Sir Jim Ratcliffe's ambitious plan proves Man Utd owners haven't read the room

Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has put forward a 'Wembley of the North' plan for Old Trafford just months after taking a stake in the Premier League club

Can you imagine the response Sir Jim Ratcliffe would get if he rocked up at the Etihad to ask Sheikh Mansour to give him Pep Guardiola?

It would probably be a similar answer to the one John W Henry would come up with if he took a call from one of the Glazer family suggesting that Mo Salah would look better in a different shade of red. These are crazy thoughts, of course.

But I thought I’d put them out there because after reading that Manchester United are serious about asking the British tax-payer for money to turn Old Trafford into a 100,000-capacity ‘Wembley of the North,’ it’s obvious that silly season is here. The suggestion that a football club that generates annual revenues of £700million should be given a state hand-out, isn’t just madness. It’s also offensive.

Sir Jim lives in Monaco while the Glazers are based in Florida. Perhaps they haven’t seen that the government has just scrapped the Winter Fuel Allowance for OAPs because the country is skint.

Or maybe the thinking behind their ‘brainwave’ is that if there’s already a £22million black hole in the UK’s finances then what’s another few billion? United’s co-owners have not read the room.

There would be uproar throughout the country if United are given a single penny, euro or cent of public money to solve a problem that was created by the greed of the Glazers. They have built up debts of £1billion since their leveraged buy-out in 2005, all the while fleecing the club for millions in dividend pay-outs and presiding over more than a decade of relative failure on the pitch.

They trousered another £1.27billion last Christmas when Ratcliffe took a 27.7percent stake in the club. Sir Jim is Britain’s richest man, with a net worth of more than £16billion. The Glazers are worth almost £4billion.

If they don’t want to pay up front, there’s always a mortgage. What should be off the table is the possibility of dipping into the public purse - especially when so many people are once again being left with a choice of eating or heating.

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‌This ‘Wembley of the North’ soundbite is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Perhaps the north does need a national stadium - but why should it be Old Trafford? Wembley belongs to the FA, not a club in London.

United fans like to call Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium ‘the Council House.’ It’s supposed to be an insult but it’s nothing more than an attempt to poverty shame the neighbours.‌

City pay an annual dividend to the local council for occupying the stadium built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. And their owners have ploughed a fortune in developing an area of east Manchester that was one of the most deprived parts of the country. By contrast, the Glazers have not invested a single cent in the local area. They haven’t even been willing to keep Old Trafford fit for purpose.

We have all seen the footage of United’s leaking roof. The sight of fans who have paid premium prices for tickets running for cover every time it rains is a damning indictment of their ownership.

At a time where there is a huge debate about how much football club owners can invest in clubs without breaking PSR rules, surely a government grant would be something akin to state sponsorship? It would certainly give United an unfair advantage.

It was only four years ago that Bury went out of business over an unpaid £4.2million loan. This was a club situated just 15 miles from Old Trafford, that had survived for 125 years in the Football League and who had won the FA Cup before both Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea.

Where was the appetite to hand over a chunk of taxpayer cash to keep them afloat?