Jordan hails Man Utd co-owner Ratcliffe for ending culture that encourages ‘nut scratching’
Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan thinks Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made the right decision to working from home culture at Old Trafford.
Man Utd could be set for a number of big changes over the coming months after the British billionaire completed a deal to buy 27.7 per cent of the Premier League club from the Glazers earlier this year.
Ratcliffe is looking to improve the infrastructure around the club, while he and INEOS are already starting to put in place a different recruitment team and hierarchy at Old Trafford.
The latest change comes with The Athletic reporting earlier this week that Ratcliffe has ‘ordered Manchester United’s non-football staff back into their offices in Manchester and London — insisting the club must end its work-from-home culture’.
And Jordan has applauded Ratcliffe for his decision at Man Utd with the ex-Crystal Palace chairman insisting that working from home encourages “ordering a Domino’s pizza, scratching your nuts and waiting for the Amazon delivery”.
Jordan told talkSPORT: “Every grown-up knows that you get more effectiveness, more development of culture, more work ethic, more diversity of thinking, more diversity of experience if people are in a workplace.
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“Those who don’t think that, they are the ones who want to work at home because it suits their lifestyle, and that’s fantastic. Life is like, I suppose, a bit of a poop sandwich, the more bread you make the less poop you eat.
“I normally use a different word there, but you see I’ve adapted it for the radio…
“You go to work to be successful, to have a better life out of it.
“There is no doubt in 95 per cent of professions that in order to achieve outcomes that develop the individual, to meet their expectations of the work environment and of course the business’ expectations of them, being present, where you can be monitored, trained, engaged and focussed on and have work disciplines, rather than ordering a Domino’s pizza, scratching your nuts and waiting for the Amazon delivery.
“That is not what the most sensible businessmen think is the way to operate.
“Well done Jim, because you need a culture and absolutely right, that shows the grown-up thinking going on… football should not be immune from it.
“Disciplines, focus, culture, outlook, work ethic, motivation – boom, it starts from there.”
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His comments come after he caused a stir on social media by admitting he doesn’t “like certain things about” Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, including the Egyptian calling for an end to the “massacres” in Gaza.
“I don’t think he’s as good as people make him out to be. I think he dives, I think he can be a fair weather player.
“I know this will sound ridiculous to people and will make me incredibly unpopular by saying it, obviously he’s scored lots of goals, but when the going gets tough some people stand up and fight and some people don’t.
“I get this feeling that Salah can be one of those. It’s an opinion.”
Jordan added: “I don’t particularly like certain things about him, things he said recently about conflicts and altercations in other countries where he’s popped up.
“It’s been something about a particular ethnicity he has a belief in.”
Salah wrote on social media in October: “It’s not always easy to speak in time like this, there has been too much violence and too much heartbreaking brutality … All lives are sacred and must be protected.
“The massacres need to stop; families are being torn apart. What’s clear now is that humanitarian aid to Gaza must be allowed immediately. The people there are in terrible conditions.”
