Anger at Sir Jim Ratcliffe's comments suggesting lack of plan for Manchester United Women

Tuesday 25 June 2024

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has sparked a heated debate about Manchester United Women after he admitted there is no detailed plan for the side’s future.

Maya Le Tissier and her United teammates lifted the Women’s FA Cup this season after a win against Tottenham in the final, but slid back in the league to finish fifth.

The women's transfer window opened this week, while some big United names have contracts that are running out soon.

Ratcliffe is now Manchester United's majority owner, but his admission that he has not gone into detail on the women's team yet has caused consternation among fans.

In an interview with Bloomberg in America, when asked what they are doing with the women's team, Ratcliffe said: "Well they've just won the FA Cup."

Pressed further on whether they have looked at spinning off the women's team, with Chelsea having recently announced that their side will become a standalone entity, sitting alongside the men's team and with the club ownership group as the controlling shareholder, Ratcliffe said: "We haven't gone into that level of detail with the women's football team yet. We've been pretty much focused on how do we resolve the first-team issues, in that environment, and that's been pretty full time for the first six months."

Asked whether plans were TBC, he simply said "correct".

Women's manager Marc Skinner was handed a one-year contract extension shortly after the FA Cup triumph in May.

Ratcliffe completed a £1.3billion deal to purchase a 27.7% stake in Manchester United in February.