Manchester United\u2019s latest financial update frames the Ratcliffe-era reductions as a success on cost and profitability. The club\u2019s chief executive, Omar Berrada, said: \u201cWe are now seeing the positive financial impact of our off-pitch transformation materialise both in our costs and profitability.\u201d<\/p>\n
That impact has been felt most directly by people who worked at the club. Since the Ratcliffe era began two years ago, as many as 450 non-playing staff have been made redundant. Everyday workplace benefits such as the club providing daily lunch have been scaled back. There is an acceptance within the building that staff accept lower pay than similar roles elsewhere because of the emotional pull of the institution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the fault of the staff who are losing their jobs,\u201d Andy Mitten wrote for The Athletic in the summer of 2024. The founder of the United We Stand fanzine rejected the idea of pruning \u201cdeadwood,\u201d instead pointing to \u201cwasted wages\u201d on underperforming players and the long shadow of the 2005 leveraged takeover. He added: \u201cMany are competent and professional members of staff. They gave it their all at United. They were well respected and committed to the club\u2019s success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyrone Marshall of the Manchester Evening News warned: \u201cManchester United likes to think of itself as one big family. It\u2019s something they trade on. It should be a long, long time before anyone associated with United tries to portray this as being a family club again. If it is, it\u2019s a soulless family with the joy long since ripped out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the three months to the end of December 2025, United recorded a \u00a37.4 million reduction in employee benefit expenses compared with the same period a year earlier, the club clarifying this was \u201cdue to the impact of headcount reduction programs implemented during the prior year.\u201d By comparison, Mason Mount\u2019s reported salary over a three-month span is between \u00a33\u20133.6 million, an example the club\u2019s spending choices have made stark.<\/p>\n
High-profile managerial departures have also been costly. Erik ten Hag\u2019s contract was extended in July 2024 and he was dismissed less than four months later. Replacing him with Ruben Amorim cost \u00a321.4 million. The club also spent \u00a34.1 million to remove Dan Ashworth from a short-lived sporting director role. Amorim left 13 months later; his estimated payoff is around \u00a310 million and the broader hire-and-fire bill is put at \u00a327 million.<\/p>\n
The financial picture is muted across revenue lines. Income for the first half of 2025\u201326 fell by 3.2% year on year, with commercial revenue down 4.5% for the half and 7.8% in the three months to the end of December. The loss of a training kit partner after the Tezos deal ended and Marriott International\u2019s departure last summer have both contributed to the commercial decline as the club seeks to restore its on-field and off-field appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cost savings at United have coincided with mass staff layoffs and expensive managerial changes. 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1348],"tags":[1317,1379],"class_list":["post-7102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-manchester-united-news","tag-accounts-2025-26","tag-club-structure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7102","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=7102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}