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3 min readFeb 12, 2026 12:13 PM IST
Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe stands in front of former manager Alex Ferguson during a Premier League football match in September 2025. (AP Photo)
Manchester United’s part owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has claimed in an interview that Britain has been “colonised” by immigrants”, who are draining resources from the state. Ratcliffe is one of the country’s richest men, who owns 28.94 per cent of the Red Devils.
“You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in,” Ratcliffe told Sky News. “I mean, the UK has been colonised. It’s costing too much money. The UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn’t it? I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million people.”
The Sky News factchecked Ratcliffe’s numbers by quoting official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which, the report said, estimated that the population of the UK was 67 million in mid-2020 and 70 million in mid-2024. The UK population was estimated at 58.9 million in 2000.
Ratcliffe’s comments are in sharp contrast to United’s own squad which had a heavy mix of overseas talent, with more than a dozen different nationalities. United’s website also brags about Manchester being “a city famed for its embrace of immigrants”.
Ratcliffe spoke about the current UK prime minister Keir Starmer needing to do “difficult things” before comparing it to what he had to do at United.
“I’ve seen quite a bit of this at the football club. If you do difficult things, which we felt that we had to do at Manchester United… we felt like they were the right things to do. But you do become very unpopular for a while.”
“I’ve been very unpopular at Manchester United because we’ve made lots of changes. But for the better, in my view. And I think we’re beginning to see some evidence in the football club that that’s beginning to pay off.
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“But you’ve got all the same issues with the country. If you really want to deal with the major issues of immigration, with people opting to take benefits rather than working for a living, if you want to deal with that, then you’re going to have to do some things which are unpopular, and show some courage,” Ratcliffe added in comments that have been heavily criticised.
Football anti-discrimination body Kick It Out condemned the comments and said that Ratcliffe’s opinions were “disgraceful”. In a statement to Sky News, Kick It Out said: “This type of language and leadership has no place in English football.”
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