Man Utd legend Ferdinand makes eye-opening INEOS claim after they shed Ferguson deal

Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand claims new co-owners INEOS didn’t realise “the magnitude of the club” after speaking to “some members”.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS took control of football operations after completing a deal to biuy 27.7 per cent of the Premier League club earlier this year.

They have made few friends early into their time at the club with INEOS working to put themselves on a more sustainable financial footing and have instigated a number of cost-saving measures, including a redundancy programme which cut 250 jobs from headcount across all departments by the end of August.

The cost-saving measures taken together are expected to save between £40-45m in total and the club anticipate that will have a positive impact on United’s financial results for 2025 and 2026.

The latest casualty of INEOS’ cost-cutting programme is Sir Alex Ferguson with The Athletic getting to the news first that the club had ‘ended a multi-million pound annual commitment’ to the legendary Man Utd manager.

And now Man Utd legend Ferdinand – who played under Ferguson in all but one of his 12 years at Old Trafford – insists “members of the INEOS team” expressed to him that they didn’t realise how big the club was.

Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel : “The magnitude of the club you don’t ever know till you walk through that door. I’ve spoken to some members of the Ineos team who have gone into the club now and they all go, ‘I didn’t realise it was this big’.

“They’re delighted with it, it has excited them even more but they didn’t even know that it was the way it is, how big it is around the world. Not just locally. Even some players come in and go, ‘Wow’. They’re on the back foot from the first go.”

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Former Man Utd winger Lee Sharpe has been critical of the new Red Devils co-owners with INEOS speaking to potential candidates to replace Erik ten Hag in the summer.

A few months into the season and there are already some calls for Ten Hag to be sacked with Thomas Tuchel the current favourite to replace the Dutchman .

Sharpe said in August: “I think INEOS interviewing other managers last season when Ten Hag was still in a job was very rude and unprofessional.

“I’m glad he kept his job but I think he will be under pressure this season. If you’re not in and amongst the top table by Christmas at a big six club, you can understand why you’d get some stick!”