Manchester United’s 2025 Christmas party has been approved, a new report claims, after Sir Jim Ratcliffe canceled last year’s party. United leaders canceled the seasonal event 12 months ago amid a series of cost-cutting measures. The previous year’s bash was also scrapped as it was deemed unsuitable for a party following the first wave of job cuts, in which 250 positions were cut.
The cancellation of the festival saved the club more than £100,000, with annual staff bonuses of £100 exchanged for £40 vouchers from M&S. However, according to the Daily Mail, employees will have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas this year, and CEO Omar Berada has chosen to invite all employees. The event will be held in one of Old Trafford’s large hospitality areas and will feature catering and live entertainment for employees.
The move follows a reorganization of United’s management following the acquisition of a minority stake in Ineos. A further 200 job cuts were made, reducing the number of employees from 1,150 to 700, saving the club millions of dollars.
Ratcliffe spoke to the BBC and Sky Sports in March about job cuts and major changes behind the scenes. “I think when you’re in a period of change, it’s disruptive,” he said.
“If you’ll forgive the joke, it takes people’s eyes off the ball a little bit. Our club was in a very difficult position financially. Manchester United had me spend $300 million and if we don’t buy new players in the summer, by the end of this year, by the end of 2025, we’re going to run out of money.”
“If we hadn’t done the cost program and restructuring that we’ve done over the last 12 months. So we have to deal with all of these things, and we can only deal with so much at once.
“We have new management, we have to deal with financial restructuring, and then we have to move on to building a team, analyzing data and moving forward.
“But we are in the process of change and it’s an unpleasant and confusing time and I sympathize with the fans. But I’m actually not surprised by where we are in the league, because Ruben only has a certain size of squad to deal with and quite a few of those players are injured or unavailable for him.”
He added: “The simple answer is that if we don’t do these things (widespread redundancies and restructuring) the club will be short on funds by Christmas.”
“Ultimately, if you’re trying to run a club of Manchester United’s size with an income of around £650m, you’re going to spend part of that £650m on running the club and the rest on the team.
“Where do you want to spend that money? Do you want to spend it on running the club? Or do you want to spend it on the team? Because you’ll get better results if you spend it on the team.”
“And at the end of the day, what are Manchester United here for if not to win trophies and silver medals? What we want to do is invest in the best players in the world if we can, and not spend money on free lunches, unfortunately.”
