It may be a very old joke – “The best of way of becoming a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and buy yourself a football club” – but, like most one-liners of a certain age, it has the ring of truth about it.
Ask Jim Ratcliffe. You don’t get to be as rich as him, and stay rich for the duration, without taking a ruthless approach to big-time sporting investments.
In recent months, Ratcliffe’s petrochemical company Ineos has broken ties with Ben Ainslie, the most talked-about sailor since Sinbad, and his bid to win the America’s Cup – a competition so greedy for money, it makes the spac...