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Man Utd set new off-pitch record with£200m spend, Ineos have done what the Glazers‘never’wanted to do

Manchester United fans might have many complaints against Ineos, but the club have just set a new record for spending off the pitch that goes against everything the Glazers ever wanted to do.

Since coming into the club, Ineos have not only invested in projects like a new tunnel for Old Trafford, a new Carrington, or planning a whole new stadium, but also made wide-scale personnel changes.

It is in stark contrast to the apathy shown by the Glazers for nearly two decades, which has left the club trying to claw back into relevance.

Finance expert and GRV Media’s head of football finance and governance content, Adam Williams, has now shared that Ineos have already set a new record, while throwing light on the extraordinary measures the Glazers were taking to avoid spending their own money.

Manchester United Players Return to Pre-Season Training, general view of Carrington entrance

Photo by Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images

Man Utd set new spending record

Ineos are clearly here to create a legacy, which is evidenced by their spending on projects that will stand the test of time, instead of players who come and go.

The new stadium is the biggest example of that, but one part of their legacy is already secure as the new Carrington is about to be opened after work over the summer.

“Project Avalon“, as it was named, was handled by Norman Foster, the same architect leading the new stadium plans, and it comes at a cost of £50m, paid personally by Ineos.

As per Adam Williams, that outlay sees Man Utd set a new spending record, which speaks volumes about the Glazers.

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He said: “Spending on infrastructure is exempt from the PSR calculation until the point when the asset you’re building is active. For United and Carrington, it looks like the funds have probably come direct from Ratcliffe himself as opposed to being funded by debt, so I don’t think interest repayments are going to impact their PSR calculation going forward.

“According to the latest quarterly accounts up to the end of March, capital expenditure had reached £34m for the financial year.

“My data goes back to 2006, and in that time, Man United have spent £184m on infrastructure but never more than £38m in a single year, so this will take total infrastructure spending beyond £200m and set a new single-year record in the Glazer era.”

The true nature of Glazers exposed in new Man Utd record

While it goes without saying at this point that the Glazers were (are) harmful for United, the true nature of their ownership has been exposed by Williams.

He says that in addition to setting a new single-year record, this way of working would have been alien to the Glazers, with documents to prove it.

Williams said: “Pretty much all of the established teams in the Premier League have outspent them in this category in that time, so it’s telling that this has happened as the Ratcliffe investment went through.

“The Glazers have never wanted to use their own money to pay for infrastructure – or indeed anything else. I’ve got copies of the documents for Project Big Picture, which they co-wrote back in 2021.

“As part of that proposal, they wanted every team to pay into a central infrastructure fund that they could then use to help pay for developments like this. It’s a truism that billionaires like spending other people’s money, but the Glazers take it to a new level.”

It is remarkable that they were not willing to invest even a single penny of their own into a club from which they regularly took out millions.

Ineos might have a million faults, but it will be hard for them, or any owner in the Premier League, to be worse than what United had for nearly two decades.

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