The Manchester United Muslim Supporters group says club co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe “must go” after he spoke out against immigration levels and said the country was “on the slide”.
Billionaire Ratcliffe, who is one of Britain’s richest people and founder of petrochemical giant Ineos, made the comments in an interview with the on Saturday.
Ratcliffe said the UK was in decline because of a combination of high taxes and high immigration.
He has previously apologised for “offending some people” with his language after saying the UK had been “colonised by immigrants”.
At the time, in February, United responded by saying the club “prides itself” on being “inclusive”, while Sport cited a source familiar with the Glazer family as understanding the club’s majority shareholders were “horrified” by his initial remarks and saw them as showing “disregard for their ownership”.
“We condemned those comments then,” said the Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club (MUMSC) on Saturday, in a statement of no confidence in the club’s ownership.
“He [Ratcliffe] subsequently apologised for his choice of language. We hoped a lesson had been learned. Clearly, it has not.
“This week, Sir Jim has again placed immigration and people receiving benefits at the centre of his explanation for Britain’s problems, arguing that nobody is ‘tough enough’ to deal with either.
“We find these latest comments deeply disappointing and completely unacceptable.”
Ratcliffe campaigned for a Leave vote in the 2016 European Union referendum and has been a tax resident in Monaco since 2020.
He acquired a 27.7% stake in Man Utd in 2024, and has since restructured the organisation, overseeing 450 redundancies, overhauling senior management and sacking two managers.
MUMSC highlighted that United’s “players, staff, stewards, security teams and supporters come from different countries, cultures, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds”.
The group added: “Manchester United would not be Manchester United without them. That diversity isn’t a weakness of Manchester United. It is part of Manchester United.”
In the statement, the MUMSC also called on the Glazer family to go.
MUMSC said its members were among the club’s fans who hoped Ratcliffe’s arrival “would finally signal meaningful change” after the Glazer family had “presided over Manchester United’s decline”.
However, the group pointed to “higher ticket prices” and “a stadium allowed to deteriorate”, along with “a football team that continues to fall further behind where Manchester United should be”, among their concerns which “now extend beyond the pitch”.
Manchester United entered the weekend sitting 13th in the Premier League after gaining four points from their first four Premier League games, and they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday with a 3-2 home defeat by Brighton.
“After years of decline, broken promises and repeated failure, Manchester United Muslim Supporters’ Club has lost confidence in the current ownership structure of Manchester United Football Club,” MUMSC concluded.
“Enough is enough. It is time for change. The Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe must go.”