Salford City have a new ownership model after former Manchester United duo David Beckham and Gary Neville completed a takeover of the club.
It comes at a time when everyone at Manchester United is keeping a close eye on what decisions Ineos are making as they try to fix problems created by the Glazer family, without adding to them.
Ineos took control of football operations at Old Trafford after Sir Jim Ratcliffe became co-owner over a year ago. They have been involved in many decisions, including Erik ten Hag’s dismissal and the appointment of Ruben Amorim as United’s head coach.
United fans know it will be a long journey back to the top, after spending over 18 years battling the Glazers with protests.
One of the most controversial decisions made by Ineos has been the huge number of redundancies with cost-cutting measures viewed as a strategy to generate more funding.
United legends David Beckham and Gary Neville will have a keen interest from afar as they try to manage things at Salford City following a £15 million takeover.
Gary Neville shares ambitions for Salford City after David Beckham takeover
Nine years ago, Salford City were taken over by Peter Lim and several members of United’s Class of ’92. The initial deal saw Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt all take 10% each, with Singaporean businessman Lim taking the rest.
In 2019, Beckham bought into Salford City, taking 10% from Lim and Neville purchased the Singaporean’s remaining stake in 2024.
A fresh consortium, including other investors, have now bought up the stakes from Butt, Giggs, Scholes and Phil Neville.
Neville has explained that these former United players will still have roles at Salford as shareholders, but it also brings a new era for the football club.
“Just being an owner of a football club is very expensive. All of us have put significant funds into the club over the last 10-11 years, and it comes to a point whereby some of us will put money into the club and some of us won’t, but we’ll continue to have contributions into the club in roles in a similar way that they have done.
“It just means that they won’t be putting money into the club as shareholders,” Neville explained to SkySports of how and why Butt, Giggs, Scholes and his brother, Phil’s roles will all alter.
“I think you’re aware of the cost of football is quite large and we at Salford City have been investing heavily over the last 10 years. We’ll continue to do so moving forward.
“We’ve brought in a new group of shareholders who will invest in the club for the next four years and will secure that period, make sure we’re excited as we ever were.”
Salford City finished one place outside of play-off qualifications after being leapfrogged by Chesterfield in the final weekend of the season.
They will be preparing for their seventh year in the fourth tier in August but with a new structure built around the club. Neville stresses the ambition for promotion remain the same.
“Obviously the ambition has never changed. We always talked about getting to the Championship and we always talked about, at that point, assessing it.
“You can never look beyond League Two, just like we were in the National League, you can’t look beyond that.
“We watched 200 games at Salford in that level and now 200 in League Two.
“I said yesterday we’d stabilised as a Football League club and had a little bit of a smirk on my face when I said that because we’ve invested a lot of money in the last five years and I think our results have been disappointing relating to the level of money we put into the club.
“We have to look at how we change that moving forward,” Neville clarified, with his ambitions for Salford still alive.
“I’ve loved watching every single game in League Two but there are a lot of good clubs, big clubs, in League Two that all want to get out of this league and get to League One. We’re aware of our position and aware of how challenging this is.
“Our ambition next season, as has been for the last five, has been to do the very best we can and hopefully get to the top of League Two.”
Neville clarifies his own intentions for Salford City
The former footballer turned pundit, who is judging many jobs and is described as ‘busy’ by close associates, accepts that he won’t be taking a hands-on approach in his latest partnership with Beckham.
This means Neville plans to remain a ‘passive’ owner at Salford City.
“For the first eight years I was the operating shareholder, for the last three years I haven’t been.
“I’ve been completely passive over the last three years. Obviously Nicky, Ryan and Paul have gone into the club and done a really good job.
“I think moving forward I will continue to be passive – I’ve got too much on – but what I will be is a conduit for a diverse group of shareholders from all around the world and won’t always be in Salford. I am on the ground here in Manchester so I will go to the meetings that I need to, to make sure everything is fine from a perspective of continuing the contact with people in the boardroom.
“We intend to appoint a CEO, who will have full authority to run this football club for us and on behalf of the new ownership. That will hopefully be in place in the next few months.
“From our point of view we’ve got to find a way for Salford City and I think that is growing our revenue streams off the pitch as well as doing very well on the pitch, being successful as a football team.
“We have to make sure we design a new strategy going forward and we’ve got the right shareholders to do that.”
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