Sir Jim Ratcliffe is facing fresh criticism from within the Manchester United support base after comments he made about Britain and immigration triggered another backlash.<\/p>\n
The Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club has issued a statement of no confidence in the club co-owner, saying his latest remarks were \u201cdeeply disappointing and completely unacceptable.\u201d The group had already condemned similar comments before, when Ratcliffe apologised for what he said was his choice of language. But it now believes little has changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe condemned those comments then,\u201d the MUMSC wrote. \u201cHe [Ratcliffe] subsequently apologized 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 center of his explanation for Britain\u2019s problems, arguing that nobody is \u2018tough enough\u2019 to deal with either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find these latest comments deeply disappointing and completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to the BBC at the launch of the European Union\u2019s first carbon capture and storage system on Saturday, Ratcliffe said the U.K. had once been \u201ca fantastic place\u201d and pointed to what he described as the country\u2019s historic strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the greatest empire in the world. We were a great people. We won two world wars.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then added: \u201cNobody\u2019s tough enough to deal with the immigration problem,\u201d Ratcliffe claimed. \u201cNobody\u2019s tough enough to deal with the benefits problem. But somebody needs to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response has not been limited to supporters. U.K. minister for women and equalities Bridget Phillipson also took aim at the Monaco resident, saying: \u201cOf course, we want to see a successful economy that involves supporting our businesses to deliver the very best, but you\u2019ll forgive me if I do take with a pinch of salt what someone who is a tax exile has to say about our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MUMSC stressed that Manchester United is built on a mix of backgrounds and identities, noting that the club\u2019s \u201cplayers, 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\u2019t a weakness of Manchester United. It is part of Manchester United.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its frustration has been sharpened by hopes that Ratcliffe\u2019s arrival in 2024 would bring change after years of dissatisfaction with the Glazer family, whom the group said had \u201cpresided over Manchester United\u2019s decline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ratcliffe\u2019s comments on Britain and immigration have prompted a new no-confidence statement from United supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-19934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}