Jim Ratcliffe has laid bare the extent of the financial difficulties facing Manchester United and indicated that the club’s leadership are leaning towards building a new stadium instead of renovating Old Trafford, in a wide-ranging interview at Ineos’ London office.

The billionaire - one of Britain’s richest men - likened a new stadium to the Eiffel Tower in terms of the draw it would have for tourists, and reiterated that it would be a huge boon for the local economy.

He also threw his weight behind manager Ruben Amorim, admitting that the move to extend Erik ten Hag’s contract last summer was a “mistake”, and conceding fault for the expensive sacking of the Dutchman and sporting director Dan Ashworth.

“We’re not going to ask the government for any money to build the ground but we can’t afford to do all of the other stuff around there because that we can’t finance,” he said. “But I think if we build a really iconic stadium, which is what I would like to do, then I think those billion [United] fans around the world will all want to come to Manchester and see it. And they’ll all create value for the Manchester and the northern economy.

“If you look at Oxford Economics [economic advisors] their number is £7 billion per annum of value added to the northern economy because it would become like the Eiffel Tower, which five million people go to Paris to see.”

The 72-year-old also revealed how dire the financial situation had become at the club, which has been haemorrhaging millions of pounds each year over the past seven years and would, in Ratcliffe’s terms, have been “bust by Christmas”.

“In super-simple terms the club has been spending more money than it has been earning for the last seven years, including this year,” he explained. “If you do that for a prolonged period of time it ends up in a very difficult place, and, for Manchester United, that place ended at the end of this year.

“At the end of 2025, Manchester United would have run out of cash. There would be no cash at the end of this year. That is the first time we have ever said that in public, but that is the fact of the matter.”

Ratcliffe’s Ineos group have brought in multiple cost-slashing measures in a bid to get United back to profitability - or at least stability - since he bought a 28% stake in the club a year ago. He defended the cost-cutting measures at Old Trafford, which have frequently made for unfavourable headlines, including a controversial move to replace free lunches for staff with fruit.

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“Nobody ever gave me a free lunch,” he said. “At Ineos we run a lean organisation. As my mother said, you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves. We can sound flippant about free lunches but if you give all these perks, first class train fares, free taxis, it’s not coherent. It goes bust at Christmas.

“We’ve made some really tough decisions and now we’re seeing staff understanding what we’re trying to do. There’s a clear vision of what we’re trying to achieve.”

The cuts - including 450 redundancies - have attracted particular attention given United’s wastefulness in the transfer market and expensive contracts for personnel who have since been shown the door, in particular Ten Hag and Ashworth, who together cost the club £15m when they left.

“They were just mistakes,” Ratcliffe said. “The Erik thing is slightly mitigating. There was quite a lot of debate about that time. He had just won a Cup final. The fans were clearly of the view that we’d like to stick with him and all that sort of stuff.

“It’s a journey and there’s a lot of decisions that we have to make over the course of the journey and we’re not going to get them all right. I don’t think in the future we’ll get them all right either because we’re not perfect.”

Ratcliffe did not want to be drawn on what went wrong with Ashworth, who only lasted five months at the club, only saying, “I think we just have to say, ‘chemistry’. Really, I don’t want to go down that [road]. It is what it is, and it was our fault.”

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He was, however, effusive about Amorim, despite the 40-year-old’s distinctly average start to life as a United manager. The club are languishing in 14th place in the league, 36 points off leaders Liverpool.

Amorim has been as critical of his players and their performances as anyone in the media since his move from Sporting Lisbon, despite an investment of £180m into players in the summer. Ratcliffe however defended his outspoken comments, saying, “coaches are emotional”.

“I think he’s done a great job,” he added. “Everybody expects miracles overnight. It’s not real life in my view.

“He’s a young coach. And he’s not perfect. He’s got to be good on the stage [in press conferences], but we want him to be good on the grass. And part of that is [how he lives] life on the stage, isn’t it? He’s a young guy, he’s come into the Premier League for the first time in his life. It’s mid-season, it’s not his natural language. I mean, you have to give the guy a bit of a break. Give me a hard time, I have no problem with that, but give Ruben a break.”

He conceded that the squad needed a major overhaul but added that the sheer numbers that have been spent, and the financial constraints on the club’s purse-strings, put United in a difficult position.

“This summer we will ‘buy’ Antony, Sancho, Casemiro, Martinez, Hojlund and Onana and they’re all about 17 million quid each,” he said. “Because that’s what is outstanding. If we buy nobody else we’re buying those players.

“But it will be a very profitable club. We believe that in three years’ time it will be the most profitable football club in the world. And it will be in a very, very different place. But we need to go through the change. Nobody likes change.

"Some are not good enough and some probably are overpaid. But for us to mould the squad that we are fully responsible for, and accountable for, will take time.

"We've got this period of transformation where we move from the past to the future.”

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