[Kathryn Batte] Long read: Manchester United Women’s disastrous week is part of a chaotic year. 🔴Sources tell Mail Sport ‘it’s a mess’ 🔴SJR comments caused friction 🔴Player departures = groundhog day 🔴Discontent growing The players and supporters deserve better.
Long read: Manchester United Women’s disastrous week is part of a chaotic year.
🔴Sources tell Mail Sport ‘it’s a mess’
🔴SJR comments caused friction
🔴Player departures = groundhog day
🔴Discontent growingThe players and supporters deserve better.https://t.co/naTWojrCW2
— Kathryn Batte (@KathrynBatte) June 28, 2024
by nearly_headless_nic
20 Comments
**From the article:**
If United’s new owners were to undertake a 12-month review of the women’s team, it may read something like this:
– Lost Alessia Russo on a free transfer to a WSL rival, despite spending over a year trying to negotiate with her to stay.
– Dragged their female players into the Mason Greenwood debacle, leading to England’s World Cup stars receiving abuse on social media on the eve of their quarter-final due to reports claiming they would play a significant role in whether he would return to the club.
– Spent the first three months of the season without an assistant manager.
– Lost prominent coach Luke Wright and head physiotherapist Ibrahim Kerem to the men’s set-up.
– Saw their head of women’s football, Polly Bancroft, leave to join League 2 club Grimsby Town.
– Let their players find out their end-of-season awards night had been cancelled through the media.
– Despite winning the FA Cup, United ended the season in fifth place – their worst ever finish to a WSL season.
– Sir Jim Ratcliffe said plans for the women’s team are ‘TBC’ in an interview with Bloomberg.
– Mary Earps decided to leave after failing to be convinced by the club’s long-term ambitions.
– Reports emerged that the women’s team will be moved out of their new £10million facility to accommodate the men while work is completed at Carrington during the 2024-2025 season.
– Katie Zelem, their captain, decides not to sign a new contract.
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Regrettable. Omar Berrada can’t come soon enough; we really do need to have proper people in place to handle this.
Normally, I would discard any info from Daily Mail, but yeah.. I feel for the women’s team. SJR is making a ton of positive changes for the first team and the club’s structure, but the women’s team is getting screwed hard. I don’t blame any of the women who have left. Between getting pushed into crappy temp facilities, having their cup win ignored, and being unnecessarily dragged into the Greenwood drama last year… they’ve really gotten screwed. Hopefully, we’re able to keep Malard and Le Tissier, and once the men’s team is sorted, we can continue to build around these fantastic women.
Brexit Jimbo masterclass
I get the desire to focus on the mens team but surely the women’s team was a much easier path to a quick and happy success story for the new owners. Instead they went the other way and let it fall apart. Absolute fumble IMO.
The new facility the women have came after the embarrassment that was finding out just how terribly inadequate the facilities the women were using was. For them to then be booted out of their facility to accommodate the men’s team after all that is a big yikes.
Lots of people who don’t follow the team are trying to reduce this issue to just what happened with the facilities this week, when the truth is, the issues have been going on for a long time and it’s just not fair. Got some people in this sub acting like Glazer accountants and dismissing these women because they don’t bring in enough money, which is totally against what this club is supposed to be about for us as supporters.
Think there was actually hope things would get better after the old regime got the new facilities up and running and with the new owners coming in and the opposite has happened so far. Given how involved Berrada was with City’s women team the excuses should really stop the moment he walks through the door.
So sad to see. There’s no denying that the men’s team takes priority in the overhaul but United should be absolutely best-in-class across all aspects of the club.
Okay I got a new conspiracy: they are trying to get rid of the women’s team to reintegrate Greenwood as Rw
The women’s team is undeniably getting the short end of the stick but honestly the men’s team is a complete mess and it’s basically 99% of the club’s revenue. Obviously the women’s team should not be an afterthought and Ratcliffe has treated them as such. Our players need to be treated better and I would’ve loved it if we made investments in the women’s team to be the best in the world.
But you gotta fix the men’s team and ensure they are competitive first, otherwise the entire club falls. I’m sorry but compared to the first team, the women’s team don’t generate money, don’t create as many new fans, and don’t generate hype around the club (just compare the two FA Cup wins this season). It’s not their fault. Women’s football is just not where it needs to be yet and not many people care about it. It’s ruthless, it’s pragmatic, but it’s probably necessary that the first team use the better facilities this season.
Urgh I need to go wash myself that felt bad to type and might be interpreted in a certain way by some folk but sadly it’s just the reality of the sport.
I’ll just quickly end by saying that involving the girls in the MG decision was definitely disgusting and cowardly. And that losing our best players is definitely dropping the ball and falling behind other clubs but we do have to focus on getting the first team back on track first. Although I do wonder if we could probably make better investments simultaneously because the money numbers involved on the women’s side of the game are so much lower that, for the price of one, say Malacia or Mount, we could probably get so much done for the girls. But at the same time we probably need every pound we have to fix our men’s squad.. Urgh I dunno man. Sucks all around.
I expected this and unfortunately for the women’s team there isnt going to be any change to relieve their concerns
This club always finds a way make regular things more difficult… many club have a women’s team which is being run competently… Arsenal, Chelsea, Man city,.Barcelona, etc … yet UTD makes it look like rocket science try run both men and women… this idea that the men’s team takes priority is piss poor
I have seen exactly zero women’s team matches and I plan to double it next season and each season after it.
Looking forward to this thread being full of bad faith arguments about how this doesn’t matter because the men’s team generate most of the revenue and that most fans don’t really care about the women’s team
Ineos are making improvements to the men’s team but it looks like they want to cut costs in other areas.
The women’s team situation, cancelled awards ceremony and the return to office mandates are signs that Ineos not only want to spend smarter but also spend less than in the Woodward era. I feel Ineos will run the club more like Liverpool than Man City.
1. In the wider game, the women’s league players move on frees often, due to a culture of not giving mid term rises. Remember, that’s a culture beyond one club.
2. Like any business, your influence is roughly equal to your impact. Until the women’s team generates as much impact as the men’s team, they are, and always will be, second best, if not third.
The two points above don’t negate every gripe they have, but they are paramount to not drawing a false conclusion from these articles.
Personally, I’m not anti women’s football – I have family who play in the WPL – but I personally think it’s a far inferior product. If they introduced tackling then the game could gain a lot of traction and their impact would grow exponentially. Until then, it’s a case of knowing your worth.
SJR gonna ruin this club more…. We are so done…
Genuine question and please help me understand why she says “the players and supporters deserve better” when we are making cuts in literally every area of the club and attempting to rebuilt something.