Sir Ben Ainslie: I was told Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe would ‘burn your house down’

Sir Ben Ainslie claims he was warned that Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe would “burn your house down” if he did not hand over all his sailing team’s assets to the British billionaire’s company, INEOS Racing.

Ainslie — the most successful sailor in Olympic history — claims the extraordinary threat was made by Rob Nevin, the chairman of INEOS Sport, in a meeting which also included the company’s chairman, Jean-Claude Blanc, and took place on the cusp of the 37th America’s Cup, in which Ainslie was competing.

The claim is one of a number of remarkable details in the defence filing set out by Athena Racing against a High Court action pursued by INEOS — which is attempting to force Ainslie’s Athena to hand over the “£180million boat” they built together for the last America’s Cup.

INEOS funded Ainslie’s British team over two America’s Cup cycles in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2021 and Barcelona, Spain, three years later — with the petrochemicals firm, founded by Ratcliffe, citing its total expenditure at £350m ($467m) over both campaigns.

Ratcliffe and Ainslie fell out in late 2024 over funding and control of the team, and have since parted ways, with Ratcliffe now pursuing legal action for ownership of their boat, the Ineos Britannia.

On October 12, 2024, ‘a matter of hours before the first race of the AC37 cup match in Barcelona, when Sir Ben was very shortly due to skipper the Ineos Britannia and lead the team’s challenge for AC37’, Nevin and Blanc attended a meeting at Ainslie office in the Spanish city, according to the filing.

There, Nevin allegedly made the ‘hostile’ threat demanding Athena’s assets and intellectual property be transferred to INEOS in return for funding of future America’s Cup campaigns. Nevin allegedly told Ainslie: ‘This is what Jim wants. We have a phrase at Ineos: ‘scorched earth’. It means that if you don’t give Jim what he wants, he will burn your house down’ (or words to that effect).’

Ainslie team were aiming to win the America’s Cup for the first time in 175 years, and the alleged discussion was on the day of their first Cup match in 60 years.

The filing goes on to state: ‘In response, Sir Ben attempted to defuse the situation by reminding Mr Nevin that the first AC37 race would be beginning shortly. Mr Nevin then reiterated and expanded upon his threat, explaining that the only instance in which Sir Jim had backed down from a dispute was one concerning the state of the People’s Republic of China’.

In spite of the alleged fallout, INEOS Britannia enjoyed historic success in Barcelona, becoming the first British team to win the challenger series before losing 7-2 to defenders New Zealand in the final.

In another extraordinary detail, Ainslie also claimed that members of his Athena team were ‘falsely imprisoned’ by Ratcliffe’s employees after refusing to hand over all the team’s assets and vacate their Northamptonshire offices, shortly after the split.

On January 24, 2025, Raymond Fellows, an INEOS employee, and two associates allegedly arrived at the site in Turweston and ‘proceeded to chain and padlock the doors to the Defendant’s site from the outside, and affixed ‘No Entry’ signs’, the filing reads.

‘In so doing,’ the filing continues, ‘Mr Fellows and his associates, at all times acting on behalf of the Claimant, imprisoned the Defendant’s employees in the site without any lawful authority. In the premises, the Claimant committed the tort of false imprisonment.’

Ainslie and a colleague allegedly managed to leave the premises via a fire escape, and persuaded Fellows to remove the chains and padlocks.

The bulk of the 41-page filing — prepared by Meysan Partners UK LLP and submitted to the High Court last week — concerns less salacious disputes, namely the wording in the agreement between the two parties regarding ownership of the assets, primarily the Ineos Britannia.

Ainslie’s team, which has since rebranded to GB1 and is backed by private equity firm Oakley Capital, plan to modify and use the boat at the next America’s Cup in Naples, Italy, next summer.

Handing over the boat to INEOS would, Athena claim, ‘radically and irreparably harm the Defendant’s preparation and campaign for AC38’, whereas Ratcliffe and INEOS have ‘not identified any financial or commercial interest in (much less a need for)” the AC75 boat’.

In their filing, Athena cites a clause specifying the difference between assets bought directly by INEOS and bought using funding from Ratcliffe’s empire: ‘[A]ny other assets of any sort acquired by Athena using (or in respect of)’ the funding provided by the Claimant ‘shall be owned by Athena’ (clause 3.7.1). They add: “The clause was in absolute terms, and did not contain any temporal (or other) limitation.’

As part of their own claim, INEOS acknowledge that Athena owned the boat during the term of the Cup, stating it was ‘commercially necessary or desirable that the assets acquired or under development for the purposes of AC37 should be owned by the Defendant during the currency of the AC37 campaign’ as ‘this structure enabled the parties to obtain tens of millions of pounds’ worth of benefits and represented a key part of the funding of the campaign.’

However, INEOS claims it was entitled to the boat after Ratcliffe declined to renew the sponsorship of Athena following the AC37 cycle

INEOS will have the opportunity to respond to the defence filing before the case is heard at the High Court.

A spokesperson for Athena Racing said: “Our case is set out in the defence papers. Athena continues to focus on GB1’s preparations for the 38th America’s Cup in Naples next year for Britain.”

INEOS declined to comment.