Ben Foster has singled out what he has seen from Manchester United chief executive officer Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox under the Ineos regime.

Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox have been key Ineos figureheads since Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s regime took control of football operations at Old Trafford in 2024.

Ben Foster thinks Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada did not see eye to eye with Dan Ashworth at Man Utd

During Ineos’ shake-up of the behind-the-scenes hierarchy in 2024, Dan Ashworth was viewed as another important acquisition alongside Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada. Ashworth had spent five months on gardening leave at Newcastle in 2024 before he finally arrived at Old Trafford in July.

However, the former Newcastle sporting director’s time at United lasted only five months before Ashworth made his exit from the Premier League club in December 2024. United had initially paid a fee between £2m and £3m to secure Ashworth from Premier League side Newcastle.

According to BBC Sport in 2024, Man Utd sources claimed that the decision to allow Ashworth to leave was ‘difficult’ after Sir Jim Ratcliffe had been keen to bring him to Old Trafford. Ben Foster worked under Ashworth when the former Man Utd sporting director was a technical director at West Brom.

Speaking on Ashworth, Foster said on the Fozcast podcast: “He was there at one time. And you know what? When he got let go or whatever he did, everybody was kind of giving him a bit of abuse really, weren’t they? And it didn’t look very nice.

“But he’s the one that’s come away from this — probably not said a word because he’s not allowed to — but looking at it going, ‘Wow.’”

Ashworth returned to football in 2025 after he became the first chief football officer for the Football Association (FA). Based on Ashworth’s ill-fated tenure at Old Trafford, Foster is convinced that the 55-year-old might have rubbed Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada the wrong way if he pointed out the problems at United.

“Because he would have said, ‘I don’t like that. I don’t like that,’” he continued.

“And then I think you’ll have Berrada and Wilcox who would have paired up and gone, ‘He’s calling us out here. He’s a threat here. Why don’t we get rid of him and then we can carry on doing what we’re doing?’”

Wilcox later moved on from his role as United’s sporting director and became the director of football at the Premier League club after replacing Sir David Brailsford in 2025.