Sir Jim Ratcliffe insists excessive regulation could 'ruin' Premier League | manchester united
Manchester United minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said he understands why rivals Manchester City are challenging the Premier League's financial rules, and warned the competition risks being “ruined” if regulation goes too far.
City sues the league on its associated party transactions (APT) rules, which are designed to ensure that commercial deals linked to club ownership are carried out at fair market value. “I can understand why they question it,” Ratcliffe told Bloomberg. “You can understand why they would say they want an open market, a free market.”
Ratcliffe said that first division You had to be “careful” not to end up in “an endless legal dispute with many clubs.” Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked a combined eight points for breaching the league's profitability and sustainability (PSR) rules last season, while City face a hearing in the autumn accused of 115 breaches of Premier League rules.
“The Premier League is probably the most successful sporting league in the world, certainly the most successful football league in the world,” said Ratcliffe, head of football operations at Old Trafford. “And we have this expression in the north of England: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
“If you start interfering too much, introducing too much regulation, then you will end up with the Manchester City problem, you will end up with the Everton problem, you will end up with the Nottingham Forest problem, over and over again.
“If you are not careful, the Premier League will end up spending more time in court than thinking about what is good for the league. “We have the best league in the world, don’t ruin it for the love of God.”
United voted to strengthen APT rules in February, but joined City in voting against a proposal called “anchoring”, which would put a cap on the amount clubs can spend on wages, transfers and agent fees. . “(Anchoring) would inhibit the top clubs in the Premier League,” Ratcliffe said. “And the last thing you want is for the best clubs in the Premier League not to be able to compete with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich or PSG, that is absurd. And if it does, it stops being the best league in the world.”
Ratcliffe also said an independent football regulator “won't be good” for the game and revealed he intends to put French side Nice, majority owned by his company Ineos, into a blind trust for next season to comply with multi-club deals. of UEFA. ownership rules and allow United and Nice to compete side by side in the Europa League. UEFA revealed last month that this would be an option only for next season; Beyond that, shares would have to be sold to comply with their regulations.
Ratcliffe, who backed Britain's exit from the European Union in 2016, added: “Due to Brexit, it is now quite difficult to recruit younger generational talent in Europe, but Nice could do it. “If it is a fantastic 15-year-old in France, we can sign him for Nice and use Nice as a conduit to Manchester United later.”
Ratcliffe also said United had “made a lot of bad decisions” over the last decade and insisted that a signing as big as Kylian Mbappe is not the answer to the problems facing the club at the moment. “Wherever we look there is room for improvement and we will improve everything because we want to compete for the Premier League every year,” said the 71-year-old. “And I don't think the solution is to buy a Mbappé.
“One player is not going to solve the problem, it is necessary to build a balanced team and we need to progress with the team and ultimately complete it with one or two players like Mbappé, but that is not the solution today.”
