The Athletic

A golden step tops the staircase to the Manchester United women’s team’s temporary offices at the club’s Carrington training ground. The wording on it reads: “2028 Women’s Super League winners”. An exciting prospect.

Directly in front of it is a photo of the United women’s team lifting the 2024 FA Cup trophy, and the phrase, “We are here to entertain, revolutionise, inspire and win” adorns the wall behind the step.

On the first flight of those stairs, each step leading you up towards that quote on the wall marks a point on the women’s team’s journey from the beginning (when the side was reformed in May 2018 after over a decade out of action) to the Under -16 Premier Girls’ Cup win this summer.

Filling the next flight are eight empty grey steps without any wording. They lead to that golden goal set by the club’s new chief executive Omar Berrada, who told staff in September of the ambition to win the men’s team’s next league title (which would be their 21st) and the women’s first one by 2028, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the club being formed.

The focus on winning has been evident since INEOS, the petrochemicals giant owned by English billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who now has a 29 per cent stake in the club, took sporting control at United on Christmas Eve last year. But what impact has INEOS had on the women’s team specifically in the past year?

Winning was just about all Ratcliffe had to say when asked about ambitions for the women’s team when he first spoke to written media in February. “If it is a team wearing a Manchester United badge, they need to be focused on winning,” he said. But since then, and as recently as December in an interview with fanzine United We Stand, nearly a year on from INEOS’ arrival, Ratcliffe has repeatedly and consistently said his focus has been on the men’s team.

An INEOS spokesperson described Ratcliffe as “extremely honest”, and somebody who will not “bulls***” nor say things he cannot commit to. Despite the clear target, INEOS, according to the company spokesperson, does not have a strategy to achieve the 2028 ambition and admits its impact on the women’s team over the past year has been “limited”.

The women’s team’s players have devised their own motto with the help of a psychologist.

In the analysis room in their temporary building at Carrington, four key words and bespoke definitions are printed on the walls: Together, Relentless, Authentic and Courageous, spell TRAC — as in, to stay on track. A photo of the team’s celebration in honour of midfielder Ella Toone’s late father hangs next to the word ‘Together’, while the moment capturing the equaliser against Arsenal in November is adjacent to the word ‘Relentless’.

There have been other changes.

United have issued a new set of club rules, in consultation with the PFA, the professional footballers’ trade union in England, tailored specifically to the women’s team. These rules are based on an equivalent document that already exists for the men’s first team.

One of these, which applies to both men’s and women’s teams, states players must not leave the north-west of England during their season without the permission of club management. The rules state if a player wishes to undertake any personal activity, they must submit a request in advance to the team’s operations manager, providing details of the location, times and what they will be doing. Such a rule is not out of the ordinary, other clubs have similar rules in place and there is an understanding that reasonable requests will be granted permission.

Players could face sanctions if they fail to obtain approval to be absent from the Manchester area during the season. On the first offence, they will be fined 10 per cent of their weekly wages, with an increase of 10 per cent following every subsequent occurrence. United say this has been a longstanding rule for the men’s team. With the evolution and professionalisation of the women’s game, United want to ensure there is consistency across the men’s and women’s teams and that the players and club are aligned.

Meanwhile, INEOS says its focus has been on the men’s team, restructuring the club to make it sustainable and cutting costs to help ensure United don’t breach profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).

There have been no specific steps taken for the women’s team and the single best act for the women’s team, according to the spokesperson mentioned above, has been the knock-on effect of hiring Berrada given, in their eyes, his previous support of women’s football. INEOS would have added the recruitment of sporting director Dan Ashworth, who was tasked with delivering a successful women’s team, as the second positive but he left United two weeks ago after just five months.

Women’s team manager Marc Skinner felt “energised” by the commitment of Berrada and Ashworth when they joined in the summer. He enthused about Ashworth speaking to the players about “what it means to be at Manchester United” before their first WSL game of the new season in September.

INEOS is trying to refocus the club’s resources entirely on men’s football, and says it does not have the bandwidth, neither financially nor in terms of time, to cover both teams. INEOS feels the women’s team have good enough facilities and coaching to continue as they are.

One of the biggest impacts INEOS has had on the women’s team was to invest £50million into the redevelopment of… the men’s first-team building.

INEOS recognises the move is a momentary backward step for the women’s team, given they were forced out of their new facilities, which only opened in October last year, weeks before INEOS’ arrival, to allow the men to use them. Ratcliffe told UK newspaper The Sunday Times in August it was a “pragmatic” solution that ensured every team could continue training before adding “the men’s team £800million, the women’s team £10m”.

The women used the English Football Association’s facilities at St George’s Park, more than an hour’s drive south of Manchester, as a temporary training base for two to three weeks during pre-season before moving into their temporary building at Carrington two days before their first game of the 2024-25 season.

The words “We never give up, we are never beaten, we rise to the challenge” line the walls of the men’s gym, which is currently a space shared by the women’s first team and men’s youth academy, the divide marked by a running track that splits the hall in two. The women’s team do see the equipment available to them as an upgrade.

The rehabilitation room, painted with tennis icon Roger Federer’s quote, “There’s no way around hard work” and sprinting great Usain Bolt’s, “Hours and hours and hours of work”, houses a sauna, swimming pool and vitamin D bed, and is shared among the men, women and academy teams.

The women’s team canteen was moved into the graduate lounge, formerly a designated space for parents and families of academy youngsters. The players still enjoy their beloved chef Jimmy’s cooking, with his bao buns one of their favourite recipes.

Inside their temporary building, which from the outside looks like a portable cabin, albeit a sturdy, high-quality one, there are the players’ changing rooms, a kit room, a doctor’s room, office space, a small lounge for the players and a spacious analysis room with chairs and a projector. The boys’ academy has two classrooms on one floor of the women’s temporary building for their players to do schoolwork.

The women still train on their usual pitches — the grass is cut to the same length as the turf at their home stadium, Leigh Sports Village — which are of such high quality, according to Skinner, “you want to eat your breakfast off them”. Earlier this season, Erik ten Hag, men’s first-team manager at the time, had a wall set up that separates the men’s and women’s pitches to provide privacy around tactics, especially given the number of visitors watching academy games at Carrington on weekends. The club said blocking the wind was also a factor in this move.

The women’s team will benefit from improvements upon returning to their original building.

It has been upgraded with an auditorium-style analysis room and soundproofing. As part of the men’s building’s refurbishment, INEOS is focusing on providing the best medical facilities, including practitioners and scanners for the men’s and women’s teams in a bid to reduce injury rates, while office and administrative areas affecting both teams are being rebuilt.

In his most recent comments, Ratcliffe at least recognised the United women’s team is “an opportunity”, that women’s football is “growing really quickly in popularity and size”, and that the club need to be part of that. INEOS recognises, from a commercial point of view, it can exploit the different audience that is tuned into the women’s game.

In March, INEOS said it would conduct an audit of how the United women’s team are set up and how those responsible for delivering their success are performing. One of INEOS’ mantras, often repeated by Ratcliffe, is “best in class”, but at present United’s new co-owner is allowing the women’s team to aimlessly drift, just papering over cracks.

United are paying the price for restarting their women’s team as late as 2018.

Because of United’s glittering overall history, their women’s side are held to the highest standards, despite only having existed for six years. Perhaps other top clubs with similarly extensive financial means should be prioritising their women’s sides more, but the women’s game is moving rapidly and the minimal expectation is for United’s team to keep pace with the leading pack. The WSL needs big clubs such as United to disrupt the status quo.

At present though, INEOS is happy for the women’s team to bob along with minimal consequences — everything is ‘to be confirmed’. In May, United handed Skinner a one-year contract renewal with a further 12-month option, a deal length that hardly screamed stability. Their head of women’s football, Matt Johnson, who replaced Polly Bancroft in May, is employed on an interim basis until the end of the season, and England’s first-choice goalkeeper Mary Earps, club captain Katie Zelem and Lucia Garcia, who scored two of United’s goals in the 4-0 FA Cup final win over Tottenham also in May, all left on free transfers this past summer.

United’s offer represented a better package overall for Earps, but finances were not her priority. She wanted to compete for trophies, and is now at France’s Paris Saint-Germain. Earps wrote on Instagram it was the “right time to make a change”, with the club “about to undergo a period of transition”. United did not make an offer to Zelem but, equally, she requested not to stay. Out of mutual respect, the club did not trigger the option of an additional year contained in the midfielder’s contract, enabling her to depart on a free. Garcia was also offered a new contract but chose to sign for Mexican Liga MX Femenil side Monterrey.

United have a new captain in 22-year-old Maya Le Tissier, and there is further turnover on the horizon with Hayley Ladd, whose contract is on course to expire at the end of this season, looking to leave in January. The 31-year-old midfielder, who has been at the club since 2019, has played just eight league minutes this season and needs game time in the coming months after her Wales side qualified for next summer’s European Championship. United are willing to listen to the player’s wishes if appropriate offers are made but an agreement on a move is yet to be reached.

While United’s global brand may still entice players to join them — there was a change in recruitment strategy to sign, in Skinner’s words, “young” and “hungry” footballers — the effect of such apathy is dangerous not only on today’s squad but prospective world-class talent, fan perception and commercial opportunities.

Despite Ratcliffe’s words and INEOS’ briefing, Skinner has said their comments do not align with what he sees from INEOS’ work day-to-day.

“Words are cheap but actions last longer,” said Skinner in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Crystal Palace game last weekend. INEOS’ actions, by its own admission, have been non-existent. But Skinner believes “whether advertently or inadvertently, they (INEOS) have had a direct impact. The biggest factors they are clear on are: ‘We want to win’. They are clear on having to adapt the club based on financial aspects.”

Skinner has also noted “more connectivity” within the club, whether that be from men’s first-team head coaches greeting him or men’s academy players and staff showing interest in the women’s team’s games. “That’s what I would say their influence has been,” he concluded.

Ashworth brought departments closer together, but his departure at the start of this month leaves a hole.

Tom Crotty is the INEOS representative on the women’s board who serves as a liaison between the team and ownership, so INEOS is aware of any issues. Johnson, acting as the link between the players’ leadership group and the club, will report to chief operating officer Collette Roche, who will oversee women’s team matters at board level, while Skinner says he also speaks to Berrada, Jason Wilcox, the technical director tasked with the men’s side of the club, and Roche.

It will not be until next season, according to the INEOS spokesperson, that the club turns to focus on the women’s team. By that time, the hope is the men will have a stable coaching team with new facilities. Equally by that time, the women’s game generally will surely have kicked on again.

In the corner of the women’s analysis room, to the left of the projector, hangs a framed print that shows, down the years, the club badges of the sides to win each season’s WSL title. Question marks fill the gaps of the years to come.

“So (the women’s team) is, ‘To be confirmed’?,” financial news outlet Bloomberg asked Ratcliffe in June.

“Correct,” he replied.

A year after the INEOS takeover and six months on from that interview, the same answer applies.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Manchester United, Premier League, Soccer, UK Women's Football

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