Full statement from Manchester United’s Muslim Supporters’ Club:
This week, Manchester United were knocked out of the Carabao Cup following another defeat at Old Trafford.
Days earlier, we lost at home to a Manchester City side reduced to ten men.
We sit 13th in the Premier League with four points from four games.
As always, the immediate reaction will be to point at the manager. Then the players. Then the coaching staff.
But Manchester United supporters have been doing this for more than a decade. Managers have changed. Players have changed. Coaching teams have changed. Executives have changed.
The cycle hasn’t.
At some point, we have to stop looking at the latest person standing in the dugout and start looking at those responsible for the direction of the football club.
For years, the Glazer ownership has presided over Manchester United’s decline. When Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS arrived, many supporters hoped it would finally signal meaningful change.
We were among those who hoped.
Instead, our confidence in the ownership structure has continued to erode.
Supporters have continued to turn up, travel and spend their money through years of underachievement.
And what have they received in return?
Higher ticket prices. A stadium allowed to deteriorate. Years of poor decision-making. Vast sums spent without sustained success. And a football team that continues to fall further behind where Manchester United should be.
The manager didn’t create this cycle.
The players didn’t create this cycle.
The people making the decisions did.
And our concerns now extend beyond the pitch.
Earlier this year, MUMSC publicly challenged Sir Jim Ratcliffe after his comments that the UK had been ‘colonised by immigrants’. We condemned those comments then. He subsequently apologised for his choice of language.
We hoped a lesson had been learned. Clearly, it has not.
This week, Sir Jim has again placed immigration and people receiving benefits at the centre of his explanation for Britain’s problems, arguing that nobody is ‘tough enough’ to deal with either.
We find these latest comments deeply disappointing and completely unacceptable.
Once again, immigrants and some of the most vulnerable people in society are being presented as part of the problem by one of Britain’s wealthiest individuals.
And the hypocrisy is difficult to ignore. Once again, instead of focusing on years of allowing corporate greed to prosper at the expense of political investment in key institutions and infrastructure which would have benefited Britain, he is scapegoating and deflecting political mishandling and mismanagement onto racialised communities, playing into populist tropes that are bereft of accurate academic rigour.
Sir Jim talks of Britain’s ‘benefits problem’, yet the UK Government recently committed more than £120 million of public money towards supporting an INEOS operation. Sir Jim also chose to move his own tax residence from Britain to Monaco.
There may be sound economic reasons for governments to protect strategically important businesses and jobs. But if state support is acceptable when it benefits your own business interests, it is difficult to then lecture ordinary people about their reliance upon the state.
You cannot demand toughness for ordinary people while welcoming state support when it benefits you and expect nobody to question the contradiction.
And there is something particularly troubling about this rhetoric coming from one of the people responsible for Manchester United.
Look around Old Trafford on any matchday.
Our players, staff, stewards, security teams and supporters come from different countries, cultures, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds.
Manchester United would not be Manchester United without them. That diversity isn’t a weakness of Manchester United.
It is part of Manchester United.
Different backgrounds. Different beliefs. Different politics. One Manchester United.
Manchester United does not belong emotionally to investment funds, shareholders or billionaires. It belongs to the generations of supporters who inherited this club from their parents and grandparents and who will one day pass it to their children.
We love Manchester United. This club is all we know and, when it comes to football, it will be all we ever know.
That is precisely why we cannot stay silent.
This is bigger than one defeat.
Bigger than one manager.
Bigger than one season.
It is about the direction, leadership and identity of Manchester United Football Club.
After years of decline, broken promises and repeated failure, Manchester United Muslim Supporters’ Club has lost confidence in the current ownership structure of Manchester United Football Club.
Enough is enough.
It is time for change.
The Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe must go.
Manchester United Muslim Supporters’ Club (MUMSC)
