Man Utd: Lineker says ‘unpleasant human being’ Ratcliffe running a ‘mess of a club’

Gary Lineker has congratulated the Glazer family for finding “someone even worse than them” in Sir Jim Ratcliffe to lay the blame on for their “mess of a football club”.

British-born billionaire Ratcliffe now runs the football operation at Manchester United after buying a 28.94 per cent stake in from the Glazers in February 2024.

And while things haven’t gone particularly well on the pitch for the Red Devils, Ratcliffe is now facing more criticism for his comments off it.

On Saturday, he said that “nobody’s tough enough to deal with the immigration problem” in the UK, having claimed earlier this year that the nation had been “colonised by immigrants”.

And Lineker isn’t impressed with the “unpleasant” man’s thoughts, believing the problems at Old Trafford likely come from the man at the top.

“I look at Man United and I see problems coming down from the top,” the England legend said on The Rest is Football podcast.

“I must congratulate the Glazers on finding someone even worse than them that they can blame and getting him in there and getting all the stick: Jim Ratcliffe.

“He’s clearly… I don’t think he’s a particularly pleasant human being and it’s a bit of shambles of a football club the way it’s being run at the moment. So, well done to the Glazers on that one, deflecting everything away from them!”

Lineker also made reference to another pressing issue for United, with 15-year-old wonderkid JJ Gabriel demanding to leave.

“It is a bit of a mess that club,” the ex-striker continued.

“You’ve got a ground that’s falling apart, all sorts of complaints about various things. They’re losing young teenagers, it looks like that [Gabriel leaving] is going to happen.

“The results, the inconsistency seems to be back. They have backed the manager lots of times and it’s not worked for them but there’s got to be something dripping down from the top.”

Tax exile Ratcliffe

Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said Ratcliffe had lost the “moral high ground” by criticising Britain while living in Monaco and supporting Brexit.

She told the BBC: “I do think you lose the moral high ground in the argument you make, Jim Ratcliffe, that is, by making these kinds of pronouncements while choosing to make decisions, that he is within his rights to make, to become a tax exile.”

She added: “And of course, he was also someone, as I understand it, who was a big supporter of Brexit.”