Ruben Amorim
Ruben Amorim insists the United first team and coaching staff should take responsibility for redundancies at the club
Ruben Amorim said the blame for another round of redundancies at Manchester United should lie with the underperforming first team, telling his squad that players and coaches are responsible for improving job security and avoiding ticket price hikes.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe made 250 staff redundant soon after taking control of United following his investment last year, and there is now the expectation of at least 100 more employees losing their jobs in the next few months as the 72-year-old tries to slash costs at the club.
United have posted five successive years of losses and have lost more than £300million in the last three years, which has pushed them to brink of breaching the Premier League's financial rules.
Since his investment into the club was confirmed in February of last year Ratcliffe has gone on a cust-cutting drive, slashing staff bonuses, ending Sir Alex Ferguson's ambarassdorial deal and hiking unsold ticket prices this season to £66.
There is a fear of ticket prices going up for all supporters next season, while more redundancies are set to be announced to staff imminently. That has left morale amongst the club's rank and file employees at rock bottom and Amorim insisted the first-team can't and shouldn't insulate themselves from that, insisting the job lossess are their fault after a disastrous year on the pitch.
"I think it’s really important for us in the first team, coaches and players, to not ignore that," he said. "People are losing their jobs so we have to acknowledge that and the biggest problem is the football, because we spend the money, we are not winning, we are not in Champions League, so the revenues are not the same.
"We spent a lot of money in the past and now we have to be careful with the finances. We cannot rebuild the team the way we would like. People are losing their jobs, of course it’s hard to have that feeling of people safe in their job and it affects the environment.
"We cannot ignore, we acknowledge that problem and I want to say that the responsibility is the first team."
Amorim knows that returning some level of success to Old Trafford will ease the financial crisis at the club, handing greater job security to staff and allowing ticket prices to remain low, and he is keen to foster that sense of collective purpose amongst his players, starting at Tottenham today.
"We have to change that," he said. "The first part, what we should do is to win at Tottenham. That is the small step to try to help these people, to try not to push the prices of the tickets higher. We are responsible for that."