Eric Cantona has hit out at Manchester United’s owners and the atmosphere at Old Trafford, saying he’d prefer to support a lower league team.
The Frenchman remains a legend at the club, having won four Premier League titles and two FA Cups with the Red Devils.
The 59-year-old remains passionate about Manchester United, but is increasingly frustrated with the direction of the club.
Cantona says he offered to come back to Manchester and help the club’s rebuilding process under minority owner Jim Ratcliffe and manager Ruben Amorim.
The offer was not taken up and Cantona feels the current ownership has gone further in destroying the legacy of the man he played under, Alex Ferguson.
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The iconic forward said at a live show, via The Telegraph: ‘I have many other passions and projects, but I thought that for two or three years I could maybe put those to the side and try to give something to this club, which has given everything to me. But he didn’t seem interested.
‘I did what I had to do, so I don’t feel guilty anymore. I tried my best. Sir Alex Ferguson created a style of beautiful attacking football, which the new owners should have used. Instead, they destroyed it.’
This is not the first time Cantona has spoken out against the current ownership, having criticised the substantial amount of job cuts at the club since Ratcliffe bought in.
‘I support United because I really love United, but now if I was a fan and I had to choose a club I don’t think I would choose United,’ Cantona said earlier this year. Because I don’t feel close to these kind of decisions. They have another strategy, another project. Do you feel close to this project? I don’t think so.
‘For me, it is very important to respect these people like you respect your manager and your team-mates. I think since Ratcliffe arrived it’s the complete opposite and, this team of directors, they try to destroy everything and they don’t respect anybody. They even want to change the stadium.’
The former striker has also hit out at the fan experience at Old Trafford, saying there is a quiet atmosphere brought about by ‘people who come from different parts of the world just to go to the merchandise store.’
‘The atmosphere in the stadium is different, unfortunately,’ he said. ‘I went to Old Trafford last season for the game against Manchester City, and I thought it was quiet. United fans prefer to go to away matches, to be with the real fans, than to be surrounded by people who come from different parts of the world just to go to the merchandise store.
‘We have to be closer to the real things of football, to the working people. Football is a working-class game – it’s important we don’t lose that. If I lived in England, I would prefer to be a fan of a club in the third or fourth division.
‘I don’t find the energy that we had in the past. It’s not the fault of the fans, it’s the fault of the people who are in charge of the clubs – the economic system.’
Cantona surprisingly retired in 1997 at just 30 years old but players who join the club in 2025 are still hoping to emulate him.
Summer signing Matheus Cunha told The Sun of comparisons to the Frenchman: ‘Wow, what a player. I need to do much more things to be compared to him. When someone says something like this to me, I try to see the good part of this.
‘To be someone who has a lot of passion to play for this club, to play football – and then try to represent everyone inside of the pitch.
‘I feel privileged to be associated with these kind of things and with Cantona also. He made history. And if I can do a little percentage of what he did already, I’ll be very happy and then try to build my way to the guys to remember me also.’