It never looked like a good idea, but it is turning out to be much worse than expected.

After concluding their miserable 2024-25 season, Manchester United flew over 6,600 miles to Kuala Lumpur for marketing reasons. Having deemed 60 largely disappointing matches inadequate, United’s brains trust .

“Importantly, tour fixtures drive which help make the club stronger, allowing us to keep investing in success on the pitch,” chief executive Omar Berrada said plainly when the club announced the genius plan in early April.

Back then, there must have already been nagging worries that United’s decision-makers were signing their club up for another dose of embarrassment. All for the estimated revenue of $10million (£7.8m) the trip will make for United.

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This is the reality of the : a penny-pinching petrochemicals billionaire. A man worth $16.7bn (£12.4bn), according to , making and sending his exhausted players halfway across the world to appease sponsors and spread the good word of United.

That £7.8m is suddenly looking like a bad deal. The malaise that engulfed the club this season became even darker and thicker with in the Europa League final and has now become a pervasive presence; an unwanted 12th man on the pitch.

Videos of Alejandro Garnacho half-heartedly signing autographs and other players trudging heads down past screaming fans were bad enough before the actual football – ostensibly the reason for their visit – was taken into account.

United somehow managed to in Bukit Jalil National Stadium on Wednesday. Ruben Amorim used 25 outfield players, but was powerless to stop Maung Maung Lwin – a Burmese player who plies his trade in the Thai League – from providing the game’s only goal.

Many of the 84,000 people who turned up in the Malaysian capital, some of whom had paid £260 for a ticket, booed them off the pitch. In a season of crushing lows, United had somehow managed to plumb new depths. This was embarrassing – and it is obvious who was to blame.

United have set their players up for failure with this ridiculous money-grabbing PR disaster. Even if they had enjoyed a good domestic campaign, or if they had beaten Spurs in Bilbao, the players would not have been up for this trip. There is a reason this is the first time United have embarked on a post-season tour.

This one is only a few days old and it is already backfiring in potentially spectacular fashion. While Matheus Cunha is too far down the line to change his mind over , other targets are not. United better hope they are enjoying their holiday so much that they haven’t bothered opening social media or reading the newspapers.

Because does anyone really want to join this mess? They are a rubbish football team right now, but more than that, they are a miserable and disunited bunch. They will become a revolving door this summer, shipping out scores of players while scrabbling around for anyone who will join them. They won’t play any European football next season and Carrington is reportedly a vibe vacuum, having had the life sucked out of it by Ratcliffe’s staff purge.

This is the context which players like Liam Delap must currently be assessing. this summer. He is understood to be choosing between United and Chelsea – a decision which currently looks extremely straightforward.

While United ended the season as a representation of the , everything burning around them, Chelsea did so with and a place in next season’s Champions League secured.

Ratcliffe has frequently, and in public, lamented the way things were done at United. He has made decisions he deems unpopular but necessary. But what he seems to fail to understand is that perception matters. Yes, he may have succeeded in putting the club on a more even footing financially, but at what cost?

This ludicrous post-season tour is a perfect example of the Ratcliffe era so far: commercially astute yet visually unappealing. It could be extremely damaging to the planned squad overhaul this summer.

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