Manchester United formally confirm departure of Sir Jim Ratcliffe ally

Dave Brailsford's association with Man Utd has ended, with the cycling guru no longer a director at Old Trafford.

Dave Brailsford is no longer a director at Manchester United. Brailsford's involvement at Old Trafford was scaled back last summer when he stepped away from influencing football operations, but he remained on the board.

United sources have now confirmed that Brailsford is no longer a director, meaning his association with the club has ended. The split was formalised on April 30, a document on Companies House published on Thursday confirmed.

Brailsford joined United in February 2024 when Sir Jim Ratcliffe acquired a minority stake. He is a longstanding Ratcliffe ally.

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The British billionaire parachuted Brailsford into Manchester and described him as being "really good at his job" after achieving success in cycling. After starting work at United, Brailsford assessed the employee count and was partly behind the mass redundancies.

He presented a performance plan of 'Mission 21' (a 21st league title for United) for the men’s team, along with 'Mission 1' (a first women's league title).

Brailsford was a leading figure in the revamp of the Carrington training complex, which was completed last August following a £50million refurbishment. However, his hands-on involvement with United ended last June when he stepped away from the club to focus on Ratcliffe's cycling team.

He was responsible for leading British cycling into a golden era and his 'marginal gains' concept was all the rage in the 2010s. Put simply, the concept was that if you improved by one per cent in multiple areas, you could reap significant rewards.

Team GB won 16 gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics in cycling and Team Sky enjoyed great success, but not everybody was sold on the concept, including Sir Bradley Wiggins.

"A lot of people made a lot of money out of it and David Brailsford used it constantly as his calling card,” Wiggins said in 2017. “But I always thought it was a load of rubbish.”

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