TOTTENHAM SUE SIR JIM RATCLIFFE’S INEOS
Tottenham Hotspur have taken High Court legal action against Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos.
In a commercial listing under “general commercial contracts and arrangements”, Tottenham have lodged a claim against Ineos Automotive Limited, which is a subsidiary of the multinational Ineos company that co-owns Manchester United.
Spurs and Ineos had announced a multi-million pound five-year deal in December 2022 to promote the Ineos Grenadier car as the club’s “official 4x4 vehicle partner”.
However, talks have been ongoing since at least February over Ineos withdrawing two years before the expiry of the deal.
Those negotiations appear to have failed to find an agreement, with the Tottenham claim lodged on June 12, less than a month after they beat Manchester United in the Europa League final to secure a place in the Champions League.
Spurs and Ineos have been in partnership since 2020, when the petrochemicals company was named as the club’s “official hand sanitiser supplier” during the pandemic.
Ineos, however, have been cutting ties with a number of leading sports organisations in recent months, notably Sir Ben Ainslie’s sailing team and the All Blacks rugby union team.
Telegraph Sport revealed in February that New Zealand Rugby was also taking legal action against Ineos for an alleged breach of contract after a six-year deal to 2027 ended early, although an agreement has since been reached.
Ineos has said that it is being forced into cost-cutting by Europe’s “extreme” green carbon taxes and has issued warnings over what it called the “deindustrialisation” of the continent.
Ratcliffe also blamed energy prices and carbon taxes earlier this year for forcing the closure of Ineos’s synthetic ethanol plant at Grangemouth in Scotland, resulting in the loss of 80 direct roles and an estimated 500 indirect jobs.
Significant financial measures have already been introduced at Manchester United since Ratcliffe bought a 27.7 per cent minority stake in December 2023, including increased ticket prices and the loss of hundreds of staff.
Upon the announcement of the Grenadier deal in 2022, Spurs had said: “Our partnership with Ineos Grenadier represents the coming together of an innovative British brand with an iconic London football club – both of whom are committed to pushing boundaries and daring to do things differently, while staying true to authentic values and traditions.”
In a statement, Ineos told Telegraph Sport that it had exercised “a contractual right to terminate” its partnership with Tottenham last December.
“Ineos Automotive has been a partner of Tottenham Hotspur since 2022, taking on a partnership agreement that Ineos Group had in place with the club since 2020,” said a spokesperson.
“Like any business, we have to be diligent in how we operate and where we invest marketing budgets. It’s completely normal for partnerships to be reviewed on a regular basis, and we’ve decided that the partnership wasn’t working out for us. We have the right to terminate the partnership.”
Tottenham have been approached for comment.
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2025-06-13T11:59:18Z