With Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s 25% stake in Manchester United finally agreed, the football bods, business experts and fans alike are all now wondering what the club will look like under the British billionaire’s regime, but there’s also another important name newly appointed at the helm: Sir Dave Brailsford.
While most of the headlines have naturally revolved around the big-money man and primary deal-maker, who has reportedly spent around £1.3 billion to purchase his chunk of shares and a seat on the Man United board, Dave Brailsford joining the club’s executive team is also hugely significant.
Officially starting in his capacity on United‘s football board on New Year’s Eve 2023, just days after sitting in the stands to watch the Red Devils’ 3-2 comeback against Aston Villa, the 59-year-old has already set about meeting staff, touring the facilities and taking a look under the bonnet, so to speak.
Part of the reason that his arrival is of such interest comes not only as a result of his seniority and proximity as Ratcliffe‘s de-facto right-hand man but because unless you had prior knowledge of his CV or INEOS and their sporting division’s key figures, most people are relatively unaware of who he is.
Sir David John Brailsford CBE is a British sports coach with a long and decorated career in cycling, helping Team GB net a remarkable total of 14 Olympic medals in 2008, taking home eight gold medals for British Cycling at both Beijing and London 2012. He was ultimately knighted for his efforts in 2013.
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After this first wave of success, he was then put in charge of the Team Sky cycling team which featured the likes of Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas and went on to win eight Grand Tours before the team name was rebranded as the INEOS Grenadiers in 2019. Short version: they’ve won a lot.
Across both iterations under the ownership of Ratcliffe’s conglomerate (the fourth biggest chemical engineering company in the world, estimated to turnover £50bn a year), Brailsford enjoyed a decade of dominance as Team Principal before being made Director of Sport at INEOS in December 2021.
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Sir Dave Brailsford’s background might be predominantly in cycling, but he’s more than dabbled in football since heading up INEOS Sport.
Having been put in charge of all sporting activities including cycling, sailing (INEOS Britannia), football — OGC Nice in France, Swiss side FC Lausanne-Sport and now United) — rugby (All Blacks’ official ‘Performance Partner’) and Formula 1 (co-owner of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team), the Derbyshire-born sports performance director is being entrusted with the Premier League project.
What is Braislford’s role at Manchester United?
With United being folded into the existing INEOS Sports portfolio, Brailsford will continue his role across all disciplines and is expected that an outright sporting director will be appointed to oversee the football side of things at Old Trafford, specifically — of which Ratcliffe and co. have been given ‘full control’ of.
Although John Murtough is currently in post and has been since March 2021, it is thought he will depart the club once INEOS takes over, having faced plenty of criticism over Man United’s transfer policy in that time, including an apparent row with Sir Alex Ferguson over failing to sign Jude Bellingham.
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Names linked with the job include Dougie Freedman (Crystal Palace), Paul Mitchell, who has worked with the likes of (Spurs, RB Leipzig), as well as Dan Ashworth (Brighton, Newcastle), with some reports suggesting the latter two could come in as sporting director and head of recruitment, respectively.
Either way, whoever is given the job will then report to Brailsford and the business magnate from Failsworth above them, who make up what is effectively being touted as a trio of executive board members strictly tasked with footballing matters. So who makes up the third element of that trifecta?
Who else is taking control of footballing operations at Man United?
Whilst Patrick Stewart (no, not the bloke from Star Trek) has been put in charge on an interim basis following the departure of Richard Arnold, the club is still on the hunt for a new full-time CEO and, for all intents and purposes, that individual looks to be Jean-Claude Blanc.
The French businessman and sports executive is best known for his time serving on the board at both Juventus and PSG — his time in Paris coinciding with the Qatari takeover in 2011 and the start of their Ligue 1 supremacy — but more recently joined Ratcliffe’s ranks and
Being made CEO of INEOS Sports in December 2022, like Brailsford, Blanc has become one of the new United owner’s closest confidants and looks set to be installed as the new CEO imminently.
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With the January transfer window now open and the final details of Ratcliffe’s deal soon to be fully ratified by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), the club will be hoping to put all these puzzle pieces in place sooner rather than later.
Once again, full confirmation of all these particulars is still pending and, by the terms of their current agreement, the Glazers could still technically buy out Ratcliffe before he even gets going, so the next few months could prove critical for Manchester United.
Featured Images — Sky Sports/The Manc Group/INEOS (via YouTube)
Sport
Ruben Amorim addresses the latest round of redundancies at Manchester United
Danny Jones
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has addressed the most recent round of redundancies at Old Trafford and Carrington in his latest press conference as well as the club’s wider finances.
Speaking before a crucial clash against Spurs which has already been dubbed the ‘Calamatico’, with both teams struggling for form as their both Amorim and opposite number Ange Postecoglu remain hell-bent on sticking to their tactics, the 40-year-old was quizzed ahead of yet more layoffs within the business.
It was only last autumn that co-owner Sim Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS Group made 250 employees redundant as one of his first major edicts in charge of the club and it is now being heavily reported that at least another 100 staff are set to lose their jobs if not more.
Although he wouldn’t be drawn into the discussion too much, Amorim did reflect on the evident and continued cost-cutting taking place around United and crucially argued that the talk of more redundancies is and should be on everyone’s minds.
🎥-🔴 Ruben Amorim on staff members losing their jobs
🗣️ “It’s really important for us in the first team, coaches and players, to not ignore that. People are losing their jobs so we have to acknowledge that the biggest problem is the football team.”
“I think it’s really important for us in the first team, coaches and players, to not ignore that,” he began. “People are losing their jobs so we have to acknowledge that the biggest problem is the football team.
“Because we spend the money, we are not winning; we’re not in the Champions League, so the revenues are not the same, and we spent a lot of money in the past so now we have to be careful with the finances.”
He goes on to say that while he and the board cannot rebuild the team the way they and the fans would no doubt like as a result of this, he reiterated that people losing employment is the most pressing concern and that a lack of job security is obviously going to affect the mood around the club.
United have lost over £300 million over the last three years, with large severance fees paid to the likes of Erik ten Hag when he was sacked, along with coaching staff.
Most notably, INEOS also let sporting director Dan Ashworth go just after paying a premium to hire him for just five months – a head-scratching decision which further rubbed supporters the wrong way after having just made 250 staff redundant.
“We cannot ignore [the redundancies]”, Amorim continued, adding that “the responsibility is on the first team and we have to change that.”
He went even further to add that in order “to change that, the first thing that we should do is to [beat] Tottenham – that is the small step to try to help these people, to try not to push the prices of the tickets higher.”
It’s the first time Amorim has spokenly openly about fan frustration following the £66 ticket price hike which was announced towards the end of 2024, and it seems he made it pretty clear what he thinks of it.
The job losses, targeting of concessions, reduction/removal of bonuses and limited activity in the January window United are just a reaction to the loss of income either.
United remains in large sums of debt and are said to still owe approximately £319m in unpaid transfer fees alone, so cutbacks were always going to happen, but Amorim clearly believes that the simplest thing he and his squad can do is still improve their fortunes on the pitch.
United fans will definitely be relieved to hear that Amorim aligns with their sentiment and was quick to hold himself and the players accountable for the impending redundancies and more, even if many missteps were before his time.
More importantly, everyone around the club seems to be in agreeance with one core, underlying factor: the performances just haven’t been good enough and business decisions aside, that has to be the priority in order for other aspects to improve in turn.
With United and Spurs 14th and 15th in the Premier League table, respectively, and both figures in the dugout under pressure, there’s a lot riding on Sunday’s fixture down in the capital.
You can watch the first half of Amorim’s pre-match press conference HERE and the previously embargoed section down below:
Featured Images — Manchester United (screenshot via YouTube)/The Manc Group
Sport
New Lancashire Cricket investors aiming to make Manchester Originals as big as United and City
Danny Jones
Lancashire County Cricket’s new investors and Manchester Originals’ majority owners have stated their desire to make the local Hundred team as big as Man United and City.
The Originals were courted by the RPSG (Rising Pune Supergiant) Group this month, with the Goenka family agreeing to buy up a 70% share of the club after LCCC sold part of their stake in the franchise.
Famously in charge of the Lucknow Super Giants over in the Indian Premier League and their Durban equivalents in South Africa, the possibility of not just a shiny new kit but the Originals being renamed the ‘Manchester Super Giants’ isn’t out of the question, though it would be much further down the line.
Although the conglomerate was initially interested in one of The Hundred’s Southern teams, London Spirit – and they were quizzed on this in a press conference on Friday, 14 February – Vice Chairman Shaswat Goenka’s answer was simple: “Lords is Lords but Manchester is Manchester.”
Expressing a huge amount of respect and admiration for the city’s competitive history, even dubbing it a “sporting powerhouse”, Goenka began by insisting that the opportunity presented is one to build a perfect marriage of culture and a love for cricket.
Going on to identify sport as “one of the single biggest things that unites people across the world, regardless of race, colour” and so forth, he believes that while this is categorically not football, this new chapter could rival its prominence here in the UK and especially Manchester.
From there, he went so far as to argue that the stopping power is there and that RPSG “want the Manchester franchise in the Hundred to become the third biggest sports team in Manchester and challenge those two sports teams [Man City and Man United] in Manchester.”
Quite the statement indeed – but one that was echoed by his two new key collaborators in Lancashire’s CEO, Dan Gidney, and Manchester Originals Chair, James Sheridan.
Gidney in particular was visibly energised by the prospect, reflecting on the moment he realised a great potential after seeing the fanaticism shown by the crowd during India vs Pakistan at Emirates Old Trafford for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
Even with new leadership, Lancashire Cricket will remain 30% owners of the Manchester Originals. (Credit: The Manc Group/Matt Eachus)
Waxing lyrical about seeing “just how much supporters celebrate a single game of cricket”, he said the goal is to “inject some of that passion into Manchester and LCC“.
Doubling down on Goenka’s statement, he continued: “We’re a bit conservative in the UK, we need to embrace the power of this sport; the fandom is off the scale – [it could be] stronger than the Premier League, in my opinion.”
All three executive speakers were also keen to reiterate that is by no means a complete takeover but rather a “joint venture” aiming to achieve a “true partnership” which could pose even more exciting cross-pollination in the future.
The consensus seems to be that further collaboration with the Super Giants is pretty inevitable and not just in regards to the men’s game but that this merging of brands presents a huge opportunity for young players and the women’s team too, the idea of players spending more time over in India and even some games perhaps being held still sounding very plausible.
Manchester Originals’ Chair, James Sheridan, did caveat the discussion by noting that “contracting isn’t straightforward in franchise cricket” but that conversations have at least started to take place” and, like Goenka, they don’t see this as a gamble but what is bound to be a “formidable partnership.”
He also reiterated the belief that Manchester is “probably the UK’s No 1 sporting city, adding “There you go, I said it”, and that the vision is to build the best team, the biggest fan base and the best culture – with this particular region being the perfect staging ground to do so.
The Manchester Originals Chair and LCCC Chief Exec welcome the incoming co-owners. (Credit: Supplied)
Two players were present for the press conference as well, with Originals Women’s star Beth Mooney saying she had “admired The Hundred for afar” since it started and quickly knew she “100% wanted to be a part of it”, aiming to “help create a legacy with the Originals as the tournament.”
Men’s player Phil Salt welcomed the new ownership as the start of an “extremely exciting new era” that should help them “bring the best product to the UK”, reiterating that “being part of the right organisation is key.”
Although the investment is yet to be fully ratified by the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) and Lancashire made no bones about the arrears they still have on the books, Gidney was keen to label a lot of as ‘good debt’ and an investment in facilities and infrastructure, something which RPSG will only further aid.
One of the biggest outlays even prior to the new co-owners is the ongoing Farrington project but since the wider county region may have struggled to cheer on a Manchester team, the Originals and Lancashire, more importantly, will no doubt benefit from its completion.
The new sister stadium will be based over in Preston, offering a second home for what is crucially a Lancashire club. (Credit: Supplied)
Danny Jones -
3rd January 2024 
