe that's a good thing for him. No, I'm very pleased that he's doing well. Yeah, no, it's good to see. Because he has got tremendous talent for whatever reason. It wasn't working in Manchester for the last couple of seasons, but he's a very, very talented football rush.

For obvious reasons, you said a year ago it's really important that United were in the Champions League, didn't happen and now face the prospect of not being in Europe at all, or if they win the Europa League being back in the Champions League. How important is it therefore that they they do win the Europa League financially? I mean Thursday's a huge day for us, yeah absolutely, we shouldn't underestimate that. Who knows, it's football, there are no guarantees in life. It's a huge game on Thursday for Reuben. It's a chance to clear a few things up, Jim, so we're grateful for the opportunity.

When it comes to the women's team, it has been suggested you don't care as much about that team as the men's team. Your focus is very much on that. How would you describe the situation from your perspective? I think it's a bit unfair. I mean what I said at the beginning was my main focus is on the men's team because that, you know, at the end of the day is what moves the needle at Manchester United because, you know, the women's team is much smaller than the men's team is. So you know, if I have 650 million of income, 640 million comes from the men's team and 10 million comes from the women's team. So I suppose, you know, with my business background you tend to focus on the

bigger issues before you focus on the smaller issues. But the women's team wear the Manchester United brand, the Manchester United logo, so in that sense they're every bit as important as the men's team and frankly they're doing better than the men's team. I think they're second in the league, they won the FA Cup last year. Mark Skinner's doing a great job as the coach and you know the new captain, Maya she's doing a great job. Talking of the captain, I saw reports that you had to ask Katie to tell him who she was, is that something you want to clear up? No, not really. I did ask whether Maia was related to Max,

but the answer is no. Matt Letizia. And if they do get to the Cup final, would this time you attend or would somebody from Ineos attend? Because again that was suggested that that was... Yeah, I mean certainly somebody from Ineos would attend, whether I'll be there or not I don't know because I don't know what the date is to be honest I don't know what my diary is When it comes to cycling and other other investments me Bob see sir Dave Balesford Your your head of sport and the office enjoyed great success in that sport in cycling Yeah, but some would argue, you know, is he equipped? Is he suitable to be part of the running operation of Manchester United a football team?

What would you say about his role? What does he bring to United? I think Dave was extremely successful in one sport, cycling, where he won, people forget, but over a hundred years the UK had never won the Tour de France, only won it seven years on a trot, I think, with four different riders and you know that that's no accident so I mean he has some great skills at extracting the maximum performance out of those athletes and that's all his focus is at Manchester United is on elite performance how do we improve elite performance because the end of the day football is elite athletes today and

they're more of an emphasis on athlete. Football today is a sprinting sport and it wasn't a sprinting sport 20 years ago which is why you get so many hamstring injuries and things like that today. It's a much much more intense sport than it was when you know when Bobby Charlton and George Bessie were playing. Just come back to something you said a little earlier Jim if I may you mentioned some of the players that I think you also inherited effectively the likes of Anthony and yeah Hoyland and Ana Casemiro. Are you saying that those players aren't good enough for United? No I'm not saying I'm just saying that we've... Or overpaid or what are you getting out there? Well Just saying that we've... Or overpaid, or what are you getting out there?

Well, some are not good enough, some probably are overpaid, but for us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for and accountable for will take time. So we've got this period of transformation where we move from the past to the future, and we're in the middle of that period of transformation at the moment. I mean, there are some great players in the squad as we know. I mean the captain is Fabulous footballer. Yeah, I mean without him where would United be right now in one wonders? We definitely need Bruno He's he's a fantastic footballer. Yeah. No that would that would be really tough

And it's just in terms of the stadium again I don't want to know there's a limit to what you can say, but do you have a timeframe in mind for a new venue? I think it, yes, I think we can probably build the stadium, design, build the stadium in five years. And normally it would take you 10 years for a stadium of that scale, I think. But it's sort of more an issue of how quickly

the government get going with the regeneration program. Because we have to sit down with the government and we have to talk about how it's all gonna work. So I think the government are extremely keen to get on with this growth program that they have, which has got three bits, got Heathrow Airport, it's got the Oxford, Cambridge, Silicon Valley and it's got the Manchester regeneration. I think they really want to get on with it quickly and get stuck into it. So if they go down the high speed track then I think maybe five years would

be achievable, which would be very exciting for Manchester United. And that is the reason which you said earlier that you think this club can be profitable in a few years from now? That is in addition to that. I mean we will become the most profitable club I think in three years' time anyway with a new ground even more so. Jim some have accused InEOS of treating United as if it's another part of their empire,

an oil refinery or something, as opposed to a sort of treasured cultural institution with some of these cost cuts. What's your response to that? I sort of understand the point, but we fully recognize that Manchester United, an element of Manchester United is a business. If you've got a business you have to run it well and it's clear that it's not been run well and we're going to be in difficulty if we don't sort that out, so we will.

But at the end of the day it's an emotional entity, Manchester United. This is about, it's not, we don't really, we're just custodians of Manchester United, it's owned by the fans. And emotionally to the fans, and I'm one of them, it's a really important part of their lives. On a Monday morning, your Monday morning is heavily affected with how the team performed at the weekend. Anywhere I go in the world people want to talk about Manchester United. Despite the struggles this season, this year, I sense that you're even more determined than ever to reverse this decline and get the club back to where it needs to be. That's the only reason I'm here. Do you want that to be your legacy ultimately? Yeah, I mean in a way I suppose, I don't quite think of it that way but I'm, I mean I recognise that I'm, you know I read the newspapers and I, you

know, I listen, you know, and I recognise that I'm unpopular at the moment but I am prepared to be and I can deal with being unpopular for a period of time because I believe that what we're doing is the right thing and will get us, I mean Manchester United has come off the rails, we need to United has come off the rails, we need to get it back on the rails and I believe what we're doing, we'll put it back on the rails and we'll finish up being where Liverpool are today or where Real Madrid are today in the future. And we won't get there unless we do the things that, so I'm, you know, I'm comfortable, I believe what we're doing and I'm comfortable with being unpopular

at the moment and I'd much rather I was the unpopular one than Reuben. I think the press and the media need to give Reuben time and give him support. And the same for the fans as well. The fans, I think, Manchester United is an easy target, it's a big target, isn't it? And we need to stick together at the moment through this difficult period. And when the going gets tough, people need to stick with it. They need to show a bit of grit and resilience. Don't wilt.

And come out the other side fighting. And that's what we will do. And beyond the ground, what else gives you the confidence to be able to turn it around, given you've racked up hundreds of millions of pounds worth of losses in recent years? That's quite quite a but the losses are because the clubs just been spending money needlessly You know, we've got a body language consultant You know, there's all sorts of stuff we're spending money on that we don't need to be spending money on and do you hope that In coming out today you will

Enable people who need to know to have a better understanding of why some of the things you're doing are being done. Is that one of the reasons you've... Well it's one year, we've been around for one year and you asked me. But I thought it'd be helpful, I mean A, I think we should stand up and sort of face the music really because you know some things have gone well, some things have gone less well, so we should you know i think we should sit here and answer the questions well we appreciate your time sir jim and uh all the very best with uh natural thursday yeah thank you very much thank you what does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world oscar piastri your head's trying to get rid of one way your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel.

We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Harris, racing driver for McLaren Formula One team. They opened the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. They work to build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. I'm Robin Eates. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off.

Jupiter versus Saturn! It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.