Manchester United will make up to 200 jobs redundant - just a week after it emerged it cost the Red Devils £4.1m to hire and fire Dan Ashworth.
Manchester United have announced a fresh round of cuts after 250 roles were axed last year while free lunches will no longer be provided for staff at Old Trafford. CEO Omar Berrada, acknowledging the club had 'lost money' in the last five years, said 'this cannot continue' yet it is not just Manchester United's poor record in the transfer market that has proved costly.
The club's quarterly accounts showed it cost Manchester United £4.1m to bring in Ashworth last summer and then sack the former Newcastle United sporting director just 159 days later - and that is before you even take his wages into account, which were not publicised. No wonder football finance expert Kieran Maguire called it 'the Dan Ashworth debacle'.
"They tried to get him from Newcastle," he told the Price of Football. "Newcastle put him on gardening leave. Manchester United wouldn't pay the release fee. Then they negotiated a release fee which is in the millions. They sack him five months later so, therefore, there's going to be redundancy payments there."
He added: "[Sir Jim] Ratcliffe views staff as costs rather than people and that culture, that philosophy, in a people business, is poorly thought out and it's been absolutely appallingly handled by INEOS. We have had former Manchester United employees come up to us to explain just how things have been handled. It's poor management certainly by the Glazers and that's been followed up by INEOS."
