Now that Sir Jim Ratcliffe's investment in Manchester United has finally been confirmed,

how will this impact the club's January window, even if players are sold, is spending even possible given FFP concerns?

And is Jaden Sancho set to follow Donnie van der Beak out of the door at

Altrafford? I'm Michael Bailey. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast.

Welcome back, everyone. Happy New Year alongside me for this one, our Adam Crafton, Man United writer,

Laurie Whitwell and our football correspondent, David Ornstein. Great to see you all.

Laurie, I'm going to come to you first, if I may. People might see the Inios investment as

meaning cash for the transfer kitty, but it's not quite as simple as that for United, is it?

No, I mean, they are still awaiting

Premier League ratification, which we're told can take six to eight weeks. And even in that

instance, if they could put their own money in, it wouldn't necessarily adjust United's

sort of wriggle room on the financial fair play, the profit and sustainability rules that they

are very tight on, which they keep talking about as being big factors on what they can do in the

January transfer window. But yeah, I mean, INEOS have committed that it's in writing by the SEC

filing to New York Stock Exchange to putting in $300 million. First $200 million of that

will be done when the transaction is officially completed

via the Premier League and then the final 100 million by the end of the year.

And originally that is actually intended to go on the infrastructure, so Al-Traford.

I mean, how much that will stretch to actually cover the kind of work that is needed at the

stadium, I don't know.

But it can also, according to the documents, be used for regular business actions, which you'd assume would be transfer dealings. And I guess the other question they're leading off that is the influence. It's the influence of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Dave Ralesford. How much will they have of that until the deal is ratified? There's a danger. I guess it could be a bit of a limbo period. Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic at the moment because, as I've said, they're waiting for this Premier League ratification and until that moment, then, you know, the Ineos deal isn't official. So, you know, Sir Dave Brailsford and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, they haven't got their keys to the door, I suppose, at the exact moment, but they are nevertheless on the ground. you know, Steve Bresford was there at Carrington on New Year's Eve, the day after the Nottinger Forest defeats. To Jim Ratcliffe has been at Carrington and Old Trafford and will continue to be for meetings and kind of, I guess, getting to know you. I think that's the kind of stage they're at. It's described as a kind of looking and listening and learning phase of the

investment, they're not going to come in from what we're understanding and change things

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