Manchester United Fans Plot Opening Day Protest in Opposition to Jim Ratcliffe

Manchester United supporters group The 1958 announced plans for a protest at Old Trafford on Aug. 17 for the team’s Premier League opener against Arsenal. The group plans to stand in opposition to owners Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family.

Ratcliffe, who took over day-to-day operations of the club in Feb. 2024, was named in a statement by the group as “a man once seen by many, including ourselves, as a possible saviour, a beacon of hope but now revealed as complicit in the ongoing erosion of everything that makes our club what it is.”

Said a spokesperson for The 1958: “It’s a new season but the same old ownership issues. Twenty years of the Glazers is 20 years too long. Enough is enough. We won’t allow some natural optimism and a couple of shiny new signings to deflect from the bigger off-field picture. Jim Ratcliffe chose to get into bed with the Glazers and is helping keep them in charge,”

The group also called out the club’s Old Trafford Regeneration project.

“Let it be clear: this vision is not for us. It is not for the fans who travel up and down the country and across Europe. It is not for those who’ve stood in the same spot at Old Trafford for decades. It is for profit—pure and simple. The burden of this greed is being forced onto generational fans, who are being priced out, pushed out, and ignored.”

The project is reportedly at a roadblock amid a dispute over a price for the land needed to see out the club’s vision.

Fans have protested Manchester United as recently as May 25 for the team’s season finale against Aston Villa. Banners shown at the protest included wording such as, “We want our club back. Some things are worth fighting for” and “20 years of theft and lies.” Man United finished 15th last season, losing the Europa League final to Tottenham Hotspur and relegating one of the biggest clubs in the country to a subsequent campaign without European competition.

A popular phrase among supporters opposed to the Glazer family has been “Love United. Hate Glazers” or LUHG for short.

“We protest for every fan who has been silenced, evicted, priced out, and disregarded,” The 1958 said in a statement. “This is bigger than one club. This is about the future of football. To those in our fanbase if the penny hasn’t dropped yet. Wake up.”