In the latest chapter of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s descent in popularity at Manchester United, the club’s official Muslim supporters’ club released a statement insisting they had no confidence in either the Ineos founder, or the Glazer family. The lengthy release outlined the group’s unhappiness about the ‘years of decline’ overseen by the United owners, citing ticket prices, Old Trafford’s deterioration and wasteful spending, as reasons for their thinking.
However, a paragraph in the middle of the statement has led to the group’s message being misconstrued. Over the weekend, Ratcliffe was interviewed by the BBC. During it, he claimed that no politician was ‘tough enough’ to deal with two problems in the UK – immigration and benefits. This came off the back of Ratcliffe apologising in February for declaring that the UK had been ‘colonised by immigrants’.
“We hoped a lesson had been learned. Clearly, it has not,” the Manchester United Muslim Supporters’ Club (MUMSC) wrote. “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.”
Since then, MUMSC’s chairman Asif Mahmud tells MEN Sport the purpose of their statement has been lost, insisting it is far wider than Ratcliffe’s political views.
“This has been bubbling for quite some time. It’s not something that’s a knee jerk reaction,” he said. “We’ve had frustrations at the ownership model for a long, long time.
“We were very much, genuinely, excited about Jim coming in because he was a Manchester lad, seemed to actually support and care about the club. But since they’ve [Ineos] arrived, it’s just a vicious cycle of hiring and firing, managers not getting backed fully, staff at the club being unhappy, it’s just the overall atmosphere and the feeling around the club, it’s just not good. And that’s been reflected on the pitch.”
Mahmud said that things came to a head in two parts. The first was at the end of the summer transfer window when himself and MUMSC felt Michael Carrick had been left short in terms of new recruits. Then, after the derby day defeat to Manchester City, Mahmud felt the time was right to say something.
“It was actually that evening that I reached out to some of our committee members and said: ‘Look, I feel we should put out a statement about not being happy with the way the club’s being run and how things are going,’” he said.
“I reached out to a friend who runs another supporters’ club, an official one, and said to them: ‘Look, I think something needs to be done’, and I threw some suggestions, and one of them was that collectively, all supporters’ clubs put out a statement of no confidence.
“Now, I know it’s just words, and words don’t seem to bother the ownership, but I just felt doing something together would be quite powerful. I also reached out to another fan group and I waited all weekend. There was no interest or anything coming back.
“On that Monday [September 14], a statement was drafted, and it was sent to the two groups that I mentioned. I said: ‘Look, I explicitly stated that it was an idea, it doesn’t have to be our idea. You don’t have to give us any credit. We just feel that something needs to be done. If this is a good idea, then speak to the others and see if they’re interested in doing it’. It wasn’t about speak to the others and see if they want to get in with us and they’ll do it on the back of us. It was, if the other supporters’ club groups think it’s a good idea, let’s just do it.
“Unfortunately, nothing came back and then on Saturday [September 19], Sir Jim comments about immigration and just the overall ill feeling, again, [that] he brought up comments he’d made previously. We just felt, enough is enough. We need to do something.”
Mahmud explained the response to the statement has been mixed. This has included hate mail stating members of MUMSC should ‘leave the country’. However, the issue for Mahmud and his group is that the main thrust of the message has now altered.
“I just feel like a lot of what we’ve said has been lost,” he said. “All the focus has all been about his comments on immigration, but we can put that to one side.
“You don’t have to like us, you don’t have to like our religion, you don’t have to like anything about us, but one thing we all have in common is that we hate and we dislike what we’re seeing at Manchester United. Surely we can get behind each other and we can rally and have one voice about what’s going on.
“We were prepared to put out the statement even before Sir Jim said what he said, risking our official status as a supporters’ club. People have said: ‘Why is there a Muslim supporters’ club?’ And: ‘Why do you need to do this? Do you need to do that?’ Well, to be honest, we were willing to forego even being an official supporters’ club for Man United because we knew that putting out a statement came with risk.”
Mahmud explained that United have reached out to him after the statement was released to see if everything was okay. MEN Sport understands there are no plans to strip MUMSC of their official status, following their no-confidence statement.
Moving forward, Mahmud insists that United fans need to unite to make their feelings on the ownership heard. “I’ve got a season ticket. I have been going to Old Trafford for over 12 years, supporting the club through everything, up and down, since Sir Alex [Ferguson] left,” he concluded, “and I see it and I hear it.
“I hear people at the ground complaining about the ownership. I was at the game against Fulham. People in the crowd, I could hear them complaining about the ownership.
“Now, if they can’t say it out loud because they don’t have the platform, then the supporters’ clubs need to speak on behalf of the fans, because it’s not just us. Yes, we’re talking about our statement right now because we published it, but we know that others feel the same way and they need to make their voice heard.”
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