{"id":452469,"date":"2026-03-01T19:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452469\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T19:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:52:12","slug":"manchester-united-fans-unveil-pro-immigration-banner-aimed-at-sir-jim-ratcliffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452469\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United fans unveil pro-immigration banner aimed at Sir Jim Ratcliffe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester United fans unveiled a pro-immigration banner during Sunday\u2019s fixture against Crystal Palace in response to comments from minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n

The banner was displayed by supporters in the corner over the tunnel at\u00a0Old Trafford before the second half of the Premier League match kicked off. It read: \u201cMUFC proudly colonised by immigrants\u201d and pictured seven international players who have represented the club: France\u2019s Eric Cantona and Patrice Evra, Park Ji-sung of South Korea, Portugal\u2019s Bruno Fernandes, Norway\u2019s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Amad of the Ivory Coast and Brazil\u2019s Casemiro.<\/p>\n

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Manchester United wanted to stop the banner from being brought inside the stadium but, once it was being shown, stewards made no attempt to intervene and no fan was ejected for doing so. The club have previously allowed anti-ownership protests to be staged at games.<\/p>\n

In February, Ratcliffe said in an interview with Sky<\/a> he believed the United Kingdom has been \u201ccolonised by immigrants\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe, a British billionaire who has resided in tax haven Monaco since 2020, made multiple inflammatory and inaccurate observations about the United Kingdom\u2019s immigrant population. The remarks were widely condemned by sections of the United fanbase and politicians \u2014 including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who described the comments as \u201coffensive and wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in,\u201d Ratcliffe, 73, told Sky. \u201cI mean, the UK has been colonised. It\u2019s costing too much money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK has been colonised by immigrants, really, hasn\u2019t it? I mean, the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it\u2019s 70 million. That\u2019s 12 million people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Office for National Statistics estimated that the UK population was 69.5 million in November 2025, compared to 67.1 million in 2020. The ONS also estimated that the UK\u2019s long-term net migration was 204,000 from 2024 to 2025.<\/p>\n

According to a House of Commons research briefing from January of this year there were 1.68 million people, as of December 2025, claiming unemployment-related benefits in the UK.<\/p>\n

Following the backlash, Ratcliffe went on to say<\/a> he was \u201csorry that my choice of language has offended some people\u201d but stopped short of a full apology and stood by the spirit of his comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern but it is important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth,\u201d his statement released the day after the interview aired read.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy comments were made while answering questions about UK policy at the European Industry Summit in Antwerp, where I was discussing the importance of economic growth, jobs, skills and manufacturing in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy intention was to stress that governments must manage migration alongside investment in skills, industry and jobs so that long-term prosperity is shared by everyone. It is critical that we maintain an open debate on the challenges facing the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe\u2019s petrochemicals company INEOS officially took a minority stake in United in February 2024 and have overseen the club\u2019s sporting operations, implementing a raft of changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United fans unveiled a pro-immigration banner during Sunday\u2019s fixture against Crystal Palace in response to comments from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,349,50,221,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-452469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-manchester-united","tag-news","tag-premier-league","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}