By Simon Stone

Copyright bbc

Last month, United announced they had cut losses from £113.2m to £33m for the year to June 2025.

This followed two rounds of redundancies, during which more than 400 people lost their jobs, including many long-term staff members. Scouting is among the areas where numbers have been slashed.

Ratcliffe has been criticised for the job losses and also scrapping long-standing perks such as free lunches for staff.

“The costs were just too high,” he said. “There are some fantastic people at Manchester United but there was also a level of mediocrity and it had become bloated.

“I got a lot of flak for the free lunches, but no-one’s ever given me a free lunch.

“There are two halves to a football team – there is the business side and the sports side. The biggest correlation, like it or not, between results and any external factor, is profitability. The more cash you have got, the better squad you can build.

“If you look at our results for last year we have the highest revenues ever. Profitability, the second highest ever. Those numbers will get better.

“Manchester United will become the most profitable football club in the world, in my view, and from that will stem, I hope, a long-term, sustainable, high level of football.”