Sir Jim Ratcliffe will quite literally be in a race against time to watch Manchester United face Coventry City in this weekend's FA Cup semi-final. The INEOS supremo has been spotted alongside Sir Dave Brailsford at several United games since purchasing a minority stake in the club earlier this year.
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Ratcliffe was most recently seen in the stands at Old Trafford as United played out a 2-2 draw with Liverpool nearly two weeks ago. He will be hoping to attend Sunday's game at Wembley but may not be there in time for kick-off as he is running the London Marathon, which takes place on the same day.
The marathon begins at 10am, while United's match against Coventry is due to start at 3.30pm after being moved on police advice. It means Ratcliffe will need to shave a huge chunk off his personal best time if he wants to be in his seat for kick-off at Wembley.
Last year, the 72-year-old powered through a troublesome hamstring injury to clock a respectable time of four hours and 32 minutes. A repeat performance will give him less than an hour to recover and travel to Wembley for the match, while a series of road closures in central London will make his task even harder.
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Ratcliffe confirmed earlier this year that he would be taking part in the London Marathon while discussing his love for distance running on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club podcast.
When asked how many marathons he had completed in his life, Ratcliffe said: "It's somewhere approaching 40. My project certainly doesn't have a one in it! I did London last year, I did four and a half [hours]. I'm doing London again this year. It's only six weeks away.
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"I trained for London last year and I had a hamstring issue. I was out for five weeks and I didn't have much time to retrain. I went to Africa, it was quite warm and I had a go. It was okay. Exactly the same thing has happened this year. I've had five weeks out with a hamstring so I only started training a week ago for London. It's not very long. I need to get going."
It remains to be seen if Ratcliffe will be able to get to Wembley in time to watch United take on Coventry for a place in this year's FA Cup final. The Red Devils finished as runners-up of last year's competition, losing to Manchester City in the final with Ilkay Gundogan scoring two goals either side of Bruno Fernandes' penalty.
