Manchester United fans protest Glazers and Ratcliffe over season ticket ban 'fiasco' before derby

Manchester United supporters staged a protest outside Old Trafford ahead of Sunday’s Premier League derby against Manchester City, directing anger at both the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos ownership over the club’s handling of a season ticket touting investigation that resulted in 685 bans.

Fans gathered near the Bishops Blaize pub before kick-off, marking one of the first occasions that Ratcliffe and Ineos have been publicly targeted alongside the Glazers, who have faced supporter opposition since their takeover in 2005.

The bans followed a lengthy club investigation into ticket touting. A further 464 supporters received a final warning or a reduced sanction, with a total of 1,617 accounts identified as requiring further investigation and action. In a statement, the club said bans “were issued where there was significant misuse of the ticketing system for financial gain,” including “the operation of organised ticketing networks, which were controlling, selling and distributing tickets from hundreds of accounts.”

Despite the club’s justification, fan backlash has been fierce, with many supporters arguing the investigation’s methods were heavy-handed and that innocent fans were caught up in the process.

Separate fan group The Red Army also announced its own act of protest ahead of kick-off, choosing to remove its regular flag displays from the Stretford End and replace them with a single banner reading: “The way you treat us is a disgrace.”

In a statement, The Red Army described the gesture as “an honest, heartfelt cry for recognition from the maligned, vilified, and misrepresented beating heart of our football club – the generational match-going supporters.”

The protests reflect a deepening frustration among United’s most loyal supporters, who feel increasingly alienated by decisions made at boardroom level — a sentiment that has now extended beyond the long-unpopular Glazer ownership to the new regime that was initially welcomed as a sign of change.