Jim Ratcliffe should learn about his own club before spouting his nonsense on immigrants | OneFootball

Given that he’s so willing to discuss his northern heritage when it suits, it’s likely that even someone as detached as Sir Jim Ratcliffe is aware of the acclaimed Jimmy McGovern TV drama, ‘Cracker’. He could do with a watch, if not.

In the first episode of the series most famous storyline, the ‘To Be A Somebody’ arc primarily about the social and psychological effects of Hillsborough, there’s a scene when the premises of a white nationalist group in Manchester are raided.

Amid the chaos, the character played by Christopher Eccleston, DCI David Billborough, spots a squad photo of the 1993-94 Manchester United squad on the wall. The detective accosts a bare-chested skinhead and starts gesturing to the players in the picture.

“Ince is black, Parker is black, Dublin is black, Schmeichel’s a Dane, Kanchelskis is a bloody Ukrainian and Cantona is French.”

While this obviously isn’t to equate Ratcliffe’s clumsily ill-advised comments on immigration with fictional white nationalists, or imply he holds anything like such views, what does it say that the billionaire’s “disgusting” comments - to use the description of Chancellor Rachel Reeves - make it feel like he could do with a similar lecture about the team he co-owns?

Many of United’s own supporters have already made it clear, with multiple banners and memes about loving immigrants and hating billionaires. In one, Roy Keane and Eric Cantona happily stride above an image of Ratcliffe and the Glazers.

A football column like this obviously doesn’t need to re-state the basic errors that Ratcliffe made, or relay political arguments demonstrating the positives of immigration.

And if such a column is about the game itself, it is important to acknowledge that Ratcliffe’s views will be shared by many on the Old Trafford stands, despite much of the support’s inclusive leanings. His comments lamentably reflect the political era we’re in, where many of the very themes explored by ‘Cracker’ have only become more relevant.

The fact that many football fans will share Ratcliffe’s views only reflects the mass popularity of the sport, and how it cuts across more sectors of the population than any other pursuit.

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Jim Ratcliffe’s comments lamentably reflect the political era we’re in (AP)

That fact doesn’t, however, reflect football’s true power here and what is actually relevant about this.

Ratcliffe’s sentiments are actually the complete antithesis of what the game is really about: happiness, inclusivity, coming together.

A simplistic view, sure, but also an easily demonstrable truth.

This is what that episode of Cracker so archly illustrated.

It’s not just that there’s no sector of society as popular as football. It’s that there’s no sector as powerful in breaking down the same barriers.

This is a wider point that should be made as regards the billionaire’s comments in his profile as a notional football figure.

Leave aside the politics for a moment, and even the suspicions the United co-owner was possibly just seeking to cozy up to Reform sentiments.

What Ratcliffe said was actually anti-football.

There are countless examples you could use to illustrate why, starting with United’s own team and history. A migrant, Billy Whelan, died in the Munich air disaster commemorated last week.

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Billy Whelan, a migrant, died in the Munich air disaster commemorated last week (Getty Images)

Across town, Manchester City celebrated Germany’s Bert Trautmann as a club legend, just 11 years after the Second World War.

Come to now, and around 70 percent of the Premier League’s players are migrants and 79 percent of its managers.

The writer of this very column is a migrant, even if comments like Ratcliffe’s are no longer usually intended to mean the Irish given the common travel area.

And while none of this is to deny that serious racism or exclusionary views are challenges within the game and around it, the crucial point is that football itself serves to change minds.

Think about it in the most basic terms.

Many of us will have been in the company of supporters who hold even stronger views than Ratcliffe, only to express adoration for migrants in the same breath.

This gradually has a tangible positive effect, too.

In 2019, a Stanford University study showed that Mohammed Salah’s performances had reduced both Islamophobia and hate crime rates in Liverpool.

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Islamophobia and hate crime rates in Liverpool reduced as a result of Mohamed Salah’s performances (Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

And they obviously did. That is how this works.

There are few sectors that encourage understanding and integration as much as football. The game has many problems, but this is one it actively works against in the most direct and persuasive way.

The one true global game serves to bring people together, even amid its many issues and the way it is often politically misused.

In the latter sense, the Ratcliffe controversy raises another crucial theme.

It is striking that United themselves felt the need to release a statement re-asserting the club’s inclusive ethos, and yet they find themselves co-owned and consequently represented by a man whose comments go against that. It has long been the same with the Glazers’ capitalist outlook, not least the manner their conference calls have discussed benefitting from dramatic Trumpian tax reforms, and how that so goes against the idea of a club founded by railway workers.

This is the world football has willingly moved into, without its fans having any say whatsoever.

It’s not hard to imagine some of football’s other billionaire owners privately expressing sympathy with Ratcliffe’s views, rolling their eyes with how the public just won’t get it. They move in a completely different world.

In another extreme, two other ownerships - those of Manchester City and Newcastle United - are key figures or funds from autocratic states who have migrant labour laws described as “modern slavery” and based on racial hierarchies.

All of this just forms another simple argument as to why such social institutions should be owned by supporters, not private or state interests. That is who they really represent, after all.

And yet this dismal situation perhaps has one positive when it comes to the ownership problem.

One of the main reasons that some billionaires get into football is fame, and social capital. They enjoy the increased profile, in ways that their other businesses just can’t afford. It also allows them to indulge what some industry figures describe as “billionaire idiot syndrome”, where individuals who are financially successful in one specific area become convinced they can easily translate this to anything else. As one example, when Ratcliffe made a pitch to buy Chelsea in 2022, those involved had the perception that he thought it would be easy because he’d run Ineos.

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When Ratcliffe made a pitch to buy Chelsea in 2022, those involved had the perception that he thought it would be easy because he’d run Ineos (PA Archive)

And duly, if Ratcliffe said this still just a petrochemicals owner, it likely wouldn’t have made anything like the same headlines.

Saying it as the co-owner of Manchester United, however, has just publicly exposed the poverty of thinking. A man frequently described as arrogant has been forced into a partial apology.

The game has that power, as well as so much more.

Ratcliffe could do a bit more to understand the sport he’s actually in, not least its inclusive nature.