Jim Ratcliffe hits out at ‘unfair’ rules preventing Manchester United from signing Jean-Clair Todibo | OneFootball

Jim Ratcliffe has hit out against UEFA’s rules preventing Manchester United from buying Jean-Clair Todibo (24) this summer in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg.

Due to the revised UEFA regulations concerning multi-club ownership, two teams owned by the same ownership cannot buy players from their sister clubs if they are competing in the same European competition.

This did not look like it would be a problem for Manchester United and OGC Nice who are both owned in some capacity by Ratcliffe, as for much of the season it looked as if the Premier League side were going to miss out on European football.

However, Manchester United secured qualification into the Europa League after defeating Manchester City in the FA Cup, a competition that Nice had also secured passage into, therefore setting up this quirk that will see the English club miss out on a long-standing transfer target.

According to The New York Times, a similar situation could also prevent Manchester City from signing Sávio (20) from their multi-club model due to Girona’s qualification to the Champions League.

Ratcliffe believes that the rules are unfair, as he told the American outlet, “We’ve got a player, for instance, at Nice who was really interested in joining Manchester United and I think he probably had the capability of being in the United squad.”

He continued, “They’ve said we can sell him to another [Premier League] club, but we can’t sell to Manchester United. But that’s not fair on the player and I don’t see what that achieves.”

GFFN | Nick Hartland