As Manchester United owner Jim Ratcliffe grapples with falling revenue and public relations crises at his soccer club, the billionaire businessman is also confronting product issues within Ineos, the sprawling conglomerate through which he obtained his riches.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received notice this month of a recall for about 7,000 Ineos-made Grenadier SUVs because of doors that fail to stay closed.
“If the door does not latch, it may open while the vehicle is in motion, increasing the risk of injury to passengers inside the vehicle,” said the NHTSA recall report, which blames “incorrect greasing” for the failure.
Ratcliffe himself hatched the plan for Ineos’ offshoot vehicle business in 2017 at a London bar called The Grenadier that inspired the name of his troubled auto product. Ineos Automotive—part of a multinational organization he founded that gets most of its revenue from chemical manufacturing and distribution—has lost more than $1 billion since its creation. Ratcliffe’s net worth is down from a high of $29 billion in 2021 to $13.5 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Ineos did not respond to a request for comment.
The company will notify U.S. dealerships of the recall by Friday and customers no later than May 4. Only Grenadiers produced between July 6, 2023, and April 19, 2024, are subject to the recall, the NHTSA report said. Ineos will replace all affected door mechanisms for free.
New models of the 2024 Grenadier—an off-road SUV modeled after old-school Land Rovers—sell for around $75,000 in the U.S., with the specific price depending on its features.
Ratcliffe finalized a purchase of Manchester United shares last year that gave him control of sporting operations. The club is in the red, and Ratcliffe has blamed its financial woes for a series of controversial cost-trimming measures, including last month’s layoffs of 150-200 employees on top of cuts made in 2024.
Meanwhile, the club raised ticket prices in the middle of this season, sparking fan protests at Old Trafford. It also reduced free food options for staffers last month, bringing further uproar.
Manchester United FC protests
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images
This week, Manchester United announced its intention to replace its stadium with a new 100,000-seat venue. The project, though, poses a “risk” of hurting its competitive product amid the cash squeeze, according to CEO Omar Berrada.
“Once we stop losing money, we then put ourselves in the best financial position to continue investing in our team and also to allow us to be able to have the ambition to build a new stadium,” Berrada told reporters.
Manchester United shows little sign of turning around its fortunes on the pitch with its current squad, posing the long-term risk of missed revenue opportunities from playing all-important Champions League games.
Ratcliffe told the BBC recently that player talent was “not good enough”—even as club leadership has suggested that transfer spending meant to fix its problems might be limited. The Red Devils will not qualify for the Champions League for 2025-26, as they currently occupy 14th place in the Premier League with just 10 matches to go.
Manchester United and the Ineos Grenadier aren’t the only struggling aspects of Ratcliffe-related businesses. The professional cycling team bearing Ineos Grenadier’s name last year saw its worst season in nearly two decades.
After Ineos (then Team Sky) cyclists won seven Tours de France between 2012 and 2019, the team failed to reach the podium in two of cycling’s three grand tours last year (Geraint Thomas finished third in the 2024 Giro d’Italia), and it won no classifications in any of the grand tours.
For many years, Ineos Grenadier reportedly boasted one of the biggest pro cycling budgets, but other teams—notably Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates—have caught up when it comes to resources, leaving Ineos searching for additional sponsors.
Better Canter contributed to this report.