SIR JIM RATCLIFFE promised a bright new dawn for Manchester United.
More than a year on, the club are set for their lowest Premier League finish and worst domestic season since their 1974 relegation — all while firing a staggering 450 club staff.
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Victory over Tottenham in next week’s Europa League final could alter the narrative, sealing Champions League football to add to ambitious plans unveiled recently by Ratcliffe and Ineos – his multinational chemical company.
United are just one part of a £2.2BILLION-plus sporting empire that once looked dominant but is now showing some cracks.
Here, SunSport’s MARTIN LIPTON breaks down the rest of Sir Jim’s portfolio — sport by sport . . .
FOOTBALL
BEFORE Manchester United, there was Lausanne and Nice.
In 2017, Ineos announced a deal to take over the Swiss club, described as part of the chemicals giants’ “continuing investment in youth and community sports” in the area.
A pledge of “full backing” for manager Fabio Celestini lasted until the club were demoted six months later.
Lausanne have been a yo-yo club in the Ineos era but now sit well clear of relegation and are settling into the 13,000-capacity Stade de la Tuiliere, which was opened in 2020.
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Two years after the Swiss investment, Ineos bought French side Nice in an £89million deal, with Ratcliffe stating: “We made some mistakes at Lausanne but we are fast learners.
“These have been rectified and we are already seeing the benefits.”
Ineos arrived with Arsenal icon Patrick Vieira in the dugout but he was sacked after 15 months.
Four full-time successors have come and gone since, with Franck Haise now reaching the end of his first season, where he is well positioned to improve on Ineos’ best Ligue 1 finish of fifth.
Despite a winless Europa League campaign, Nice are fourth domestically with a game left.
They are one of three teams on 57 points and could finish as low as seventh. But a home win over Brest on Saturday will all but guarantee Nice entry to Champions League qualifying.
Last summer, after investing £1.3billion to take over “sporting operations” at United, Ineos were forced by Uefa to transfer most of their shares in Nice to a blind trust.
‘So much better without our interference’
Ratcliffe admitted in March: “The best season that Nice has had is this one, where we’ve not been allowed to get involved due to multi-club ownership rules. They’ve been so much better without our interference! Maybe there’s a lesson.”
When Ratcliffe confirmed his buyout of just over a quarter of United’s stocks from the Glazers, he vowed to lead the Old Trafford club back to the top but said: “It’s going to take two or three seasons.”
That looks an understatement.
The dismissal of Erik ten Hag was overdue but paying Newcastle £3million for sporting director Dan Ashworth only to sack him after five months was an expensive embarrassment.
Ratcliffe publicly backs Ruben Amorim but has criticised certain players.
The announcement of the £2bn plan to build a 100,000-capacity “New Trafford” as the centrepiece of a huge development project next to the club’s home since 1910 was a signal of ambition.
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FORMULA ONE
INEOS became Mercedes’ “principal partner” in a five-year £100m deal signed in 2020 and by the end of the year had taken a one-third stake.
Back-to-back team championships in their first two years made it eight in a row, Sir Lewis Hamilton winning the drivers’ title in 2020 and only losing out to Max Verstappen on the final lap in 2021.
But that was the end of Mercedes’ domination and Hamilton joined Ferrari ahead of this season.
George Russell remains a title contender even if his car is slower than the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri as well as Verstappen’s Red Bull.
With Ineos’ finances under scrutiny, it has been claimed Ratcliffe could exit but team principal Toto Wolff said: “He is one of us three amigos — Mercedes, Jim and I. We are never going to part ways.”
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RUGBY UNION
RATCLIFFE’S Ineos became a “performance partner” of the All Blacks in 2021 on a six-year deal worth £4million per season — but they could be kicked into touch.
New Zealand Rugby launched a legal case alleging a “breach of contract” in February after announcing Ineos had “failed to pay the first instalment of the 2025 sponsorship fee, confirming its decision to exit” the agreement.
That came with Ineos admitting it is suffering financially from rising levels of carbon tax in Europe, making chemicals a “tough industry to be in”.
Ratcliffe can’t Haka it, moaning in March: “We talked to New Zealand Rugby about the fact that times are tough.
“We wanted to see if we could find a compromise, which you would have thought as a sponsor of the All Blacks they’d have listened to, but they didn’t want to listen.”
NZ are currently an unacceptable No2 in the world.
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CYCLING
TEAM SKY had become the dominant force in world road cycling under Sir Dave Brailsford with riders including Tour de France winners Chris Froome, Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas.
They were rebranded as Team Ineos in 2019, becoming Ineos Grenadiers the following year. The company promised to match or even exceed the team’s £34million annual budget.
Colombian Egan Bernal won the team’s seventh Tour de France title in the first year of sponsorship but there have been no further triumphs in cycling’s elite race.
Ineos bankroll the team to the tune of £40m per year but are closing in on a multi-million pound sponsorship deal with another petrochemicals giant, TotalEnergies.
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SAILING
OLYMPIC sailing legend Sir Ben Ainslie and Royal Yacht Squadron Commodore Jamie Sheldon were with Ratcliffe in 2018 to announce the launch of Ineos Team UK and its bid to finally win the America’s Cup.
The crew, including another Olympic champion in Giles Scott, reached the final of the Prada Cup qualifying campaign in 2021 but were outsailed by Italy’s Luna Rossa, who in turn was comfortably beaten by the holders, Emirates Team New Zealand.
Ineos committed more than £110million and renamed the team Ineos Britannia before the 2024 edition of the world’s oldest sailing race.
This time, with another Olympic champion, Dylan Fletcher, joining Ainslie at the helm of the twin-hulled craft, the British boat reached the final in the waters off Barcelona.
But they again fell short, beaten 7-2 by the Kiwi vessel.
In January, Ineos announced a third challenge — but without Ainslie’s involvement.
Ratcliffe suggested: “Ben wanted to do his own thing and that’s fine.” But Ainslie claims he has the right to be the “Challenger of Record” with access to more information than other contenders.
Ainslie’s team was “astounded” by the Ineos move, adding it “raises significant legal and practical obstacles”.
ATHLETICS
KENYAN superstar Eliud Kipchoge’s successful bid to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon distance in 2019 was bankrolled by Ratcliffe through the Ineos 1:59 Challenge.
Kipchoge covered 26.2 miles in Vienna in 1:59:40.2 — although it did not count as an official world record as he was allowed a series of pace-setters and it was not an open event.
Later, in 2022, Ineos signed an agreement to become “performance partner” to Kipchoge’s Dutch-based NN Running Team.
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