Manchester United Football Club is to cut the funding it provides to its charitable arm as part of a purge of costs being overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, its newest billionaire shareholder.
Sky News has learnt that the Premier League club plans to inform the Manchester United Foundation that it intends to curb the benefits it provides – which totalled close to £1m last year – from 2025 onwards.
Sources close to the situation said a substantial element of the support given to the Foundation by the club would be axed, although Old Trafford insiders insisted on Sunday that it would still provide “significant” support to the charitable wing.
A decision is said to have been made by the club’s leadership to proceed with the cuts, with the Foundation expected to be informed about the scale of the reductions in the coming weeks.
In 2023, the club paid the MU Foundation nearly £175,000 for charity services, which include managing the distribution of signed merchandise to individuals raising funds for charitable causes.
Manchester United also provided gifts in kind amounting to £665,000 last year, which were understood to include use of the Old Trafford pitch and other facilities, alongside free club merchandise and the use of back-office services such as the club’s IT capabilities.
The MU Foundation works in local communities around Manchester and Salford to engage with underprivileged and marginalised people.
Its projects include Street Reds, which is targeted at 8- to 18-year-olds, and Primary Reds, which works in school classrooms with 5- to 11-year-olds.
It also organises hospital visits to support children with life-threatening illnesses.
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The disclosure about the latest target of cost-cutting by Sir Jim’s Ineos Sports group, which now owns close to a 29% stake of Manchester United, comes just a day after The Sun revealed that an association set up to facilitate relations between former players, would see its club funding axed.
A similar move has been made in relation to funding for the club’s disabled fans’ group, while hundreds of full-time staff have been made redundant in recent months and costs have been slashed across most areas of its operations.
People close to the club anticipate further cost-cutting measures being introduced as soon as next month.
One club source said it remained “proud of the work carried out by the Manchester United Foundation to increase opportunities for vulnerable young people across Greater Manchester”.
“All areas of club expenditure are being reviewed due to ongoing losses.
“However, significant support for the Foundation will continue.”
Sir Jim has injected $300m of his multibillion pound fortune into Manchester United, although it will need to raise substantially more than that to fund redevelopments to Old Trafford or a new stadium.
Last year, the club, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, lost more than £110m, with sizeable interest payments totalling tens of millions of pounds annually required to service its debt burden.
The men’s first team has seen an alarming run of results under Ruben Amorim, who was appointed to succeed Erik Ten Hag in the autumn.
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United have lost three of their last four matches – the exception being a derby win away at Manchester City – and lie 14th in the Premier League table.
Mr Amorim has acknowledged that he could face the same fate as Mr Ten Hag unless results improve.
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Dan Ashworth, who was brought in from Newcastle United FC as sporting director in the summer, left after just five months.
Manchester United declined to comment formally on the proposed cuts to the funding of its charitable arm.
