Paul Scholes castigates Sir Jim Ratcliffe over ticket prices

Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has criticised the English football club's “ridiculous” ticket prices, which he believes will alienate fans.

United is on course for its worst-ever Premier League season as the club sits in 13^th place. Despite this, base ticket prices were raised without consultation to £66 ($82/€79) in November.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group acquired a 25% stake in the club for £1.3bn, which was completed in February of last year.

“[Ineos Group] have been in charge for nearly a year now and everything is still negative,” he said on The Overlap podcast.

“I can’t think of something positive that they’ve done for the football club.

“Things are getting worse on the football pitch so couldn’t they have just said that they’d do cheaper tickets – couldn’t they just give us something positive? How can you ask Manchester United fans to pay more money with what’s on the football pitch?

“£66 for a ticket is ridiculous. If you think of Manchester, there are so many deprived areas and Sir Jim Ratcliffe himself is from Failsworth, which is a deprived area. If you take one kid with you, that’s £120, if you take a family, you’re looking at £300-£400 – it’s not right.”

Manchester United fans joined forces with Liverpool supporters last weekend prior to the two teams’ Premier League fixture at Anfield to protest rising ticket prices.

One banner held by fans read: “£66 [crossed out] your debt not ours”, which was aimed at Ratcliffe’s decision to increase the base ticket price.

This decision meant that members’ concession tickets of £40 for adults and £25 for children were scrapped.