In his first summer since acquiring a stake in United, the British billionaire is plotting an active transfer window with a centre-back and striker known to be on the club’s wishlist.
Ratcliffe has already made one major decision: keeping faith in under-pressure boss Erik ten Hag but will now seek to make a big investment into the playing squad to improve upon their eight-place finish in the Premier League last season.
However, United’s ambitions appear to have been somewhat thwarted already, with Ratcliffe revealing that won’t be able to sign a highly-rated player from Nice, the French club that Ratcliffe and INEOS also own.
While selling between two clubs under the same ownership is not entirely forbidden, United’s position is further complicated given that both clubs are set to compete in the Europa League next season.
New UEFA guidance released in May suggested that any owner could not have ‘decisive influence’ over two clubs in the same competition and also blocked transfers between those clubs while they attempted to compete in the same competition.
‘We’ve got a player, for instance, at Nice who was really interested in joining Manchester United and I think he probably had the capability of being in the United squad,’ Ratcliffe told Bloomberg.
‘They’ve said we can sell him to another Premiership club, but we can’t sell to Manchester United. But that’s not fair on the player and I don’t see what that achieves.’
While Ratcliffe declined to name the player, multiple reports have suggested that defender Jean-Clair Todibo was being linked with a move to Old Trafford.
Meanwhile, other reports suggested that Ratcliffe was considering selling Nice to comply with UEFA’s rules on multi-club ownership, but the 71-year-old has denied such speculation.
‘It’s not our intention to sell Nice because I quite like the concept of the multi-club [ownership model] and I think Nice could be very complimentary to United for two reasons.
‘One, you can blood younger players in Nice better than at United. Occasionally you get a Kobbie Mainoo but it can be harder to blood player at United and that would obviously be of benefit to Nice.
‘Secondly, because of Brexit, it’s quite difficult to contact the younger generational talents in Europe but Nice can do that. So if there’s a fantastic 15-year-old in France we can sign him up to Nice and use them as a conduit to United later on.’
Speaking on this upcoming transfer window more specifically, Ratcliffe added: ‘There’s room for improvement everywhere we look at Manchester United, and we will improve everything. We want to be where Real Madrid is today, but it’ll take time.
‘Manchester United doesn’t have any players that are valued at €100 million or more. I’m not confident that we’ll solve all the problems in the first transfer window.’
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