"I must congratulate the Glazers on finding someone even worse than them." Gary Lineker doesn't do diplomatic when he's angry, and right now he's very angry at Jim Ratcliffe.
Speaking on The Rest is Football podcast, the former England striker and broadcaster unloaded on Manchester United's co-owner following a weekend that managed to be dismal in multiple directions simultaneously. On Saturday, Ratcliffe told an audience in Denmark that "nobody's tough enough to deal with the immigration problem" — the latest in a string of remarks that included describing the UK as having been "colonised by immigrants" earlier this year. On Sunday, United scraped a 1-1 draw at Fulham, who started the day bottom of the Premier League.
The hypocrisy charge
Lineker's criticism goes well beyond disagreeing with Ratcliffe's politics. He's calling out the specific contradictions that make the position hard to defend. Ratcliffe is a tax exile living in Monaco. He owns a football club where overseas players are central to the project — Amad Diallo being the most obvious current example. And he runs a squad built almost entirely on the global transfer market.
"The guy's a migrant himself, an economic migrant — he lives in Monaco," Lineker said. "You can have a gripe all you like, but at least be here, pay taxes, and contribute to our society."
When Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the earlier "colonised" remarks "offensive and wrong," Ratcliffe issued what Lineker described as a "mealy-mouthed apology." Whether a second one is coming for this latest set of comments is unclear. Based on recent form, don't hold your breath.
The Manchester United Muslim Supporters Club has already demanded Ratcliffe's exit. That's not a fringe reaction — it's organised supporters of a club with a global fanbase telling their owner his position has become untenable.
The mess on the pitch isn't separate from the mess at the top
Lineker's broader point — that the problems "drip down from the top" — is harder to dismiss when you look at United's season so far. Inconsistent results. A stadium described as "falling apart." And now the looming departure of 15-year-old JJ Gabriel, a highly-rated academy prospect pushing for the exit because of limited first-team pathways.
Losing a teenager of that profile to a rival isn't just bad optics. It's a sign of how far United's appeal as a destination for young talent has slipped. That matters for the long game in a way that quarterly results don't fully capture.
Ratcliffe holds 28.94% of the club after partnering with the Glazer family in February 2024. The ownership structure is complicated, the accountability is diffuse, and the sporting direction remains unclear. Any punter pricing up United's chances of a top-four finish this season has at least three separate crises to factor in: form, infrastructure, and now a co-owner creating headlines that have nothing to do with football.
Lineker's verdict: "It's a bit of shambles of a football club the way it's being run at the moment."
Hard to argue with that assessment right now.
