Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a no-nonsense control freak. Here’s why that’s bad news for Erik ten Hag, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

They all have a story to tell about Sir Jim Ratcliffe in the one port of his sporting empire where things go according to plan. Among them is an English sailor called Freddie Carr, who was part of a pretty awful America’s Cup race in Auckland in 2021 and is an integral part of the campaign currently chasing history in Barcelona.

Carr has been with Ben Ainslie all along, long before the latter met Ratcliffe for a gin in Mayfair six years ago, when they agreed a partnership that has so far racked up a bill of £250m.

Carr is an outgoing and fun type and is easy to like. And Ratcliffe feels the same way, so they’ve been talking about all kinds of topics, often about football, and often on long bike rides on bikes borrowed from another of Ratcliffe’s signings, the INEOS Grenadiers.

Those journeys started several years before Ratcliffe bought Manchester United. But mile after mile, up and down the climbs, his boss’s boss talked about the club he supported, reciting names and stories of United players from the 1960s and 1970s.

“He would go into great detail,” Carr told me a few months ago. ‘It’s all about the details with Sir Jim. He is obsessed with little bits of information about absolutely anything and everything. Great guy.’

Ainslie said something similar when we spoke in February. For every step in this partnership with Ratcliffe, there has been the ping of a WhatsApp notification on his phone – such is Ratcliffe’s intrigue in the details that he is not the quietest of all the partners. Those messages regularly include questions about technology and whether concepts from his contacts with the Mercedes F1 team, the All Blacks or cycling could help.

I understand that in recent weeks this has extended to text messages to more peripheral figures in the operation. Ratcliffe has monitored the progress of legal documents and tedious administrative processes; the nitty gritty stuff that is undoubtedly important, but possibly unnecessary for Ratcliffe to concern himself with.

The more of these excerpts I heard, the more interesting and unusual it seemed, because Ratcliffe paid experts to handle those discussions for him. Maybe it’s just smart levels of commitment. Or the natural curiosity of a man who has made fortunes digging for underground fuels.

We should add that Ainslie doesn’t say a bad word about Ratcliffe. On the contrary. He values ​​the interaction and nurtures the interest, and together they stand on the crest of a wave – INEOS Britannia are the first British team in the final of the America’s Cup since 1964 and if they beat the New Zealand sailors they will they end a losing streak stretching back 173 years.

For Ainslie, now 47 and 12 years after leaving the Olympics for new glory, leading a Cup winner is the missing piece in the greatest legacy. That also applies to veterans like Carr.

But it is tempting to view the week ahead in the context of Ratcliffe’s own sporting reputation. He also needs a win to show that his ability to carve success out of mud can be a transferable skill to the stranger areas of the sport.

The past decade, since he started diversifying his interests, hasn’t exactly gone well. Not in proportion to the money he spent. We know this.

The insurmountable strength of Team Sky’s cyclists, however questionable some of their methods may have been in the good times, is now running out of reach as the INEOS Grenadiers. Of the areas where Ratcliffe has a less influential share, Mercedes cannot get within a postcode of Red Bull in F1 and the All Blacks are ranked third in the world.

And then you come to Manchester United, the crown jewel in INEOS’ sports portfolio, where every detail provides a punchline today. A cudgel whose place in Ratcliffe’s heart would suggest his every cough and sputter.

When asked last week if he had confidence in Erik ten Hag, he made a clumsy attempt to sidestep the grenade and said: ‘I guess I don’t want to answer that. I like Erik. He is a very good coach, but in the end it is not my decision.’

It was hardly an endorsement and also a disingenuous smear – it was quite laughable to suggest he was in the backseat. If Ratcliffe is chasing a sailing team’s paperwork, you can bet his fingerprints will be on the biggest decision of his early days at United, where the initial buy-in at the table was five times what he had in his tried to win. a yacht race. His star-studded cast of advisors will have their say, but Ratcliffe apparently feels like wearing the big boy hat.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, it may be preferable if owners want to be present and get their hands dirty. But it is therefore necessary to place Ratcliffe’s judgment under a microscope.

We tend to believe in messiahs when it comes to sports, just as those who have achieved success in other fields often see messiahs when they look in the mirror. For Ratcliffe, eight months later, it is no longer enough that his name is not Glazer.

That United’s on-pitch results are still poor is a mistake that can be traced back to many places, but the continued malaise under Ten Hag leads straight to Ratcliffe’s door and to those he has appointed around him. They chose to keep him over the summer despite decent evidence, just as they are now pondering the wisdom of their choice. The perceptions of that cohort are directly linked to the results of Ten Hag, a turbulent sea to live on.

In a certain corner of Ratcliffe’s sporting world, there are those who are convinced he will do well at United. Ainslie is chief among them.

He once told me about a boss who has “zero tolerance for bull****” and an unparalleled ability to smell it. That’s why Ainslie made it clear to him ahead of the ill-fated 2021 America’s Cup challenger series in Auckland, when Ratcliffe was led to believe his sailing team was on the right track, contrary to what everyone on the ground knew. Ratcliffe liked the honesty, funded another campaign and now he has a boat in Barcelona that has sailed further under the British flag than any other boat in the last sixty years.

If next week leads to a winning conclusion, he will have achieved the ultimate vindication for his patience, judgment and obsession with curious little details. He would deserve it.

At Manchester United and some of his other projects, he is nowhere near as close to calm waters.

Farewell to a champion

We will soon say a sporting farewell to Rafael Nadal, one of the best to ever do this and also the kindest.

A friend who works behind the scenes at all the Slams recently shared an innocent memory of a practice day at Wimbledon, when the grounds were largely deserted save for this Spaniard laughing manically to himself as he chased his baseball cap for 50 yards after it took away in strong winds.

He has a smile for everyone and knows all the courtesy car drivers and court personnel by name — charming little touches that go beyond many of his peers, she said. Another staff member spoke of a man without equal when it came to tipping locker room helpers. Not a bad player either.

There is no error in Carsley’s dummy run

I admired Gareth Southgate immensely, but there was nothing more foolish than trying out Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield during the Euros.

By the same logic, Lee Carsley deserves a little credit for saving his misfortunes, including using Jude Bellingham as a false nine, for a match against Greece in a largely meaningless tournament.

It may not do his audition in England any favors, but there is a time and place to try new things and he certainly did a good job.