Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has admitted there is "no money left in the club".
United recently announced they had lost more than £300million over the past three years, highlighting their financial troubles. The club described the situation as "not sustainable".
United have made cost-cutting measures across the board since Ineos secured a minority stake last year, including cutting the workforce by 250 people last year. Another 200 staff could leave in the latest round of cuts.
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"If you look at the numbers, the numbers were fairly scary, really," Ratcliffe told The Times. "Because they'd sort of lost control, I think, of where the ship was headed. And the costs had got out of control.
"If you think of it in really simple terms, you've got the operating costs, which are all the staff and the fixed costs of running the business. And then you've got all the squad costs, player salaries and player purchases.
"In super simple terms, the club has been spending more money than it's been earning now for the last seven years, and it ends in a very difficult place. And for Manchester United, that place ended at the end of this year, the end of 2025, with the club running out of cash.
"I think it's the first time we've probably said that in public, but that's the fact of the matter. There's no money left in the club. And that is after my 300million."
Despite United's financial picture, Ratcliffe is confident things will improve, insisting United believe they will be the "most profitable football club in the world" in three years' time.
He continued: "It will be a very profitable club. We believe that in three years' time it will be the most profitable football club in the world. And it will be in a very, very different place. But we need to go through the change. Nobody likes change.
"When you run out of cash in a business, you go and talk to the insolvency guys. In reality what you do is you go and raise some more money. You go and talk to the banks and try to renegotiate with the banks. Trust me, you don't want to go there.
"But that's our job, isn’t it? You’ve got to look forward. You’re walking towards problems, so you get it sorted out. And we will sort it out.
"The changes that we've made over this season, plus the ones that have been announced recently (more redundancies), will put us in a position to be able to do that.
"At Ineos we run a lean organisation. As my mother said, you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves. We can sound flippant about free lunches but if you give all these perks, first class train fares, free taxis, it's not coherent. It goes bust at Christmas.
"We've made some really tough decisions and now we're seeing staff understanding what we're trying to do. There's a clear vision of what we’re trying to achieve."
