United will now be forced to endure the humiliation of the Europa League on Thursday nights.

If you go to the United website, the current prices shown for tickets only show Champions League prices. With United fans left frustrated at the club’s inability to spend the money on a desperately needed world class central midfielder, despite being the most profitable club in the world, you have to wonder how much the Glazers will think they can charge to see us compete in a competition we should not be playing in.

Here’s hoping Sir Alex opts to play the lads who would have had a go in the Carling Cup, following yet another embarrassing exit from that competition at the hands of Crystal Palace last week. But will Europa tickets be made compulsory for season ticket holders to purchase as Champions League tickets have been? You would imagine so. And you would also imagine the anti-Glazer protests will be back in full force at the weekend…

United have lodged a listing application and the share sell off could be complete by the end of the year.

The money raised by selling off this chunk of the club could then be used to reduce the club’s debt.

Read more about what this means on the Andersred blog and at United Rant.

Whilst credit has to go to the manager for buying so well, you can’t help but wonder just how successful we might have been since 2005 if not held back by the Glazers.

United are the “most valuable sporting franchise” in the world, according to Forbes, so why is that 13 teams in the Premier League alone have larger nett spends than us? You can only imagine how many football teams there are across Europe with larger nett spends, then across the world.

A point often raised is the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo, which I struggle to get my head around. We signed a teenager this country’s press and rival fans dubbed a “one trick pony” then we turned him in to the best player in the world. We made £67ish million on him because of that. Regardless, any other club who made that amount of money on a player would then go and spend it. The fact that United haven’t emphasises the point regarding the Glazers and how they have held us back.

Money spent

Manchester City have spent £291,370,000 more than us. Their nett spend is £366,670,000 more than ours.
Liverpool have spent £88,940,000 more than us. Their nett spend is £34,510,000 more than ours.
Spurs have spent £66,000,000 more than us. Their nett spend is £81,750,000 more than ours.
Chelsea have spent £35,200,000 more than us. Their nett spend is £84,250,000 more than ours.

We’ve spent £79,150,000 more than Arsenal. Our nett spend is £41,300,000 more than theirs.

Trophies won

United: 4 league titles, 1 European Cup, 2 League Cups.
Chelsea: 1 league title, 3 FA Cups, 1 League Cup
Liverpool: 1 FA Cup
City: 1 FA Cup
Spurs: 1 League Cup
Arsenal: Nothing

It’s good to see us splashing the cash this summer, it’s long overdue. With three European Cup finals in four years, we can only dream of how many more trophies we could have had to our name if not for the constraints put on our spending by our owners.

LOVE UNITED HATE GLAZER

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All stats from TransferLeague.co.uk

“We have spent a lot of time listening to fans at a time when our team is thriving and our economy is not,” said Joel Glazer. “As a result, we are now offering several pricing changes in response to our community’s needs.”

This sparked a MUST campaign where close to 30,000 United fans e-mailed Joel Glazer to ask him to listen to us too, and lower our prices.

Today, the Glazers have confirmed that ticket prices will increase at Old Trafford next season, after this season’s price freeze.

The prices will go up £1 per game and the Glazers claim the decision has been taken as a direct result of the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20%, having absorbed the initial rise since the turn of the year. This means the most expensive season ticket at Old Trafford next season will be £950 (£19 more than it is this season, illustrating the £1 per game increase).

It’s not all doom and gloom though, as they have taken up an idea put forward by the Fans Forum to reduce ticket prices for 16 and 17 year-old’s, capping them at £20, as part of the transition from a junior ticket to a full adult.

If we compare this to Arsenal, a club who haven’t won anything for six years, spend less than us in the transfer market but don’t have a problem with debt, there are some interesting findings. Their cheapest season ticket for next season will be £951 (although this does include cup games) after an increase of 6.5%.

According to The Telegraph, when taking into account the new prices, and this season’s freeze, United’s tickets will have increased on average by 5.8% over the last six years. In the six years before the Glazer take over, the average was 5.9%.

“I am absolutely delighted to lend my support to such a worthwhile cause – I am committed to wanting to see every MUST Green and Gold shirt sold, and I will personally be handing the £25,000 cheque over to The Prostate Cancer Charity,” he said. “I can’t believe the quality of the shirts, they’re much better than the ones I used to wear. I’d urge all Manchester United fans to support this superb project and I look forward to presenting the charity with their cheque at some point in the near future.”

All profits go to The Prostate Cancer Charity.

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Join MUST
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“Our data show the club has lost retail revenue from the year 2009 to 2010 by around 10%,” said Dr Peter Rohlmann, the report’s author. “This is due to the fact that all the circumstances about the ownership and the behaviour of the Glazer family were not positive in the minds of Manchester United fans. This has had a direct impact on their merchandising spend.”

In the summer, RoM launched a ‘Dig Out Your Old Shirts‘ campaign where we encouraged fans to don shirts of years gone by instead of buying one of the new ones.

We wrote:

Nike signed a deal worth £303m with United which expires in 2015. Whilst presently, it is Nike’s pocket we will be hurting, not the Glazers’, it stands to reason that in 2015, the Glazers will be offered considerably less for the manufacturing contract with Nike.

Not only do Nike make the kits, but they are responsible for “Manchester United’s global retail operations”. This essentially means Nike spreads the United brand around the world.

Every penny that we can deny the Glazers is another reason for them to sell up. At present, they don’t have much of a reason to go, but if year on year they make less money from our club and they come to the conclusion that they are going to sell, they would need to do so sooner rather than later to get the best price. Every year that they wait and every year that the protests gain momentum, the less money they are going to make from us.

The Guardian has suggested today that this decrease in revenue could lead to a new deal being put in jeopardy.

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You’ve made your decision on renewal… now the shirt

They initially used blue and white scarves, the colours of their first kit, but felt like these weren’t different enough from their current colours which differs only by having additional red.

So, in order to stand out, they have followed suit with United in using green and gold to show their dissatisfaction with those in charge of their club.

Have they sold a stake of the club to raise the money? Have they sold off another of their assets? Or have they refinanced or borrowed more against the club?

Details are still pretty murky but this potentially could be very good news. But then potentially very bad news too.

AndersRed, The Telegraph, and The Guardian.

Surely the FA will have to fix this so we get them in the 3rd round, if they make it through? Although if it’s drawn at Old Trafford, we should expect an empty away end…