It’s a disgrace – Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes new broom to ‘untidy’ Man Utd premises

Sir Jim Ratcliffe was not impressed with the tidiness standards around Manchester United (Simon Peach/PA)

Manchester United’s new minority stakeholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘new broom’ approach is being applied literally after the Ineos boss ordered a clean up of the club’s premises.

It is understood Ratcliffe sent an email to staff in which he said he was struck by the “high degree of untidiness” of Old Trafford and the Carrington training complex, specifically branding the IT department “a disgrace”.

Since buying a 27.7 percent stake in February the petro-chemical billionaire has made significant changes to the club’s top-tier management by bringing in a new chief executive and chief financial officer, as well as a new technical director and targeting a replacement sporting director.

But he has not ignored the other end of the scale as he is keen to instil the standards which operate at Ineos.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe outside Old Trafford — Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants to raise standards around Old Trafford (Peter Byrne/PA)

“I had a good tour around some of the facilities. I am afraid I was struck in many places by a high degree of untidiness,” he wrote in his email, as quoted by the Daily Mail.

“In particular the IT department, which frankly was a disgrace, and the dressing rooms of the Under-18s and Under-21s were not much better.

“These standards would not come close to what we would expect at Ineos and we are a chemical company.

“Manchester United is an elite sporting organisation. It’s a small thing in many ways, but unless an organisation has standards and discipline it will not succeed.”