At a time when the Premier League is throwing itself head-first into the multi-club racket, Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe seemingly has other ideas.
Multi-club networks – when an investor unites several teams under the same ownership umbrella – have been around for decades, but the wild successes of Manchester City’s City Football Group and the Red Bull operation have caused the idea to catch fire in the Premier League over the last five or six years.
At the time of writing, 17 Premier League teams, including Manchester United, can count themselves as members of some form of multi-club organisation.
In United’s case, they are bedfellows with French Ligue 1 side OGC Nice and Swiss outfit Lausanne Sport through Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos.
Some of these networks are tightly linked: players move between clubs, often via a defined hierarchy; commercial contracts are shared; revenues are pooled; player scouting is run top-down from the multi-club holding company; sometimes multi-club colleagues even have similar branding and colours.
Manchester United’s multi-club network
Should Ineos be making better use of United's sister clubs? 🤔
Talking Points creatives showing the locations of Ineos-owned Manchester United, Lausanne Sport and OGC Nice
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Chelsea and Manchester City’s operations, for example, share several of these features.
In other instances, multi-club organisations can be more diffuse, with the chief aim being for owners to hedge their financial exposure. Private equity firms are increasingly zeroing in on this model.
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Apollo Management, for instance, now owns Atletico Madrid and a stake in Wrexham, while Liverpool’s ownership group contains RedBird Capital and Arctos, private equity firms who own stakes in AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Atalanta. And yet, unlike Chelsea and City, most fans aren’t aware of these links.
So, where do Man United sit on this spectrum?
United’s multi-club journey so far
United have flirted with the idea of trading players with Nice on a number of occasions, although movements between the two Ratcliffe-owned clubs have yet to materialise.
In January, however, that could change. Enzo Kana-Biyik joined Lausanne in the summer, and Diego Leon and Manuel Ugarte have both been linked with joining Nice on similar temporary deals next month.
Last season, after both United and the French side qualified for the Europa League, Ratcliffe was forced to put Nice under a so-called ‘blind trust’ agreement to satisfy UEFA’s dual ownership rules.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe watches Manchester United against Wolves from the Old Trafford directors' box
Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
As Crystal Palace found out to their cost ahead of 2025-26, European football’s governing body plans to continue its hard-line stance on multi-club networks competing in the same competitions.
Unless there is a sea change at UEFA HQ – which, incidentally, is just a 30-minute drive from Ratcliffe’s outpost in Lausanne, Switzerland – could the multi-club model at this level be more trouble than it’s worth?
In the summer, it was reliably reported by several reputable sources that Ratcliffe wanted to sell Nice.
On face value, that is no surprise. The Ligue 1 TV deal, the load-bearing beam in the financial construction of French football, has collapsed, leaving investors scrambling as they are forced to absorb huge losses.
Ratcliffe bought Nice for about £90m in 2019. According to The Athletic, he is looking for about £213m upon exit. Ostensibly, £123m in profit is a healthy markup.
However, adjusting for inflation and factoring in the £200m-plus in external funding he has committed to the club, the chemicals billionaire will actually make a substantial loss on the investment, assuming he is able to actually get his asking price.
OGC Nice fans light flares in match against Marseille
Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty Images
To compound matters, Nice are in free fall on the pitch and experiencing mutiny in the stands. They have lost nine in a row, are five points off the bottom three in Ligue 1 and rock bottom of the Europa League table.
The assumption, therefore, is that Ineos cannot wait to leave the French Riviera and concentrate their efforts on the Costa del Salford. But at a time when nearly every Premier League club is piling their chips on the multi-club model, is now the right moment for United’s owners to be pulling away?
“He wants to put all of his eggs in the Manchester United basket,” says University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to United in Focus.
“The Nice issue has led him to be irritated as much as anything else. I think Manchester United are such a big brand that their ability to attract players from overseas is so big that it outweighs any need for a multi-club operation.
This is what Man United earn in real terms
Apart from the new stadium, what else should Ineos do to STOP this slide?
Talking Points creative showing Manchester United's revenue adjusted for inflation
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“Yes, you could say the same about Liverpool, who are looking at the multi-club avenue at the moment, but they have a different player recruitment model than United.
“Whilst Ineos are a successful company they haven’t got a lot of spare cash. So if they sell Nice, the cash injection could be beneficial to them as a company.
“There are a lot of multi-club outlets in France, but that was before the implosion of the French TV deal.”
Jean Claude-Blanc could be key to United’s multi-club future
Should Ratcliffe have a change of heart on his grand strategy in the multi-club universe, former United director Jean Claude-Blanc could be key to lobbying for revisions to UEFA’s multi-club regulations.
While Blanc was removed as a director at Old Trafford in April, he stayed on as head of international football reputations and, significantly, as United’s representative at the European Football Clubs group.
OGC Nice fans light flares in match against Marseille
Photo by Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty Images
European Football Clubs, which was known as the European Club Associations until a rather clunky recent rebrand, is the key lobbying group for clubs on the continent.
It is credited with forcing the changes to the Champions League, Europa and Conference League group stage formats in favour of a more lucrative 36-team model. And its power has grown significantly in recent years.
Blanc is one of 36 board members. If UEFA ever changes its philosophy on multi-club ownership, he will have real influence in the debate.
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