Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe's approach to business at Old Trafford has been compared to that of Elon Musk after further redundancies were planned for the club.
MEN Sport reported this week that Ineos were planning to cut a further 100 jobs at United despite laying off 250 people in autumn last year. Staff who are at risk of losing their job have not yet been formally told.
The reason behind the decision, according to United officials, is that the club remains on a fiscal tight rope both on and off the pitch. It is understood the redundancies that are set to be introduced are being made to strengthen the club's long-term financial future.
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According to the director of executive education at University Campus of Football Business, Professor Rob Wilson, Ratcliffe's approach to cost-cutting is reminiscent to the approach that Musk took when acquiring Twitter (now X). "What we see generally, typified in US style ownership, is they look at revenue generation first and they look at cost control second," he explained to Spin Casino.
"So go back to Manchester United, what did the Glazers do? They've tried to ramp up revenue as much as they possibly could.
"Actually what they did was they put an army of people behind that to make sure that you could sign your big deals with Snapdragon or Team Viewer before that and the big deal with Adidas and the Nike deal that came before that. So I think what we typically see with US ownership in the first instance is let's go after revenue, particularly in sponsorships and then we look at the other things thereafter.
"Elon Musk is slightly different because his acquisitions that we've seen, particularly at Twitter or X, is that he goes in after the cost cutting because his investment methodology is more akin to what we would see with a British investor who looks at costs first." Ratcliffe's focus has been firmly on cost-saving since taking over United.
The 72-year-old has already insisted that he wishes to be more frugal with the club's spending whether that be on transfer fees or wages.
