Manchester United lost the Europa League final to cap a miserable season and controlling co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now facing a hostile atmosphere from the club's own staff
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Updated 12:27, 22 May 2025
BILBAO, SPAIN - MAY 21: Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Co-owner of Manchester United, looks on before the trophy presentation after the UEFA Europa League Final 2025 between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at Estadio de San Mames on May 21, 2025 in Bilbao, Spain. (Photo by Michael Regan - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is facing a hostile atmosphere from Manchester United's own staff
(Image: Michael Regan - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
Sir Jim Ratcliffe was reportedly booed by Manchester United staff after he appeared on screen following the Europa League final. United were beaten in the Europa League final by Tottenham on Wednesday night to cap a miserable season.
This is Ratcliffe's first full season as the Red Devils' controlling co-owner. He has enacted a brutal round of job cuts since taking over from the Glazers, with 250 staff already departing.
A further round of redundancies is expected to come over the summer, while club legends have seen their ambassador contracts ended. Ratcliffe also decided against inviting any staff members to Bilbao to watch the final in person.
Instead, United set up a screening of the game back in Manchester. The club's staff watched on as Ruben Amorim's men were unable to recover after going behind to Brennan Johnson's scrappy first-half goal.
To complete the humiliation for Ratcliffe, he was in attendance at the San Mames Stadium. The British billionaire was handed the job of giving out the medals alongside Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.
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As a result of that job, Ratcliffe was seen on camera several times. According to The Athletic, that led to staff at the screening in Manchester booing whenever Ratcliffe and fellow owner Avram Glazer appeared on the screen.
The 1,000-strong crowd was made up of employees and family members. The booing rang out once during the game and again at full-time, with the mood with trendy venue Direcast described as being 'very sombre'.
Staff at Old Trafford have been growing increasingly concerned after chief executive Omar Berrada revealed in February that a second redundancy round would be based on qualifying for the Europa League for the next four seasons.
BILBAO, SPAIN - MAY 21: Sir Jim Ratcliffe, minority owner of Manchester United shakes hands Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United with after the UEFA Europa League Final 2025 between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at at Estadio de San Mames on May 21, 2025 in Bilbao, Spain. (Photo by Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images)
Ratcliffe was in attendance in Bilbao to see United lose the Europa League final to Tottenham
One man who has admitted he could find himself out of a job is boss Amorim. The 40-year-old has admitted he would be happy to depart without compensation should Ratcliffe decide he is not the man for the job.
"It's in the future, I'm not going to talk about the future. This loss, the pain of losing this match. I can see it was clear, we were the better team but then we managed not to score again, so it's very hard to win football matches," he said.
"But the guys tried everything to win the game. In the future, we will have time to assess everything. We have to see. We have to see. I know everything that you did [say], I said before you. In this moment, I’m not going to be here defending myself. It’s not my style.
"In this moment it’s a little bit of faith, so let’s see. If the board and the fans feel I’m not the right guy, I will go in the next day without any conversation about compensation, but I will not quite.
"Again, I’m really confident about my job and, as you can see, I will not change nothing in the way I do things. I think I was always really honest with you guys. We didn’t perform perfect today, but we were better than the opponent, and the opponent also played."
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