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6 hours ago
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Remember when Manchester United jacked up the cost of tickets for members from around £40 to £66 for the rest of the season? And, for good measure, scrapped the £25 concession for children and asked them to pay full price too? Of course you do. It was barely six weeks ago, on 27 November.
But, without fanfare or it being reported anywhere, that policy has been quietly dropped for Thursday’s match against Southampton at Old Trafford, along with the Ipswich game next month. Adult tickets are now £48. Under-16s are £25. And the further cost to Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos’s reputation for competence? Incalculable.
On the pitch there have been hugely encouraging signs for United over the past week. They were superb at Liverpool in the Premier League and they backed it up with a victory of extraordinary grit and spirit against Arsenal on Sunday. But as the one-year anniversary of Ineos’s takeover looms, can their fans have faith in their brains’ trust to deliver?
Psychologists say there are four stages of learning a new skill. The lowest is unconscious incompetence. That’s where you don’t know how to do it – and, worse still, you even don’t realise it. At the second stage, you at least recognise you are incompetent. After that, you progress to showing competence but it requires focus. And then, finally, eureka: you perform a skill at a high level naturally.
So how should we rank Ratcliffe’s reign so far? Many will agree with Paul Scholes, who said last week: “Everything is still negative. I can’t think of something positive that they’ve done for the football club.” But I wonder whether it’s worse than that. Do Ratcliffe and his right-hand man, Dave Brailsford, even recognise their mistakes? Are they, in fact, still unconsciously incompetent?
It’s not just the decision to extend Erik ten Hag’s contract in July before sacking him in October. Or paying millions to prise Dan Ashworth from Newcastle only for him to last just five months as sporting director. Or another wasteful summer transfer window. It’s the penny pinching and the public relations disasters too.
Of course, businesses have to be sustainable, even in football where voodoo economics is the norm. Tough decisions do have to be made. As an outsider I can see the logic, for instance, in thinking the annual £2.16m payment to Sir Alex Ferguson for a global ambassador role was too high.
But what were United thinking when they scrapped free travel and accommodation for staff for the FA Cup final – and then refused Bruno Fernandes’ offer to pay out of his own pocket? Or when they cut the £100 bonus that stewards received every 10 matches, and the £50 prize for steward of the week?
How much did that really save them?
Friends tell me that replacing several long-standing stewards with agency workers with no experience has led to longer queues to get in the ground. And United have lost money because those friends have sometimes not had time for a pre-match pint inside the ground.
Even raising ticket prices to £66 and scrapping concessions is forecast to bring in only £1.5m this season. Or, to put it into football terms, Casemiro’s wages for a month.
Of course, most of this remains the Glazers’ fault. They committed the original sin on which all of United’s subsequent troubles lie. Even with 20 years’ distance it is staggering that Malcolm Glazer had to use only £272m of his own money to buy a club valued at £810m – and has saddled it with debts that currently stand at £496.5m.
However, they were never really involved in the day-to-day running of United, whereas Ratcliffe and Brailsford are hugely hands-on. The numerous mistakes and missteps over the past 11 months are on them.
Can Ratcliffe achieve his aim of putting United “in a very good place” by 2028? Their financial firepower gives them a chance. But the sense that Brailsford is a svengali who can effortlessly transform his skills across sports, has taken an almighty knock.
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Was it ever justified in the first place? He made his name at British Cycling and Team Sky by striving for marginal gains to improve performance, including even little things such as putting antibacterial handwash in lifts. That was before a parliamentary inquiry into a Jiffy bag blighted his reputation.
However, insiders always told me the biggest factor in British Cycling’s success at the Beijing, London and Rio Olympics was the talent in the team and especially the secret skinsuit technology that gave Team GB a huge edge over their rivals in the velodrome. “These gains are not marginal gains,” they said. “It is one massive big gain.”
Some fans suspect that Ratcliffe wants to reduce the number of season ticket holders, which stands at around 50,000, and sell more general admission seats on a match-by-match basis. That way he can raise prices for bigger games and bring in occasional fans who are more likely to visit the megastore and enjoy hospitality.
However, that strategy will work only if he can sustain demand. Historically that has never been a problem. But when the team is struggling, prices are rising and the economy is wobbly, it is an entirely different ball game.
As I write there are still tickets available for more than 50% of blocks for the Southampton game on Thursday. So there is a very real risk of visible empty seats at Old Trafford for a league game, which has rarely happened since the 1980s.
The only upside? It might make Ratcliffe finally take note.
