With Manchester United fans organising a sit-in after the Manchester Derby to protest against some of the decisions taken by the club’s ownership, we’ve done a deep dive into the context.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World, my name's Theo Huston-Betts and this video is about some of
00:03the protests that we saw at the Manchester derby this weekend just gone. Now after the game a sit-in
00:08was organised amongst some Manchester United fans, basically refusing to leave their seat after the
00:12game, trying to create a powerful image with minimal trouble actually caused, but this was
00:16a protest against the club's higher-up about a number of issues. When Jim Ratcliffe first arrived
00:21a new dawn was expected. While plans for a new stadium have been popular, the billionaire has
00:25seen his personal popularity fall a little bit. It's easy to see that Manchester United have been
00:29a mess for a good number of years but the last few months have not been much better. Hundreds of
00:33staff members have been let go and a pot of money reserved to look after the club's oldest and more
00:37vulnerable former players has been cut down. When Gary Neville challenged that in an interview with
00:42Sir Jim, the lack of thought that had gone into ways around avoiding those cuts was pretty
00:46startling really. Now the Glazers are obviously unpopular and they have surrendered most of the
00:51control over to Ratcliffe but still hold a majority stake, so they're able to capitalise on the club's
00:55financial situation and performances on the pitch over the last few years have been awful, although
01:00Ruben Amirim has retained the backing of fans. A specific reason for this weekend's protest is
01:05another issue of legacy fans potentially being mistreated, with the set of seats going to be
01:08removed to make way for a tunnel club. This means hundreds of fans have been told that they'll have
01:12to be relocated. One fan in particular has had the same seat for over 70 years but the main issue is
01:17the way it was communicated. A simple email telling them that they've been moved and promises to let
01:21them know to where by the end of March have not been met. Some fans have claimed that the club's
01:25refused to guarantee that family members will be able to sit together. Combine that with the
01:29increase in cost of season tickets and Ratcliffe's claim that they want to make sure that Manchester
01:33United is still fair to the legacy fans, well it's looking a bit harder to believe that.
01:38What do you make of the situation? Let us know in the comments and follow Manchester World for more.