Manchester United supporters took aim at Sir Jim Ratcliffe during a scheduled march against the Glazers on Sunday afternoon. INEOS chief Ratcliffe only bought into the Red Devils last year but he has already become a divisive figure following a wave of cost-cutting measures at Old Trafford.
Supporter group The 1958 announced plans on Tuesday to protest against the Glazer family, who remain majority owners despite handing over sporting control to Ratcliffe, and the general running of the club. A large crowd gathered outside The Tollgate pub just after 15:00 (GMT), and many wore black to symbolise how the club is ‘slowly dying’.
A debt-leveraged buyout in 2005, and years of on-pitch struggles since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, have made the Glazers frequent targets of fan discontent. Many hoped that Ratcliffe’s arrival would be a new dawn, given that he and other senior INEOS colleagues have assumed control of decision making on sporting matters.
But barely a year into his tenure, a sequence of unpopular decisions have brought Ratcliffe into the firing line along with the Glazers. And many fans made their anger known on Sunday with chants of: “Just like the Glazers, Jim Ratcliffe’s a c***.”
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