Around half an hour before Manchester United announced what the club is calling its ‘transformation plan’, staff filed into Old Trafford’s Manchester Suite largely knowing what to expect.
The meeting was short, only lasting between 20 minutes and half an hour, and was led by Omar Berrada. United’s chief executive confirmed that, as The Athletic reported earlier this month, the club would carry out another round of redundancies.
As well as Berrada, chief financial officer Roger Bell also spoke briefly before Annie Hale, the club’s head of human resources. And as with the announcement of the initial round of 250 job cuts last summer, the room largely stayed quiet, the mood understandably sober. Ruben Amorim and his staff were not among the crowd, but women’s team head coach Marc Skinner and members of his backroom team were in attendance.
The muted reaction might have been different had the estimated number of job losses been disclosed by Berrada during the meeting itself. But confirmation that between 150 to 200 roles are at risk only followed up later via email.
Many in attendance were taken aback by the tone of proceedings, with mentions of overcoming obstacles and recollections of triumphing over adversity, when some of those present will not be in position to meet the challenges of the future.
Berrada, United’s chief executive, led the call (Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Staff were told the club would be releasing a statement in the interests of transparency. Shortly after the meeting ended, a push notification was sent to users of United’s official app announcing the ‘transformation plan’ and measures to “improve the club’s financial sustainability and enhance operational efficiency”.
Before that, there had been pleas for confidentiality, which some staff present scoffed at, amid fears among others that they might be watched for recording or messaging about what was being said. Those in United’s London office followed events at Old Trafford together on a big screen, as video conferencing links were not sent out in order to counteract leaks.
Yet details of the other cost-cutting measures in the club’s ‘transformation plan’ had already slipped out, chiefly the changes to the club’s provision of food for employees. Free hot meals for staff at Old Trafford are coming to an end, and are to be replaced by fruit bowls, with the canteen set to close.
At Carrington, men’s, women’s and academy players will still be entitled to complimentary hot meals but, once renovation work on the training site’s main building is complete, catering for staff will be separate and significantly reduced.
Nothing will change for captains Bruno Fernandes, Maya Le Tissier and their team-mates but coaches, physios, analysts and other staff will be lining up for soup and a roll.
Skinner, right, was present at the meeting but Ashworth has already departed (Photo: Charlotte Tattersall – MUFC/Manchester United via Getty Images)
United estimate that ending free lunches at Old Trafford alone will save more than £1m per year but predictably, making such cutbacks at a time shortly after it was revealed that the club paid out £14.5m for the exits of a former manager and sporting director has not gone down well.
Although easily passed off as small and insignificant, such perks have long been valued by staff at United. Some at the club feel the prestige of working for United conversely results in lower pay, as though they are made to feel grateful that they work for such a famous club. Benefits like free meals have helped redress that balance.
Yet it is the redundancy programme — the second announced in the space of only seven months — that will have the greatest impact.
Following reports of further retrenchment earlier this month, United told staff in company-wide newsletter Redlines, sent out on a Friday evening, that they were exploring every option to raise revenues and reduce costs needed to be considered, with discussions ongoing as to how to implement the right structure.
Some staff felt the timing of that admission meant colleagues may not notice it in their inboxes over the weekend. Others were expecting the email to rubber-stamp a new appointment, with it landing as news broke of Marc Armstrong becoming the club’s chief business officer. Instead, it effectively confirmed to many that their positions could be at risk.
In that sense, there was a parallel with the last round of job cuts, which were signalled as Dan Ashworth officially began work as sporting director.
Ashworth infamously lasted only five months at the head of United’s football department, which is expected to suffer most from this next series of redundancies, but not before a difference of opinion with minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe on whether such cutbacks were necessary.
Ratcliffe asked Ashworth to make cuts to United’s football operations, only for the former Newcastle United executive to be reluctant to dispense with staff in his department.
Those cuts could not be postponed indefinitely, however, and despite these measures being justified as routes towards “football success” in United’s statement, there is a 50-50 split between the football department and the rest of the club. The redundancy process is expected to be carried out over the next three months.
United’s on-field results have damaged their financial standing too (Photo: Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
United’s presence in London, with a Kensington-based office of predominantly non-football staff, will be scaled back. Last week’s second-quarter results hailed the impact of the new front-of-shirt sponsorship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon brand driving an 18 per cent increase in commercial revenues.
Unlike United’s deal with kit supplier Adidas, the Qualcomm sponsorship does not include a penalty clause for failing to qualify for the Champions League, either. But several key figures in the department that delivered that deal have departed during the INEOS-led era.
Single, cherry-picked figures cannot mask the undeniably grim financial picture overall in any case, with United now facing five years of consecutive losses totalling £373million. Such figures are why some sources stress that drastic action is necessary.
At the end of last season, United’s average number of monthly employees stood at 1,140 — the largest workforce of any single Premier League club, although Liverpool recorded 1,008 employees at the end of the 2022-23 campaign. As many as 450 of those roles at United could be no more by the time of the next count.
That level of cut would bring the club back into line with its staffing levels of more than a decade ago, with 696 employees at the end of the 2011-12 season.
By comparison, Arsenal had 723 staff members at the end of the 2022-23 season and United’s cuts are expected to bring them to around that figure. Ratcliffe does not believe United’s staffing level should be significantly higher than those of their rivals.
Ratcliffe’s austere approach to balancing the books will be criticised, but United’s predicament is also a legacy of the Glazer family’s leveraged buy-out in 2005 that has saddled the club with eye-watering interest payments ever since, not to forget the dividend payments cashed until only a few years ago.
There also has to be recognition that United’s issues off the pitch are partly a product of problems on it — specifically, underperforming players and managers, signed and appointed by under-fire executives.
In Monday’s meeting, it was mentioned that the costs and savings associated with these measures have been calculated under the assumption that United qualify for the Europa League for the next four years. But given Amorim’s side currently sit 15th in the Premier League table only on goal difference, that raised an obvious question: what if they’re not?
Qualification for next season’s Europa League is all but certain to depend on whether United win the FA Cup, as they did last season. Returning to the Champions League depends on triumphing in the Europa League.
Failing to do either would only create an even deeper hole than the one the club is currently accounting for. And when clubs find themselves in such a situation, it is invariably the rank-and-file who are forced to pay the price.
Additional reporting: Laurie Whitwell
(Top image: Illustration: Will Tullos for The Athletic, images: Getty Images)
