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Manchester United shares fell 7 per cent in pre-market trading in New York after the football club was defeated in the final of Europe’s second-tier competition, dealing another blow to its billionaire owners the Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
United lost 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur in the Uefa Europa League final on Wednesday night, meaning the club missed out on qualification for next season’s lucrative Uefa Champions League, Europe’s premier competition.
Winning the Europa League final was United’s last chance to qualify for any form of European competition next season and the loss will cost it in the region of £100mn in revenue. The club will now miss out on higher ticket sales, media rights and sponsorship revenues, though the squad’s wages and travel expenses will also decrease.
It is a major blow to the Glazer family, which has owned United since 2005, and Ratcliffe’s Ineos, a minority shareholder that plays a key role in running the club.
Since the arrival of Ineos, United has overhauled its management and slashed costs through redundancies. The club also fired former men’s first-team manager Erik Ten Hag and replaced him with Portugal’s Ruben Amorim.
However, United is 16th in the 20-team English Premier League with one match remaining, closer to relegation than the top five spots that guarantee qualification for the Champions League.
“If there is one element of solace for Manchester United, Chelsea had their lowest finish in the Premier League for many years in 2015-16, didn’t qualify for any of the European competitions and because of a lack of distractions the following season they actually ended up winning the Premier League itself ,” said Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool.
United has reported aggregate net losses of more than £370mn in the five years to June 2024 and has failed break even in any year since the pandemic. The club is saddled with €569mn of net debt, according to data provider Football Benchmark, a legacy of the Glazer family’s leveraged buyout in 2005 that has heaped interest costs on the club.