Katie Zelem, a top Angel City FC player, has suggested that Manchester United is not fully supporting its female team.
Zelem, who won the FA cup with Manchester United's women's team last year before moving to Los Angeles, had some harsh words for her former team's management.
She told Manchester World: "It has been difficult. You like to think when you're in a professional women's team, in the first team, that you are a priority.
"But unfortunately, at Manchester United over the six years I was there it didn't always feel like that, whether it was being moved out of facilities or whether you're struggling for pitches."
One example of the women being forced to make accommodations for the men's team was earlier this year, when it was announced that in order to make space for the men's team while the club's main training center underwent renovations, the women's squad would have to move out of their brand new training facility to a temporary location so that the men could have priority use of their building.
At the time, the club said that the renovations would ultimately result in "all areas of the building being refurbished to deliver a world-class soccer facility with a positive culture to support future success."
Manchester United has been contacted via email for comment.
Despite being FA Cup championship winners in 2024, something the men's team have not achieved since 2016, Zelem said that the club's new owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his company INEOS, have reduced the club's budget and made the women's team feel the brunt of these cuts.
She added: "I think it's something that needs to be sorted because Manchester United could have one of the best women's teams in the world."
These accusations are not the first time that the Manchester United women's team has felt like a second-class team.
When he took over the club in June of this year, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, told Bloomberg that he was not focused on the women's team, as he was "pretty much focused on how we resolve the [men's] first team issues."
Cost cutting strategies taken up under Ratcliffe include staff redundancies and removing ticket concessions for children and the over-65s.
The ticket price hike has been criticized by the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST), who said the move was "offensive," adding: "This means that for an adult member to take their kid to a game in the remainder of this season will cost £132. Well over double the minimum price they could pay to do it today. And this change is happening overnight, immediately."
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