Sir Alex Ferguson, who was seen signing a protest green and gold scarf a few weeks ago, has today claimed that he likes seeing our fans wearing green and gold.
“There are fans’ protests toward Glazer, but that is no trouble to me, as there is no interaction with the team and the sport level,” said Ferguson. “Today, protest has become a reflex. Anyway, I like to see the yellow and green scarves. The fans love their club and they are worried. I don’t have the same worry. I am only focussed on the team.”
Man Utd News 24/7
now its clear why fergie likes to sign just one player!!!!!Let the master make the right decision and we will always follow him…glory MUFC!!!
LUHG!
How about this for a selective headline Scott:
Fergie: The fans love their club and they are worried. I don’t have the same worry.
Time and again Fergie has come out in the open and has defended the Glazers as owners, but you still have continued to bicker on about how Fergie is behind the movement. Ofcourse I wouldnt expect Fergie to come out in the open against the Glazers, but this is like clutching at straws.
I can understand the G&G moment and the hatred towards the Glazers, but I expect better from you Scott. I have been reading this blog a long time now and lately its getting a little petty from your side on the Glazer issue. Yes you are entitled your opinion, but this is getting lame.
What bothers me, is that the Glazers are worth billions yet have not invested a penny in the club
Once the debt is paid off, they would have acquired the club without paying a penny
@ Prakash,
what also pisses me off is the fact that only
since the turn of the year have people jumped
on the bandwagon….I used to
get slaughtered for following FC United in
protest of the Glazers and now it’s become the latest fashion to be anti-Glazer….all this should have kicked off years ago with the mainstream fan base…taken 5 fuckin years.
To be fair to Scott he’s never been
in favour of the Glazers, as many of our loyal supporters haven’t, but if people are serious about getting rid of the Glazers then they should NOT renew season tickets.
erm… is this quote actually from Sir Alex? The words don’t sound like his usual language…
What was it that Franz Beckenbauer said? A beautiful defeat at Old Trafford?!
This is a beautiful defeat also hey?!
@Sayyid
As I mentioned over and over on the Red Knights, worth doesn’t mean liquid assets. Many of us reading this blog are worth in excess of 100k without a problem BUT unlocking even 10% of that would be very hard if not impossible for most. Most peoples worth is tied up in investment, to unlock this value you usually have to either a) Sell assets or b) Do what the Glazers have and take loans against the assets.
Now you are a little unfair on them saying they have not invested a penny. To reach a position to trigger the takeover they had to get to 30% of the shares. How much that 30% cost them is hard to tell because they were bought over a period of time. However in 1999 after the Sky takeover was blocked the value of the 30% was £156mill. This is at a low so the Glazers almost certainly paid more than that for the initial shares.
Lets leave the 500mill that’s now bond out of the equation (That is investment by them really BUT the structure adds complexity) BUT the PIK loans are in their name and hence secured against their assets. They also invested a bit more of their own cash at this point. So they have a personal investment of over £400mill.
Wakey please direct us to the FACTS they have invested 400 million, not interested in heresay.
Not much to say about the final. The cheating bastards got what was coming to them. Congrats to Inter and specially Diego Milito. I’ve been very impressed by him this year. Wouldn’t it be nice if Tevez lost his place in the Argentina starting XI to Milito?
Raises a glass of Ouzzo to Costas, exactly they cheated us big time and deserve what they got.
Tell me please Costas, no piss taking would you like Jose at our Club, i wont be a smart arse and reply akwardly just like to know what you feel mate.
FFs why are you on here anyway, I thought you would be out celebrating.
But chuffed you blog , and blog with little old me
Rai: Absolutely spot on. The whole protest just grew very rapidly after the ABU media released the numbers and stats on our debt. The fans didn’t like it and hence all the protest and anti-glazer stuff like you said. One could ask why now? Everyone knew about the debt. I think it was a dirty trick by the media to try and get the fans to revolt and unsettle the team. Sadly I think it has worked to some extent.
Mourinho has to replace SAF. I don’t care if he’s gonna stay here for 5 years, (even though I watched a Sky Sports interview, in which Mourinho said he would at a club for as long as he was appreciated and had stable control of a club), because when SAF leaves, we’re gonna be in trouble. Mourinho will manage the period of transition until a long term candidate is found. If Mourinho DOES NOT leave, then we have simply GOT to stay with him. I have the deepest respect for Ole, Bruce, Moyes etc, but they simply cannot manage a club like United. Thus I will be dissappointed if Mourinho doesnt succeed Fergie.
@redscot
Hi mate. Easy on the ouzo, lol. It can be a bit heavy, trust me! I don’t have a problem being here. I had a few friends come over and watch the game with me, but they had to leave afterwards. We will party another day.
Mourinho in on top of Europe again, but I don’t have a straight answer for you. I won’t take anything away from him as a manager and he probably can carry that at OT. At the same time, I am afraid that he could divide us. Some fans feel very strongly against him and that won’t change. I am always of the opinion that there’s more than one Mourinho out there. Lets hope that we can find him by the time Fergie has called it a day.
Nonetheless, Mourinho deserves congratulations for taking an Inter side with one of the bigest loser mentalities in the Ch.League and transforming them like that.
Would you like to see him one day at OT?
@ Costas, cheers for reply you know Costas I try so hard on here to get a response and what the lads feel , I often think they just dont look at other peoples views. just looking for a reaction to sit and gloat in some perverse way.
Glad you have had a nice day and enjoyed the match and I guess the correct result.
Not for for me at Old Trafford, Jose I think young Giles Oakley said it brilliantly not United DNA.
? Can you no put yer name forward the man with the level head and reason, adored bye all not least bye me. I wont put laughing after that but I guess you smile at that post.
Glad I can still comunicate and learn
@redscot
The number of shares issues was 265.19million. So 30% is around 79.5million shares
They announced they had bought their first batch of shares on 26 September 2003. This was around 3% which equates to roughly 8million shares. The morning of the announcement the share price had dropped to £1.93 per share. Based on that the first 3% cost around £15mill to acquire and would put the 30% threshold at around £153mill [Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3141968.stm
As we don’t know the value of the shared from 3-10% we have to go on the £1.93 figure so that puts us at atleast £50mill spent
By the 20th of October the holding had increased to 5.9% then 8.94% and then 9.66% which pushed the share value up as the takeover rumours started. By the end of November he had bought another 4.5% for 30mill which puts the purchase price at £2.5 [Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3246512.stm
That puts the cost to get to 30% at a projected amount of around £182.5million
Figure wise it gets a little hard after this to keep track. What we do know is that on October 14th 2004 he owned 19% of the shares. If we use the last purchase price that’s around another 60mill
In the next 5 days he spends 65mill to up that to 28%.. So that 9% costs £2.70 a share.
With 2% left to buy the spends now at around £205mill. The next 2% at the last rate would add another 14mill but from reading to get these figures I don’t think they bought the extra 2%, instead just started their £3 a share takeover from 28% ownership
Now when the Takeover was launched at this point it took £790mill to wrestle control. £518mill of that was the leveraged buyout through the bank loan that’s now a £506mill Bond.
The remaining £272million came from the Glazers. £175mill of it was from the PIK they took out in their name. The remain £97mill was their own money
So we have
£205mill + £97mill = £302mill (Is probally a little higher as I have used lower purchase figures for many of the purchases as I couldn’t find the exact figures)
£302m + £175m = £477mill
@redscot
Lol thanks for the kind words. I just try to look at both sides of each arguement. Plus, is’s eacy to communicate with reasonable people like you.
The truth is that plenty of United fans have issues with Mourinho for the same reason as Giles Oakley. And this is exactly what I see as the biggest obstacle for Mourinho to come to United. Can Mourinho play the type of football we like to see at United on a regular basis? Can he bring youngsters through the ranks. Can he dial down the ego? Many questions. But then again, Fergie set such high standards that I don’t think that anyone can even think about reaching them. And I don’t mean just the trophies.
At the end of the day, if I had to choose between one last year of Fergie and the arrival of Mourinho, I would choose the first option without a second’s hesitation. And 99.9% of United fans would probably do the same. So we already have a lot going for us nest season!
On a slightly different topic, if Mourinho does go to Real, it would be quite stupid on his part. He won’t find the level of commitment and sacrifice there that he has at Inter.
I did ask not heresay? remember my point thats just you typing shite and gobbidly gook.
Show us there bank balance, i will show you robbers
*next season*
Congrats to Inter. It’s unbelievable how they only got to the final because of outrageous refereeing. They’re sort of like the German Chelsea, just with less cunts in the team albeit more quality players. Hope we challenge strongly for the CL title next year. Playing in the final at Wembley, winning it on English soil, would be pretty nice.
@redscot
How is it gobblygook and hearsay. Its showing actual figures. Yes I had to fill some blanks in but I used conservative figures
And its great how people can post whatever they like against the Glazers and you and you will take it as gospel no matter how ridicious the statement is yet anything that tries and bring some balance to the discussion you information such as their bank accounts.
You don’t need bank accounts to know what I have posted is true but go ahead and keep being part of the problem group that’s making all of us united fans look like the village idiot and undermines any genuine concerns.
@ Costas sorry bud, i get a bit hot under the collar as we all do with the mismatch and guddle of the Glazer, I prob should stay out of it, it just angers me.
Costas I am being totally straight I want to learn and take on board all the boys comments, like yours i totally enjoy the comments wether i comment or not.
I just cant pick holes in your post or posts.
I guess I am not part of this blog no more.
Sorry wakey I was just trying to understand if you were United or Dead.
For me its dead. how do we say Aforisto poli. or In Scottish ta ta.
@Wakey
Do you only come out to play when the subject matter is the Glazers?
Your post’s are like x73 million longer than everyone elses.
Please stop. It’s getting boring now.
I can see Mourinho going to Real in the summer. He likes challenges. He will relish facing egotistical characters at Real – he’ll wisely offload the ones who will be no use. He may even be able to win Real the title – he is capable of beating Barcelona. I don’t mind which club he decides to manage – anywhere but Utd. He is proven, successful, a great manager, etc. He takes pressure off players, but does he protect them? Last season he criticized Inter’s performance against Roma, said Balotelli’s rating is zero. Balotelli is a bit of a cunt but he is young and his maturity and development will take time. Mourinho as his manager should support him publicly, not aggravate their fallout. If he did maybe the fans would not be as hostile towards him… Mourinho just doesn’t know how to educate young players, use his authority to command respect from each player. Maybe it’s not always ideal to take pressure off players anyway. It worked for Inter’s players but generally footballers need to feel pressure in football.
@redscot
You are part of this blog mate. The Glazer convo is not a pleasant one and tensions do rise, but it’s not the only subjest that you can discuss.
@AlphaRS
I post on plenty of other subjects. The reaction of United fans in general on this whole subject though is one which annoys me because there is so much shit being peddled by both the media, MUST and the United Fan Blog Editors that its ridiculous. And so many United fans are eating it up without a) Engaging their brains b) Doing the research.
Now if you want me to stop then fine I will once the whole ownership discussion stops being at tabloid level and is an ACTUAL discussion on the issues and not wild rumours, out of context information and the likes. Until then I will continue to play devils adovacate and provide the counter argument to main the balance
I like how if anyone isn’t ready to jump on the Glazer hate campaign and bitch about doomsday scenarios they are attacked by the usual suspects on this blog. Wakey puts in an effort to articulate his point of view and Redscot as usual can only offer up a snide, ignorant retort. Fuck off and don’t renew your season tickets but otherwise some of us are quite tired of your ignorant bitching and whining about the same fucking things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Any argument that is contrary to how bad the Glazers have been (3 league titles, 2 Champions league finals, 1 Champions league win, etc.) is dismissed as pure luck. While I am not thrilled at the debt that our club is in I don’t believe that the Red Knights will be any better and in fact I believe they would be much worse. So unless there is some multibillionaire out there who can buy the club cash then I don’t see a better alternative to the current owners.
On a side note: I hope that if Mourinho leaves Inter that we can get Sneijder as I believe a creative midfielder of true class and maybe another worldclass striker to help Rooney is all we need to compete for all the major trophies next season.
@ Wakey please as I asked at give us the links not u haveering shite. We are United fans. Not you relentlessly typing drivvle. for the love of God and mother Mary jesus.
SHOW us there bank balance?
Cheers Costa, now there will be trouble, when i hit the keyboard and cider…. lmao
wakey u were not asked to type what u think, the question was simple, display the links? its not rocket science
didn’t he protect the glazers a couple of days ago? Maybe now he wanted some transfer money and didn’t get it and then say this…
Wakey for the love of God, show where you get your facts? with links
Not you just typing shit
The point is IT cant. end off
I suggest you go and get glasses as there are links in there. However i’m not going to post a comment of 20 links because
1) Alot of the information is common knowledge (or should be if you are daring to comment or state an opinion or join any campaign about the ownership)
2) The links alone are a lot harder work for those reading as they have to pull the information out of them and do the maths. I am saving people time while providing the sources for people to confirm
3) You are limited in how many links you can post in a comment before it goes in the moderation queue. And scotts not going to manually approve a post of links, he will see it and just assume its spam
Wakey – Feel free to post the links
@ wakey sweetie, you see the point is you still type, give us the fucking links to your plan
bows at the master> no blow jobs though
Ok heres a few of the links detailing information on the number of total shares, some of the share purchases, some figures on what was paid for some of the share purchases
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/162/162302_glazers_takeover__timeline.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3141968.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-323354/Timeline-How-Glazer-saga-unfolded.html
http://citywire.co.uk/personal/share-prices-and-performance/share-factsheet.aspx?InstrumentID=2099
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3207492.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3246512.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3835575.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3754598.stm
That takes you uptp the point of the £790mill takeover being launched
I’m assuming no-one needs links to the breakdown of the takeovers funding. After all anyone commenting on this subject should know that 518mill was leveraged against the club and the PIK loans were 175mill (which leaves 95mill)
Well go on then Scott approve the post
im with wakey on this 1 nat that i agree with the glazers bt da mans just trying to get his point across
@ wakey not one of those posts recognise those Glazers put anything into the Club, you no it i know it. Sadly for you I am avid reader 18 but not stupid. Let me try again? show me there initail investment?
I now await the inevitable “I asked for their Bank Accounts” from redscot. After all proving beyond doubt something isn’t good enough for him unless its anti Glazer comments in which anything written is true
@redscot
HOW DO YOU THINK THEY BOUGHT THE BLOODY SHARES. WITH MAGIC BEANS. Seriously are you stupid or are you just playing at it?
no need to get personal i just asked a question right. which you have not answered
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3141968.stm
That shows their initial investment. They bought 8million shares (around 3%) when the Share price was around £1.93
Now do the maths, you can make it easier by rounding it up. 8,000,000 x 2 = 16,000,000
tisk tisk some peope
wakey
because of pure laziness I havent bothered to analyse all your posts, but can you give me your views on the glazers in a short version, please? what do you believe the actual debt is? thank you
Redscot you never cease to amaze with your ignorance and inability to objectively view any counter-argument. Wakey don’t mind some of these ignorant twats. You simply can’t talk sense to some people and it seems he is content to wind you up.
One is left to wonder if this dood wanks over the Financial times.
wakey serious now a mo ignoring twats that type, 127 million for a club of Manchester UNITED status. do be butt fucked bye yanks with zero in hand makes sense.
@ united fan simples dont comment
You are an eloquent one aren’t you now redscot. I guess if you have nothing to actually say of significance then it makes sense to resort to spewing homophobic, xenophobic drivel.
cheers United fan Bottoms up and all that! pmsl
@sprite
My view is while the Glazers aren’t angels they aren’t anywhere near as bad as they have been made out to be. They have just been chosen as the easy targets to take free punches at by people who have other motives (be it the ABU media or MUST or people looking to get a cheap but valuable asset) and then they have managed to worry and then bamboozal the fans and then its spiraled out of control so now anything can be a way to show how evil they are.
The debt figures being used are techically correct but its how you view them. The debt at its core is £506mill that’s in the bond. The PIK’s complicate matters a bit bit the imporant fact about those is this is Glazer debt not United Debt. Dividends they receive from the club can be used to pay them BUT the club itself doesn’t and can’t service them directly. Using the dvidends to pay them shouldn’t be a concern as its normal as pretty much every single sports team owner had to ‘borrow’ from somewhere to buy and uses their dividends to help pay it back. If i can any ‘deeper; this will be 20 pages so I will stop there
The CUNTS are far from Angels, do you even know what a Angel is. idiot.
Show me there withdrawals from there bank ……… I will show you 127 million. for Manchester United. its ridiculous you can defend these cunts.
You put up zero defence.
Lets just agree to differ and you are a lunatic … right!
@redscot
Where did you get 127mill. Even if you decide to ignore the PIK’s there is over £302mill.
What is this phanton 127mill you keep spouting about.
As for
“Manchester United. its ridiculous you can defend these cunts.”
Its an awful lot easier than defending most of the ‘Anti Glazer’ claims. And I think you will find I have done an awful lot better justfiying what I have written than you ever have. You make Fred look eloquent and that’s saying something
well, as long as my no 1 idol Sir Alex, believes the Glazers secures the long term future of the dynasty he has been building, and in an age of 68, would probably have fought to his death to tear them apart if they were not handling in the very best interest of the club, I cant get into some crazy get-the-glazers-out protests.. by saying that, I hate the debt, but I dont believe the glazers are at fault for the economic times we are in.. and I actually believe the debt issue would have been less significant if it was a better climate..
with that being said I am not impressed with the way Glazer is taking so much money out of the club for his own needs, and I have to assume that is because of the current climate.. and as soon as we are out of it, it will get better.. but at this time we can get into some deep shit if the club get into the hands of some spesific (or actually the majority of the potential buyers) owners, the red knights, arabs.. they will probably get more involved, and who knows it could lead the club into some trouble.. At the moment I just have to be patient, and at least wait until the debt actually lead us into trouble, because at the moment it does not.. we are fighting for both EPL and CL glory.. I wont really start worrying before we are in the position city, chelsea are in.. clubs with no real history, that just goes for immediate glory.. who knows about their long term future? they could be in deep trouble if (when) the oil bastards pull out.. or the position of clubs where the lack of investment in the club, is pulling them down the table..then I will start protesting. of course I can always buy a scarf to show the glazers you better stick with the plan, or get lost and sell, if you dont have the intentions to do so..
Cheers leave Fred out of it he had fun and laughed with most lads.
You my friend just piss people off, 127 million refer to Anders Red, he knows a lot more than you than and is as far as i am aware unbiased( sorta).lol
#
The last lad that said i was a cunt at English or Gaelic or French got a pretty , put in your place.
Underestimate what you see at your peril.
@sprite
“I hate the debt”
We are generally taught debt is bad and for most people that’s all you need to know as that’s all you need for every day life. In business debt isn’t as simple, you are more concerned with cash flow than debt and most companies even the ExxonMobiles, Microsofts, Warner Brothers, Sky’s and the likes of this world will generally have a fair amount of debt. Strangely it can simply be more profitable to have debts than not
On the economy the only way really that a better economy would have helped ‘reduce’ the debt is that in a better economy refinincing the debt at better terms would have been easier. The amount wouldn’t have changed but maybe the interest payments would have been lower
“said I am not impressed with the way Glazer is taking so much money”
The thing is Glazer at the moment hasn’t really taken any significant money out of the club. In the 5 years they have taken the following
- 13mill in Management Fees
- 10mill in Director loans
Now the loans are loans so this isn’t really a payment. The Management fees are payments for their services rendered. Its nothing really unusual and 13mill over 5 years really isn’t that high.
They were entitled to dividends but up to the bond issue had passed on these each year (and also passed on the last PLC dividend they were due). The bond issue does allow them to take out Dividends and Management fees that will will amount to 160mill. It does sound a lot as a lump sum but as a ROI its only around 16mill a year over between 2005 and 2017
We don’t know if they have taken this yet or even if they ever intend to. The first lump sum of 70mill could have been taken already and we will know better on the 28th when the quarter results are published
@redscot
Link to the blog post where Andersred posts the 127mill figure as I’m certain you are talking it out of context.
As for him being unbiased, i’m not sure how someone who is working for MUST and also has a website that he wants to drive traffic to can actually be unbiased when myself who has nothing to gain either way is in your eyes biased.
Oh and I would add also his latest post is as biased as they come when he talks about the £437m the Glazers have costs the club.
- He included loans to the Glazers, these need paid back and with interest so its not a loss
- A significant amount of the costs listed are non-cash items that are there for accounting purposes only. No money has actually been lost, its just balancing the books
- Some of the costs are costs that were present in the PLC and would be in any owners acconts
- It doesn’t take into account the costs that aren’t present in the Glazers accounts but were in the PLC’s (Such as listing fees and dividends)
- It IGNORES the fact that many of the non-cash accounting items actually go towards saving money/fees. The main one being corporation tax where it has saved £89million alone
To his credit he did add some of these things in the small print afterwards BUT not before the version without the ammedments was passing it off to MUST to use in propaganda
This must give the LUIFWT bandwagon something to think about , these American wankers are raping there club so ” in fergie you trust ?????¿so I’d fergie just keeps thewdia ueatwrfay . I was o seem you amd fuck tpuree
Wakey sorry mate I have endreared myself to the AndersRed blog since Scott introduced to sameBud i am a youngster and trying to understand the financial muddle.
More importantly how we got here and who as let the club down
@redscot
No-one let the club down. Really the main issue is that the Glazers setup is fairly open compared to most club ownerships. We can see the debt figures where as many of the other clubs such as Chelsea, City and Villa their fans can’t really see the debt and they are ‘bribed’ to not see it.
I’ll explain what I mean. All 3 clubs were not bought with loans from a company, the company is owned by the new owners but its the still a loan that has to be paid back. This is paid back via dividends from shares, usually preferential shares that pay out a set amount no matter what the profit levels are. None of these clubs are really big businesses and have to be run very tightly to turn a profit BUT thats not what the clubs need. They need to spend money on big players even though they can’t afford it. They have rich owners though, they can buy the player? No they don’t. All they do is ok the club to spend money they don’t have on players they can’t afford. This pushes the club into debt without most people noticing, the fans after all have been bought off with the signings (Pompey is the perfect example here of fans being bought off).
In some cases the owner will write debts off once it gets to a certain level, Lerner did it at the start with Villa (but has since racked up debts of the same value) and Abramoich and the Shieks did it in January. This isn’t the end, they are written off in a debt for equity swap. The owner pays off the debts that were incured and for doing so is given more preferential shares paying out a set amount even if the club makes a loss.
So the clubs are constantly collecting more debt to outside parties. Every so often the owner will take on the debt but that will see the club paying out more and more money to the owner each year. The fans don’t care though as they get the players and trophys
Chelsea for example owe Abramovich more than the Bond and PIKS combined and that’s after he has cleared all the debt that wasn’t to him (Which he now has preferential shares and the dividends that brings in return for). Their profits are so low that basically anyone they buy this summer is done so using more debt
@ Wakey on your calcualtions al ok then, all Roses and flowers and heavenly.
Say we fail to qualify for the Champions league, or fall below 4 the or even 4 th, gotta a rescue plan.
i know its brilliant at youth age old stalwarts and searching the planet for youngsters on the cusp of greatness, lets just fucking throw the towel in eh.
Getta ouuta here Sir Alex is a Winner ARE you. get behind your team and club
Some lads just like typing keyboards to no end. lmao
WAKEY I aint one for disagrements and tussels on line, show me what they invested as you type the ” 400 million pounds in your club”.
its clear as This
@ redscot
Seriously, don’t you get the fact that it took money for the Glazers to buy United? Thats their investment!!!!!!!
i luv 2 c sir alex step down n give jose a chance 2 manage this club….. really2 luv it…..
Reading most of the comments here makes me very certain that fan ownership or the Red Knights won’t work in the long run. Too many people bickering trying to justify and merit their arguments. It’s a good thing that Sir Alex picks the team. I don’t like the debts but like it or not, the Glazers acquired the club legally. There’s nothing much anyone can do – protests or no. Maybe the question everyone should asks themselves is, “Would you still be a United fan if we are in the Championship or lower?” Because that could be what it takes. Anyways, if anyone refuse to renew their season tickets that’s their right. Lighten up people. This season we only have the Carling cup to show off but there had been some memorable matches along the way. I’m looking forward to next season and trying to claim back what is rightfully ours.
Been supportiing the team since ’85… Manchester United till I die…
@ Wakey
Thanks for your posts. I think transparency is the key word. The Glazers have been transparent about the debt, while Chelsea and City have not. The increasing revenues from the various regional commercial deals reaffirms Gill’s confidence in servicing the debt.
@redscott
Seriously…are you acting stupid?
Nice work Wakey, very interesting reading.
Why wouldd fergie come out and slag his bosses , they pay his wages .
Obviously no one is happy with the glazers and the debt but you have to hope somebody with more money comes along who has the interests of the club at heart like the red knights.
Anyway when we were a plc nobody was happy then , they wanted edwards out
@Wakey
I’ll disaprove your post, all the information has come from news agencies. Manchester United is a brittish business, it is law that they have to release ALL financial information. If you can find out who does the books as it were they are obliged to give you a full financial report for whatever year you like. They cannot refuse. So you seem clued up or wish to be, get those reports then you will have reliable information. Alot of your information anyhow was only about the money that exchanged hands for the takeover of the club, the majority (some) of the fans are upset only at the interest payment, in their eyes so called waste.
Dont rely on the press, you rarely learn anything of interest from the opinion papers. Get the financial reports and report back to base captain.
Wakey – as much although I can respect your knowledge of the financial side of this argument, you seem to view anti-Glazer fans as bandwagon jumpers. Most anti-Glazer fans I know are ST holders fed up of being shafted by Uncle Malc season after season. And as the club is hawking about trying to fill STs, it suggests to me we’re not on our own. Now it’s all very well for people to sit there watching utd from the comfort of their own armchairs extolling the virtues of the Glazers as great business minds, but they’re not directly affected by them as much as ST holders.
This isn’t me having a pop at people who can’t get to games for whatever reason. I am just making a point which seems to have been over-looked.
Anyway for as the sun is actually out in Manchester for the third day running – I’m going out to enjoy it!!!
I’m with Wakey on this. I don’t like the Glazers but there is a lot of crap being peddled by MUST and the like, who have their own agenda and it’s being swallowed up whole by people. It’s good to see an intelligent counter argument. As far as I can see Fergie has been given the money to spend when he’s needed it and he is simply refusing to pay over the odds in salaries and the extortionate wages that come with it. It’s not a computer game where you can go out and buy a fantasy team with no concerns over costs. There’s no doubt we need some improvements but we’ve just bought a new defender, forward and Fergies still looking for another player. There’s a lot of people on here who pass comment on here about the quality of some of our young players and United has always prided itself on youth. We don’t want a Mourinho approach of bringing in lots of expensive foreign players with no attachment to the club. We have a good team which just needs a little tweaking. We lost the league by a point which when you look back at the injuries sustained earlier on in the season was no bad thing. If Fergie sees a player he wants I’m sure he’ll be given the money. Keep on the green and gold, that’s your right but don’t forget the team on the pitch is ours and needs our support. Maybe it’s worth a point.
Well, the question of Mourinho is now academic, since it seems he signed for Real Madrid. Unless he is conveniently sacked at the time Sir Alex decides to retire, he’s off the market.
May be the question now is if he would still be an interesting choice, after a stint with Real.
On another note, it’s really important in this situation to avoid knee-jerk reactions towards our current situation. Clearly, there are people with an agenda providing numbers and arguments to the media. We need to understand that these people have something to gain (or lose) on these matters. Therefore, it is our responsibility to hear both sides of the story and try to work out what is propaganda and what is facts.
Numbers are just numbers, but they can interpreted in any number (pun intended) of ways. So any statement about our financial situation is influenced by the sender. We need to be critical and we need people that go against the mainstream opinion and challenge common understanding. (If not, the world would still be flat). Regardless of your personal opinion, people like Wakey and Andersred need and deserve the decency to be met with respect (rather than name calling and such) for their dedication, relentlessness and good research. I applaud both of them, without pledging any alliance to either side.
@redscot
Just as any of the teams set-up to be top 4 missing out is an issue. As Liverpool will almost certainly show though missing out for one season isn’t a complete disaster. The biggest issue is really your players getting cold feet and demanding to move to a CL team. United business is alot stronger than pretty much every team around us so it would have to be a number of years of missing out before it would cause a major meltdown, and as I have said before then many of the players would have jumped ship which could have changed the situation in the clubs favour.
@redscot
On the young players. The thing is people keep going on about how its the cheap way of doing things. How anyone can say the following transfers were cheap though is beyond me
Smalling – 12mill (some reports stating this could rise to 14mill)
Hernadez – 6mill (Again some reports have this going up to as much as 12mill based on addons)
Diouf – apparently around 5mill
Tosic – 6mill
The closest we get to a cheap youngster is Obertan at 3mill but thats still not cheap that cheap. Buying any player is a risk, there are so many factors which could see them not work out BUT buying youngsters increases this significantly. The safer bet financially would be buying a more established player, they might cost a little more initially but they would be more likely to walk into the first team and have an impact. And even if they failed they will have a history that ensures a decent return on sale.
The young players are a risk, a fairly expensive risk at that but its the kind of risk united have always taken and should be taking. And while the market is just at silly prices and the kind of players who would improve the team are limited putting money into youth may as well be done now
@redscot
I have shown you the 400mill already. I then gave you the links so you could go and work it out yourself.
@GoatinaUnitedShirt
First of all as a Private company they don’t have to publish all the financial information. As a PLC they did but as a private company they only have to submit a reduced statement. The bond information actually provides much more financial information than the published accounts do
And on the topic of conversation (How much did the Glazers invest) none of these records help. The Glazers share buys are not part of the United accounts and by law they only had to announce when they passed certain levels not provide information on how much they paid for every share. We have a few share dealings where their statements gave a figure and we know that the final stage of going from 28% to 100% was £790mill (and we know the break down of this was 518mill leveraged bank loan, 175mill in Personal PIK loan and 95mill of cash)
@Neville Neville
Match going fans are as much ‘Ship Jumpers’ as you call them as anyone, infact its the match going fans who are the easiest to manipulate into joining the cause.
As I have said in the past the percentage increase of tickets really does seem awful. Its the kind of thing that on its own and out of context is so easy to get those buying the tickets to get up in arms about. The problem is it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Prior to the takeover the price of United tickets was vastly undervalued by the PLC. They liked being able to boost about the ridiculous waiting list length and they just weren’t tracking the market value. They could get away with it, the stadium size was bigger than everyone else so outspending was easy. Things changed when Chelsea were bought by Roman. He didn’t have to bother about how much debt was accrued, he just had to ok spending to put Chelsea up there. And this is where tickets being cheap came back to bite. And with many clubs starting to talk about bigger stadiums the advantage could and has been pegged back. The PLC would have had to look at big increases and any new owner certainly was going to. All the Glazers have done is look around and brought prices in line with the rivals, specifically Liverpool.
The simple fact is as long as TV rights are sold as a collective then match day revenue is the main income stream and no club that has serious ambitions can afford to be too far away from the price that the market dictates as doing so would be business and football suicide
Yep, Wakey – all easy to say when you’re not actually being affected by it. The average fan gets persisently hit in their pocket and they vote with their feet and have been doing in steady numbers since the Glazers took over. Let’s just hope that their seats are filled this season as well.
You see dissatisfaction as “manipulation” by the likes of MUST (slighly patronising that mate if I’m honest); I see it as people being fed up with continually being shafted by Uncle Malc. As I’ve said before, if you don’t attend games or hold a season ticket then obviously your opinions aren’t going to be as strong as those who do. I doubt very much that a consolation thought to anyone priced out of the game in recent seasons has been, “Ah well, never mind, at least the cost of our tickets are in line with the dirties now”.
What I do agree with you on is your scepticism of the Red Knights though. So in terms of a solution to this, who knows? What I do know is that (possibly as a result of the G&G campaign?) my season ticket price hasn’t rocketed for the first time this year. And thank fuck for that.
@Wakey and Everyone Else
What are you annoyed about?
I’m annoyed at the 60% odd rise in my season ticket.
I’m annoyed that the club is owned by a person who has no cultural ties to the club who is solely interested in making money.
I’m annoyed that the Glazers have never made an attempt to open any dialogue with United faithful.
The real person to blame could be Martin Edwards who floated United on the stock exchange in 1991. We experienced much success since then. That was the upside.
This left us open to hostile takeovers from profiteering financial sharks. That is the downside.
The irony is that without one you can not have the other.
Because of the PLC structure the club was NEVER protected from a hostile takeover.
The Glazers have decided not to increase the price of season tickets this season. Could that be because the demand has fallen. Gone are any waiting lists. We have seen United season tickets on general sale for the first time since how long?!
You are correct in saying the media do spout alot of shite about what is going on at United. But your arguements maybe better directed at http://andersred.blogspot.com/ who might understand everything you are talking about because I certainly don’t.
In regards to season ticket prices for clubs with serious ambitions. What about the season ticket prices for Real Madrid and Barcelona?
@ Wakey
The Glazers buying the club isnt investing in Utd, no matter how much money they used of their own to pay for the club it was not invested in Utd. That money is sat in a former shareholders bank account not in Utd’s bank account. The players they are buying are with the clubs money not their own and the rest of the money THEY BORROWED is being paid off by the club. Add to that the personal loans they have taken off Utd etc.. and I think you stating they have invested £400 million in Utd is shown to be complete bollocks mate. They have paid some money to buy Utd but have not said right we the Glazers have so many million here so lets give that to Utd for ie. buying players. Now Im not bigging up uncle Rom but he has invested his own money in chelsea, and that for all your facts and figures is something the Glazers have not done, and this is I think what Redscot is actually getting at!!
@AlphaRS
I’m annoyed at the fact that some culbs can spend 80m on a single player without having to consider the financial consequences. This is what Abramovich or Sheik ownership gives us. Also, the Real Madrid situation is one where politics, finance and football are unified. A conspiracy, if you will, where politicians would never be allowed to let the club go bankrupt (because of their power connections they would be the ones who got the blame), so bankers will write off the loan. Alternatively, they can sell their training ground to the city of Madrid for a ridiculous amount of money on the promise that the city will build another for them.
Abramovich and the sheiks don’t care about operating profit. They will let the club run at a loss at their discretion. This is what we have to compete with. Clubs that don’t care about their financial performance. But as soon as Abramovich leaves or at least stops financing Chelsea, they will be in enormous trouble and probably end up like Leeds.
I don’t like to have our club saddled with too much debt, but like it or not, as it stands now, we are in a good shape, financially. You can always argue that we’re not buying players because we don’t have the cash flow, but I’m going to trust Fergie on this one and believe him when he says he’s got every funding he wanted for this.
We cannot operate like we had a sugar daddy unless we have a sugar daddy as an owner. If we had one I would be worried though, because such an owner will always jeopardise your long run stability. That’s why I prefer an owner that cares more about financial profits than everything else, because most of the time these people are not totally stupid. They realise you need on pitch success to perform financially.
That said, Glazers aren’t necessarily the right party for us, but I’m sceptical towards the more idealistic parties. We’re beyond that now, I’m afraid. There’s no way we can compete that way.
Thank you Gee, Cheers mate.At know time did he actually copy one line of the numerous documents he scrolled and pasted, one line where it showed there own” personall” investment of 400 million pounds.It cant be done its simple they have not invested to this level and its not possible to produce this information.
Although I will admit he is a master of bamboozling lads with useless facts, but when asked a simple question based on his input he cant produce it.
For me thats it finished its just producing data for no reason to try to defend the undefendable.
Are you the Glazer family spokesman?
AlphaRS – well put mate!
All i’ve heard from Wakey and a few others, is that MUST and imusa have an hidden agenda, but do you notice that there’s never any evidence to support this? The facts are, that the glaziers put little of their own money into buying United. As i said on a different thread, if the Red Knights are for real, then they need to put up, or shut up, for the sake of the club we all love.
Redscot, The money wakey talks about did come from the Glazers, whether it came from thier own back pockets you would never get to find that out, more likely it came from one of their other companies as capital investment would offset taxes. Also no bank in the world would lend money at the levels they have if the Glazers had put in some equity i.e. the shares they owned before the takeover was launched, the banks would have asked for and seen evidence of this before committing.
Also it has to be clear to everyone that the Gimps will have bought th club expecting that a strong global economy would give them access to affordable credit and that it could have been paid off much sooner, the events of the last couple of years have put paid to that, this isnt supporting the Glazers is just how it is and what will happen is the gimps will at some point go it alone over TV rights as with Barca and Madrid and before anyone tells me these two clubs are looking to re-enter collective bargaining just remember they want it weighting in thier favour so they get more out of it than the other clubs RM get approx 150 million euros a year alone.
So yes they are bad but wakeys points are valid
@Neville Neville
Thank you mate.
@Yergen
Perhaps your post was more direct at Gee?
However I will comment. Manchester United can no longer compete with the new super elite.
Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Mardrid, and Barcelona can pretty much go out there are buy whoever they want. The cost of buying a player and paying his wages has risen due to these teams. We hear SAF talking about no value in the market but whilst these 4 teams are spending ridiculous amounts of money there will never be any value in the market. So I trust SAF and I always will. I trust his footballing decisions on the pitch but in terms of who owns the club and how it is run I will make my own decisions.
Perhaps when UEFA introduce some new rules regarding the percentage of money that can be spent on transfers a wages from a clubs turnover and also the inclusion of the champions league rules in terms of squad will change matters.
I don’t want to operate like a club owned by a sugar daddy.
There are many things I do want though. I want United to be owned by fans and fans alone, I want to have a say in how my club is being run, I want proftis to be put back in to the club and not lining the pockets of money men or shareholders, I want Old Trafford to be a 100,000 capacity stadiu, I want a charity to be put on the front of United shirts, I want an allocation of seats for home games given to school kids who can come and watch United play for free, I want easier access for kids in the UK and ROI in to the Manchester United Academy, etc. The list could go on and on.
Imagine us suddenly being a less successful club both on and off the pitch for a good few years. This seems likely to happen whenever Sir Alex decides to retire. Winning earnings would drop, especially if we don’t manage to qualify for the CL, the club would probably become less popular world wide leading to weaker sponsorship deals and less fan items and such being sold. It’s going to suck big time being saddled with a massive debt then. With this in mind, it seems daft to assume that the club’s in “good financial shape”, when it does seem very fragile.
I don’t think that there is a suspicious hidden agenda. It’s just simply that they as much as the rest of us don’t like what’s happening to the identity of our club. None of us like the Glazers and what’s happened but when the club was put on the stock market it was inevitable that one day someone was going to take it over. Sadly it’s not been taken over by a United fan but a businessman who has no passion for the club and that’s what is being resented. If a United fan had walked in and taken over and was managing the club the same way would we be campaigning the way we are or would we possibly be trusting what he’s doing. We have been going through a great period of success where we only missed out on a 4th consecutive title by one point and the European Cup thrown in for good measure. It seems to me that we’re not suffering on the pitch and that in fact the opposite. Although frankly Id like to see more support for the team on the pitch than constant protest. I trust what Fergie is saying about the players and that we don’t need much an overhaul of playing staff. We don’t have a sugar daddy like City who will spend his own personal fortune nor do I believe we want that. We sit and laugh and wait for the loss of interest in order for their club to collapse. It’s in the Glazers interest for us to succeed because without success on the pitch theirs no success financially. We’re not getting ripped off on tickets, we were always paying less than other clubs fans in the first place and we’re lucky. We just don’t like the fact that we’re now having to pay more and that’s understandable. We gave a great set of young players and I’m looking forward to seeing which of them make it. That wouldn’t happen with players with highly inflated transfer fees and salaries coming in. The Glazers aren’t going and I think people need to accept that unfortunately that’s business and that’s the way footballs gone. The Red Knights are blah and in any event offer nothing better.
@AlphaRS
says @Yergen
Perhaps your post was more direct at Gee?
However I will comment. Manchester United can no longer compete with the new super elite.
Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Mardrid, and Barcelona can pretty much go out there are buy whoever they want.
Are you kidding mate, United can no longer compete with City – oh you do go on. Chelsea,we missed out the league by a point a 0-0 draw with Blackburn 4 games back. You can say that Chelsea beat us home and away but that means we got 5 points more than them against the lower opposition = more consistent. Real Madrid, they didnt win anything despite their millions and they can hardly buy anyone now there is only 11 places on the team roster mate. Barca are a great side that will no doubt improve some aspects of their game with Fabregas on board but it will be at the expense of either Iniesta or Bojan, they cant all play.
Have a little bit more confidence in what weve got mate. Chelsea are aging and inevitably need to go on a spending spree because in 2 years time, Lampard, Carlvalho and Terry are way too old and I cant even see Chelsea past those three, City have no history and they have to pay silly money to attract players like stroppy arse Robinho, Santa Cruz, Adeyabour and Lescott all of those are no where near champion quality. Look at Ribery now, signed a deal at Bayern for 5 more years, WHY because he knows hell never break the Real or Barca squad on a regular basis, its the same with all big names now. On the transfer front the two spanish teams have peeked.
@GoatinaUnitedShirt
Er yes I do go on. And no United can not compete with Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, or Barcelona. Had you read any of the thread you would have known I was talking in financial terms.
@mattbw7, Thanks for responding and trying to explain your stance and backing up Wakey.
The money he talks about is Hoss shit, all I was attempting to discover the level of Investment that he thinks the Glazer have invested is certainly not 400 million pounds, it was the question that caused the debate and he cannot give the answer, with documentation to support it, its not Rocket Science.
I hear what you are saying regards the commercial aspect of there plan and the global slowdown.
There” bad “is a gross understatement, if you are happy with a debt held against the Club of 720 million pounds with 300 million pounds paid already during there tenure sucked out of the Club in interest to service the loans and there “management fee’s” for a meagre 13 million pounds increase in commercial revenue. All is tickety boo then.
I believe correct me if I am wrong please a negative transfer spend during there time as custodians(Robbers).
I wont rattle on, I realise long posts are very boring and tedious and difficult to respond to.
The point is and still is, what have they invested personally, they should really stick to estate agency work and letting Mall space in the states.
Matt mate on one of your points the Bank as loaned the money on the strength of United not any substantial collatoral they have input.
Just pray mate we continue to perform successfully on the field or heavens forbid the whole lot is gonna fall like a house of cards.
Non of the success we have achieved during there stint is anyway shape or form due to them, its down purely to Sir Alex his assistants and the Lads on the park, Ohh and of course the fans who continue to support in a many different ways.
Hi Scott, Its not that I am backing up Wakey he can look after himself and by using the word bad when describing the Glazers is just that a word I used to describe them.
For the record I vehemently oppose them but that does not detract that they would have had to put some equity in for the banks to hand over the cash, itd just normal business practice, any how at this stage thats just a side show as its in the past, the here and now as you say is the crippling debt level and and how its increasing. I fear for the longterm future of the club at some stage a tipping point will come and unless UTD can pay back the cash we may go into administration as I don’t see much hope in the Red Knights.
By the way I hope I’m wrong about the RK’s
@mattbw7, Thank you again a post with civility and thought through(not being patronising).
I agree mate you can call me Ian not Scott, lol.
Tottally agree regards the Red Knights Mr ONiell has had adequate time to prepare his bid along with the other financiers, and as many lads indicate lets see the offer and let financial experts(I am as simple as you get) pick over the detail of it to establish if its a better offer than what we are currently being served up.
All I was questioning regards the bank , they have invested a minimal portion of the value of Manchester United, but Wakey simply spills out rot, I dont understand why and I was asking a basic question within the detail of his post.
This as you will agree is a very devisive issue and creates hot and uncomfortable debate, Matt I seriously just want to learn and understand and try to understand the most favourable soloution.
In one of the Moderators previous post’s the lads singing about the situation it said volumes to me, and some of the words within the song ” no more weeping at the treason”.What they have done is criminal.
Love Fergie so much, cant imagine our club without him, forever worship the Tartan Born And Red.
@Neville Neville
On the freeze in ticket prices, I would imagine these were decided prior to the G&G campaign. They woulddecide it at the start of the season based on the previous sales. Its around the correct price point based on market forces so unless something changes I wouldn’t expect any changes in the coming years to be much smaller than they have been.
And with the tickets its a shame that some people are priced out BUT thats not the Glazers fault. They can’t sell the tickets below the market value, not without something ofsetting the discount. We don’t live in the same world that we did for most of the PLC years we live in a post Chelsea world where we now have teams who don’t mind buying players with money they don’t actually have which has seen average players now costing £30mill in transfer fees and demanding 100k a week in wages.
Perhaps the financial regulations may help push ticket prices down in future (although with the available loopholes that will see Real and Barca still spend stupid amounts and will allow the Shieks and Abramovich fund the club by getting their companies to sponsor the team at unrealistic amounts which can then be paid back through dividend payments these rules may actually fall down). Also perhaps if extending the stadium further that might help push tickets down a bit BUT extending the South Stand just isn’t that viable from both a cost and logistics pov which is a shame
@AlphaRS
“In regards to season ticket prices for clubs with serious ambitions. What about the season ticket prices for Real Madrid and Barcelona?In regards to season ticket prices for clubs with serious ambitions. What about the season ticket prices for Real Madrid and Barcelona?”
Real and Barca are teams in a very unique situation in the world of Football. What makes them unique is
- They sell their own TV rights and do so at a level that dwarfs Uniteds share of the UK tv rights (Infact I believe its even greater than our match day revenues)
- They are effectivly in a situation where they can spend what they like and at the end of the 5 year presidency everything is pretty much reset
- Presidential candidates not only have to pay a hefty fee to run but have to have enough guaranteed investment behind them to cover the running of the club
- Spanish banks are pretty much forced into giving them money. The Kaka, Ronaldo, Benzema and Alonso deals were for example financed by an Intrest free loan from Santander. Chances are this will never be paid off with all or most of the balance being written off by the bank
- They get immense local and national governmental aid
- The ‘Fan Owned’ nature means the ‘membership’ fee they pay for the right to vote for the president helps subsidise ticket prices further. From Spanish nationals they receive around £20mill in these fees (Although when you take the membership into account their season tickets aren’t quite the same bargin)
“What are you annoyed about?”
I wouldn’t say I’m annoyed by ideally I would have liked the Leveraged amount to be a smaller percentage of the total amount. It is pushing the higher end of things, mind you the leveraged money was cheaper than the Glazer could borrow so its probally the safer amount
Like Yergen it also annoys me that clubs can ignore their finances. When United have spent a lot of money, both as the PLC and now its because as a business we can support it but most clubs can’t. This is making the whole football world spiral out of control. Teams should be rewarded for being stable as a business like United are, where as we are punished because average players now have a £30mill price tag
@Gee
No-one said ‘invested in’ United. redscots argument is they invested very little of their own money towards buying the club.
No matter redscots thinks the Glazers have invested over 400mill to buy the club and I have provided evidence to show this.
And if you want to talk about ACTUAL investing into the club then Roman and the likes haven’t really done this at their clubs. At best they have bought out some of debts owed to other parties which is then being paid back through preferntial shares.
All they are really doing on a day to day basis is letting their clubs spend money the club doesn’t have rather than investing anything themselves.
I would actually argue that the Glazers have actually invested more INTO the club directly than someone like Roman has at Chelsea. They have after all chosen to pass on not only the first 5 years of dividends they were due BUT also the final year of PLC dividends which they choose not to take so they have basically reinvested their dividends into the club. (I would add here that the allowed Dividends in the bond documents could be argued to have had these previous ones rolled into it. But allowed dividends don’t mean taken dividends so we can’t really comment too much on these at this time)
@redscot
You can’t post one line because they didn’t buy the first 28% of the shares on a single block. All we have are the press releases that they had to make by law whenever they bough a certain amount or exceeded a certain number of shares.
No matter how much you want to sit there and claim my £400mill figure is wrong its not and if you had a slight bit of intellige nce you would be able to look at the links I have posted and confirm my figures.
What you want to prove it is something that can’t be given. The share acquisition don’t show on the PLC’s accounts, the only records that show it are the Glazers private records which obviously no-one outside the Glazers camp. HOWEVER if you can seriously suggest to me how they were able to purchase OVER 200mill worth of shares without SPENDING THEIR OWN MONEY than I would love to hear your wild theories.
@willierednut
Look as I have shown they purchased over £200mill worth of shares BEFORE launching the takeover. They put £95mill into the takeover and had a loans in their name worth £175mill. Now if you think that’s very little.
As I keep saying over and over again not liking the Glazers and how they have done things is perfectly fine. I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t have concerns about some aspect BUT making things up like is happening and not putting things into a wider context so they are given a fair chance is just making us all look like a bunch of whiney little schoolkids (Or tabloid journalists). Figures, actions and situations need to first be accurate and then they we need to be taking a step back and comparing it to the wider world so we aren’t just spouting rubbish due to emotions.
This is where the likes of MUST do themselves more harm than good. They would rather spread lies and fear than deal in facts and try and open a dialoge with the owners about finding a middle ground on ‘Fan/Community’ issues. They are basically an organisation that the only people who would work with them are people who need them for something like the Red Knights. Even then they use them and give them fancy promises that in reality don’t mean much (Such as Golden Shares) and will almost certainly not involved them in any real way.
@AlphaRS
Someone at Chelsea (May have been Wilkins) was saying that the upcoming rules changes are actually already impacting Chelsea this summer and he expects it to be impacting others. Their transfer dealings are having to be done with breaking even being viable in the next couple of years. If he is right then we could see things calm down as the summer goes on. Ofc the problem is that Real and to a lesser extent Barca can keep acting in the same manner without ever risking being barred from Europe due to the Governmental interence/help they get
On your list of things you want to see, the problem is most of its a complete pipe dream, especially in this country where no-one would accept our Banks giving clubs Free money and the Government paying tax payers money to football clubs as happens in Spain. (Imagine the uproar in all the ABU press if HBOS gave United 300mill in interest free loans to buy players. And then down the line just wrote them off. Or if Local or National government bought Carrington off us for many times the value and then paid to build us a new even better training ground elsewhere)
@Daniel
Thats a whole bunch of ‘What Ifs’. No matter who owned the club those kind of ‘What Ifs’ would exists. If any football club falls below a certain level that the whole setup is aimed at providing and then does so regularry then it could be a problem. Even with the debt United is the club in the best overall financial state of all the Premier League clubs.
@ WAKEY not in the mood for your shite tonght, you can spill as much shite out of your keyboard as you like, I will deal with you tommorow.
You are a Prat, that needs a good Scottish beeting, as for calling me ignorant lmao.
Laterz wotch this space
Wakey -
On the freeze in ticket prices, I would imagine these were decided prior to the G&G campaign.
The key phrase in that statement is “I imagine”.
Sorry mate, but you’ve still not convinced me on the benefits of your Uncle Malc.
10/10 and a gold star for effort though.
@Wakey
Hello mate. I know about Real Madrid and Barcelona. There are positives to take from the way these clubs are run but there are also things about these clubcs that are unfair on everyone else including other clubs in the Spanish League. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have criticised English clubs in the post over many things. The former being an honory member of Real Madrid which is surely a conflict of interests. They do not like the money in English football put in by the middle east, russia, and America, and that English clubs do not have many English players. However it is alright for Real Madrid and Barcelona to be Goverment funded and not having to pay off loans? Also didn’t hear anything about Inter Milan not having a single Italian in their starting eleven. That kind of behaviour annoys me somewhat as their is no keeping finances in order as the Government will bail them out. Similar to the banking industry in the UK. The Government bailed them out.
Anyhow more on the subject yes I understand that leveraged buy outs happen, quite often infact, but the amount of debt United are in is on the high side. Again something we finally agree on.
Any half decent player is now in excess of £30 million. Whilst the new super elite are allowed to continue operating in that fashion the cost of transfers, wages, and the cost of keeping a player will keep rising. In the UK the 50% tax rate has also not helped the Premiership. In Spain tax rates are favourable to foreign players. Perhaps the Government doesn’t understand that the less top quality players who come here, the less of a profile the Premiership will have, meaning a drop in interest, and ultimately a drop in revenue. But hopefully the new UEFA guidelines will curb this kind of insane transfer behaviour. But at the same time they should deal with Real Madrid and less so Barcelona to ensure it is fair for everyone. I remember when Andy Cole came to United for £7 million and that was seen to be an obscene amount.
The thigs I want to see at United are ideals. I want us to be more than a money making machine. Dont’ get me wrong making money is important to the long term success of United and keeping us there and there abouts. But those kinds of ideals should go hand in hand. We can keep the finances happy and we should also do the same for the local community in Manchester. We should be more than just a football club any which way we can.
@Wakey – I’d rather call them “when”s than “what if”s since they’re bound to happen at some point. Of course the club could, and probably will, end up as a less succesful one for a good few years at some point regardless of who owns it.
I do understand your argument with the club and team maintaining a certain level and business being planned to suit that and of course if we were to fall below that level it’d be bad for club finances regardless. But being a club burdened by massive debt, bleeding millons of £ in interest and management fees, whíle trying to restructure in order to reach the top again just sounds like an extremely bad, but fairly likely, scenario.
Anyway, how do you measure “financial state” and consider United to be the best? In the short term Chelsea and city are undoubtly better of, though I do not envy them. I am not of the belief that having sugar daddys pop up at every other club is a good thing for English football. But at least they are putting their money INTO it, rather than draining it OUT. Arsenal seem to have a reasonable business plan as well to be honest and should be good for the long term.
Fuck me, some people don’t agree with Wakey on here do they? Kudos to him for giving us the other side of the coin. There are a shit load of sheep about where United fans are concerned at the minute. Too happy to beleive the fucking tabloids and abu’s.
@Daniel
Chelsea and City are making huge operating losses which clearly points to the fact that that they are living well beyond their means. They have contractual obligations that they have to honour for years to come in the form of player wages, but they have never been able to show the revenue to cover it. This is what I call a poor financial state. They have to borrow money to make ends meet on a regular basis.
They borrow this money from their respective owners who turn the loans into equity and make the clubs look debt-free (btw equity is also debt, but to owners). In reality these clubs are at the mercy of their owners. If/when they decide to call it quits they may be debt-free, but they have a cost structure that is going to kill them, because noone is going to be there to swap their losses for equity.
United have huge debts and commanding interest payments to service them. But the exception here is that United can manage to service the debt without any outside help. Our revenue is enough to cover our costs. We make an operating profit, albeit it can be discussed what the exact operating profit is with regards to the ronaldo transfer etc. As it stands now, we are (and have been so for a while) self-sufficient financially and can carry on like this forever, regardless of ownership. I am not saying we in a risk free situation, though, and I would like us to be less leveraged.
United have a commercial base that is unlike any other club in England (and most other clubs in the world). This is why we don’t need a sugar daddy. But we do need to on top of our financial/commercial game as well as on the pitch to be able to compete with the super rich owners.
This is why I see us being better off financially than clubs like Chelsea and City. Of course, all of this can change but we don’t know the black swans of the future, do we?
@Neville Neville
Yeah obviously we don’t know for certain BUT the Glazers as businessmen aren’t the kind of people who act on a whim. They not only have their long term business plan but also the short term ones will be made much earlier than February/March
Themselves and a few other of the large shareholders had been arguing for a few years before the takeover that the PLC was underpricing tickets by around 50%. This was also mentioned in their initial takeover documentation the same thing.
If we look at things from a business pov the ticket prices seem to be around the market price now. There is apparently still a waiting list BUT its at a realistic level that is enough to cover the natural churn rather than being so obscenely long that you could kill everyone in the stadium and still be able to fill the stadium the next week. As such I wouldn’t expect any major changes in price in the coming years, there probally will be some rises but more inline with inflation rather than the double digit rises.
I still think the cost of a ticket really isn’t that bad. As I have said already its around the same as rival clubs at the same kind of level as us. £27 to £49 is cheaper than attending a concert (£55 to go see the BEP’s at the MEN), cheaper to see a West End play (Mamma Mia costs between 21.60 and 67.50 or Wicked costs from 17.50 to 62.50. The cheap tickets here as well are ‘Limited View Discount Tickets’ as well), cheaper than Heineken Cup Final next year (£69.20). And hey have any of you ever checked the price of season tickets for American sports (Tampa Bay Buccs cost between $350 and $990 for a season ticket, that TEN games and in the NBA Miami Heat season tickets range from $1075 and $10535 for 43 games). Hey you pay nearly £10 for a cinema ticket or £18 for a Bluray.
Mind you while looking some of this info up to double check I did find it surprising to find out that someone like myself pays the same ticket price for a game as you do. I assumed as someone who isn’t a season ticket holder I paid more for the match ticket than you did. Paying ‘upfront’ for things usually sees you get a discount as its better for those selling the service to have the money upfront but it doesn’t seem to work that way with season tickets which just seems odd. Perhaps it would have been better to increase the indvidual match ticket prices more and the season tickets less (Season ticket rises would still be a high percentage as obviously the 20k non-season ticket holders in the stadium couldn’t offset the 50k season ticket holders but they could fund a free game for season ticket holders)
Yergen: Well, you pretty much described why I do not envy the sugar daddy owned teams. For the short term, i.e. as long as these owners keep the money tap open, these clubs have an unnatural financial advantage.
And talking about our financial and on field “game”, they go hand in hand, don’t they? If one of them drops it has a significant effect on the other. Who would sign £200 million pound sponsorship deals with a non-CL playing team? With the debt draining away alot of money, it is just putting an unnecessary strain on both the club’s finances and the team. Coping with it as well as we’ve done the last few years is commendable, but it could easily turn.
@AlphaRS
“But hopefully the new UEFA guidelines will curb this kind of insane transfer behaviour.”
The problem is that it won’t impact the likes of Real. And issues have already been mentioned, such a abusing shirt sponsorship could still allow clubs to live beyond their means
“But those kinds of ideals should go hand in hand”
)
See I don’t think a lot of your ideals can go hand in hand with financial success, atleast not in the UK. Alot of them cost a lot of money and bring no or little money in, to fund them money would need diverted from elsewhere be it from player purchases, wages, increases in season ticket prices or the likes. In theory extending the stadium would be the ideal one and might allow some of the other ones due to increased revenue BUT extending the stadium is borderline impossible due to the grounds location limiting development of the South Stand (I suppose maybe more tiers could be added to the other stands instead but its going to look lopsided). Its a real shame that the Railway and the houses are behind the South Stand that make redveloping it unrealistically expensive (Perhaps the Glazers should demand the FA help pay for it to help the 2018 World Cup bid
@Daniel
You are being awfully pessimistic and not really being realistic.
As for financial state, yergen explains it well but I just want to add a couple of things.
Its a myth that the ‘sugar daddys’ put money into the clubs. They don’t spend their own money on players, they just ok the club to spend money they don’t have thus putting the club in debt. The closest they generally get to investing money into the club is when they do debt for equity swaps where basically they pay off 3rd party debts personally and in exchange they take preferential shares in the club which pay out a set amount that pays out no matter the profit or loss made.
And you are right that on field success means increased revenue. Increased revenue doesn’t mean increased profits, they are racking up debt left right and centre as the clubs weren’t and still aren’t profitable enough.
On Arsenel, they are one of the better run clubs. They do have debts and don’t have the income generating ability but are responably run. Finacially you would probally put the top 8 in the following order
City
1) United
2) Arsenel
3) Everton
4) Spurs (They spend a fair bit but are great at getting at keeping the books balanced through sales)
5) Villa
6) Liverpool
7) Chelsea (They have improved recently, you might even move them above Liverpool for next season)
On the money being drained from us, more of it is made of it then should be. Much of the money can be accounted for as non-cash accounting deductions (Which actually save the club money, for example the clubs paid £89million less in corporation tax than it would have without these deductions), many of the deductions had corrisponding deductions PLC deductions and it ignores some deductions the PLC had which are no longer applicable. We are still extreamly secure and while it could turn its not something that’s borderline so it would take more than a blip and it to happen on a number of fronts for it to really be an issue. You can’t count it out but then it the same for every club
Not wanting to get into the debate at all……..I have aired my views with facts countless times before….but one line above made me laugh my ass off..!!
“One is left to wonder if this dood wanks over the Financial times”
hahahahahaha…..
I mean no disrespect to anybody, but that was seriously funny!!
@Daniel,
Well, at this rate every team in the PL will soon have their own sugar daddy.
You are talking about the current situation with the tap on for Chelsea and City, but a situation where we don’t qualify for the CL. That’s comparing a “what if” situation for one party with a current one for the other party. If we look at the current situation for both Chelsea, City and us we’re better off. Of course, if we were in a situation where we didn’t qualify and the tap was still on for the others I would agree with you. I suppose we agree on the basics of these things, though.
I think the link below will give you an idea of what one of the alternatives to the Glazers is. Mind you, this action does not remove the fact that they are still losing (bleeding) money. So essentially, expect this number to grow. And even if Abramovich did walk away without ever claiming back the money, Chelsea are in big trouble. All because they were owned by a glory hunter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/19/roman-abramovich-chelsea-loan-debt
Most likely, Chelsea are valued too high for anyone to be able to buy them without any sort of leverage nowadays, so even if Abramovich may get his money back through a sale, the next owner will have more debt. Of course, there is also the possibility of a Leeds type of development.
So, what is there to say that another owner for United, Red Knights or not, will not do the same as Abramovich and the Sheiks?
@Daniel
To clarify, the last half of my post is not directed at you or anyone in particular.
Brgds
Y
Ferguson obviously has no problem with the Glazers. He could easily have left his job in 2008 if there was really problems behind the scenes- gone out a winner- taken any other job in world football or retired at an acceptable age.
The fact that he remains is great and it shows that the man who cares about united more than any other has not got a major problem with the glazers.
Brett – Fergie gets his seat inside Old Trafford for free. There would certainly be less green and gold scarves inside Old Trafford if all 76,000 were watching for free too!
Wakey – thanks for that detailed response. However, I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree – you see the price hikes from a business perspective; I see them from a personal perspective.
I really did piss myself laughing at the fact Mamma Mia and the Black Eyed Peas were top of your list of excursions of a similar price mind – seriously mate, Mamma Mia?????
@wakey
I think you are the mysterious Glazer Family Spokesman but anyhow I just want to make a few simplistic points.
1. The Glazers haven’t invested a bean of their own money since the takeover into the running of the club. They have only taken money OUT in management Fees and Loans (which we will never get back). You can’t say abramovich etc are the same as they don’t invest either, the difference is they are giving interest free loans to their club where as we are paying circa 45m a year for the privelege (NOT) of having Glazer run our club.
2. When I and fellow fans buy our season tickets I expect for that money to be invested in player transfers and retention, stadium and training ground development etc. I do not expect it to be used on over 400mil of interest/fees/loans over the last five years. That was the unwritten contract that existed in Football. That no longer applies at United.
3. The Glazers WILL be using the current (ronaldo) cash flow to pay off a chunk of their PIK debt. That was why they changed the bank debt into the bonds, so they could take more cash out of the club in dividends to pay off the noose around their neck (The PIKS). The bond allows up to 400mil to go out of the club into their pockets by 2017.
4. Fergies current strategy in the transfer market (getting value he calls it) I call it Wigans strategy of buying young and cheap and making sure you can sell on at a profit at a later date. This is a strategy that has been caused by our lack of funds due to our debt repayments/fees etc due to the Glazer takeover. At a time when TV revenue is at its highest and we could have been investing to a much greater degree in top quality players if not for the Glazers. The strategy is doomed to fail your starting to see it last season, not good enough young players and old timers still not replaced with proven premier or european performers.
I challenge you to read those comments and try and argue that everything is honkey dorey and we should all just fall in line behind our wonderful owners!!
Bozzer – he will, don’t worry about that!
@Scott the red
While I can appreciate your rhetorical figure I wouldn’t say he gets his chair for free. For every season he continues he runs the risk of ruining his reputation. By taking a stand (as it seems) in favour of the Glazers this is even more true. To me, he’s got more at stake than the price of a season ticket.
@Bozzer
1. This depends on perspective. As an example, the Glazers have repeatedly opted to reinvest profits back into the club, rather than to pocket it as dividends. While it is technically correct that the loans from Abramovich are interest free, they come with a price as they are swapped for preferential shares. So in the end Chelsea pays anyway.
2. I strongly disagree with the +400 m figure as it contains a mix of cash and no cash items and even things that are not costs. This figure was brought forward by Andersred to further an agenda. I’m not saying I disagree with him regarding his main ideas, but I don’t like the propaganda-like methods. It is still possible that your season ticket money will go to player transfers, but right now it has been placed to further the business, so we can be even stronger in the future. That’s what the Glazers think, anyway. Even if I disagree, it is still a valid theory.
3. Well, any take over today will have to be financed somehow. But any buyer will think that he/she can further the club in some way or else they won’t buy the club (unless they are buying a toy, of course). If you don’t believe you will increase the value of the club your better off keeping the cash, so whenever you have a buyer you have someone that sees an opportunity.
4. My interpretation of the strategy is that David Villa will command a hefty fee without any guarantees of success and have no resale value because he is going to be too old to sell. That’s sensible. Instead, we should spend that money on someone younger that will have a resale value. We were prepared to pay 30m for Benzema, so obviously it’s not the money, now is it?
@Wakey I am sorry but your posts are all over the place, and your logic irrational.
Let me try a different way and you might! get it.
I dont require you to respond in a Gettesburgesque fashion just a simple Yes/No.
Q1 Do Manchester United have a debt of 720 million pounds???…….Yes/No
Q2 Have Manchester United paid in interest and “there” management fees in Excess of 300million pounds during there spell, money from Manchester United profit??? …….Yes/No
@yergen
1. Any profits that united receive is uniteds money it should be re-invested in the club that’s what i was saying about the contract between fan and club you expect the money to be invested in the clubs players and infrastructure but it’s not happening is it. The vast majority of it is going to pay interest and fees to the glazers. In the PLC days it was the other way round you knew some money was going out to the shareholders but at the end of the day united was a financially stable club that could compete in the market and keep season tickets low.
2. What aspect of the 400mil do you disagree with?, i’m not a financial expert but I can see over 260mil of interest, 80 odd mil of consultancy fees. That is money as I say could have been spent on keeping our ticket prices low and spending on the club.
3. Uniteds cash flow will be used to pay off glazers own debts!!!!!! Are you saying that’s a good thing?
4. If David Villa helps to win us the european cup twice and the premiership twice in his three four year contract I think we would have received ‘Value’ as fergie would say in terms of trophies and prize appearance money. Let me say if we had bought a top notch player last summer like villa or kept tevez we would have won prem and european cup last season no doubt for me, We were missing just an inch but theres no value, what a load of tosh. If we were working with the transfer strategy of now in 99, we wouldn’t have signed sheringham!! As there wouldn’t have been value!! As i say what a load of tosh!!
@bozzer99
For example, the +400m include rolled up interest on the PIK’s. There are a few problems with this. They have not been paid yet, as they are rolled up. This means the interest on the PIK’s could still be financed by the Glazers themselves, without touching any dividends from United. To put it in another way, as of the last financial statement, no cash has gone to the PIK’s, not to service the debt. The bond might have changed this, but we will see in the next published accounts.
So to me, it is wrong to claim that this is money that has been sucked out of United, because it hasn’t yet. Andersred believes that the interest will be paid by dividends from United, and he might be right, but it hasn’t yet and there are several other possibilities still.
The rolled up interest amounts to 83m in Andersred’s calculations.
Another thing is that the PIK’s are on the Glazers’ books. This is like what Abramovich has done with Chelsea if you check out my earlier link. The PIK’s will never hit United directly. The debt and the interest are the Glazers’ responsibility and they can deal with it as they like. IF they choose to use money from United it will affect us indirectly, but they might as well use money from somewhere else.
These things are included in the 400m used by people because it suits an agenda. I am not saying these people are wrong but I dislike it when they play with numbers to put a spin on things.
And I agree with you, if Villa plays an active part to bring us 2 CL wins and 2 PL wins during his stay, he would certainly be worth the money. But that’s a big if. He could easily turn into a Veron as well. Last summer we were on the brink of signing Benzema and that would have shut people up, I think. Unfortunately, he chose Real and I think we’re better off without him. The same goes for Tevez. We offered him a good deal, but he preferred outlandish wages at City. So it’s not the money, I think that’s rather evident, but people want to believe it’s the money. I’d say Sheringham would have been a perfect player for us today and I’d think Fergie would have found value in him.
I’m also saying that we will have to live with any take over being leveraged. But any take over follows a business plan where the buyer can see value in his investment. There is no value in a football club of United’s stature without on pitch success. Therefore, I am counting on whoever owns the club to have a plan that includes spending on the team as well as improving financially. Anything else is just not rational. This plan might be stretched over a longer period than a few years, though. This is where most of my concerns with the Red Knights lie as I doubt they will be able to unite around one single, comprehensive business plan.
Brgds
Y
@Neville Neville
I just wanted to use exact figures rather than ball park them so I just looked up a bunch of events that still had tickets available. Those were just the ones I could find with available tickets sometime in 2010.
@Bozzer99
Yergen dealt with most of your first post so I won’t repeat him. However a couple of additional points
POST 1
————
1) I’m curious as to why you think a Loan won’t be paid back.
2) When has all your money that you spend been reinvested into the club. There isn’t many of the costs that didn’t exist before the Glazers or had another cost to take their place.
AND who says the ticket money isn’t being reinvested. Why is it you choose to have the money you spend as being used to pay the Interest when the biggest cost on the books is player wages. Why is it not the improved commercial activities that are paying the interest, improved commercial activities which the Glazers played a part in bringing
3) The thing with the bonds is you can pick any figure and justify that as the amount that the Glazers will take as some of it is profit based. Ronaldos sale skew last years profits as we are unlikely to sell an £80mill player every season but based on that you are looking at something in the region of £210mill nearly £200mill under your estimate. In a normal year the totals closer to £160mill. Due to the fact that they passed on previous dividends even at the £210m figure that works out at £17mill a season which isn’t obscene really unless you live in a dream world where football isn’t a business.
And at the end of the day we don’t know if they will take their entitlement in full or at all. They have passed on all dividends they could have taken while in charge AND the dividend for the last year of the PLC
4) This whole “Buying young players because they are cheap” argument annoys me. I mean seriously have you see fees we are paying for young players. These aren’t cheap players.
You buy any player there is a risk. You just have to look at Veron who at the time was one of the best players in the world and he just couldn’t settle. When you talk about a young player the factors that stand in their way of being United Quality players increase. And as these player don’t have any pedigree to fall back on if they don’t make it then they will almost always be sold at a loss (And even if you get your money back when you take into account the players signing bonus and wages you have still lost money on the player). You are betting on talent which is always risky.
If the policy was to be cheap they would be going for safer transfers, players around 24 and have proven themselves as being solid and dependable but aren’t spectatular. Players who stand a great chance of being good squad players but if they fail still have enough about them to get most if not all your money back because they are still have many years left to play.
Post 2
—————
2) Yergen mentions a few things but there are also a few none cash items included in those costs that are basically just accounting practices which actually help save money. In corporation tax alone the club has saved 89million thanks to none cash items on the books such as Goodwill.
The figure also doesn’t take into account previous costs compared to new costs. If you spend more in one area but make savings in another is that actually an added cost? Not only are there savings in the things like Coporation tax BUT there are savings being made in areas such as listing fees that are PLC specific
3) United Cash flow isn’t being used to pay off the Glazers debts. The only way the clubs money can be used to do this is indirectly through dividends that the Glazers are entitled to take as owners. Why do so many people seem to think that club owners should throw hundreds of millions at a club a season and get nothing back.
4) Last summer Valencia rejected £45mill from both Real and Barca and Tevez (or should I say Kia) wanted to chase the money and started playing silly buggers due to not getting enough playing time. He was offered a deal, a deal that would have seen him being the highest paid player at the club despite him being a backup player. When you have City putting a second bid of £30mill in for Milner you know there is no value in the market and in that kind of market you have to spend on the right players not just buying for the sake of buying.
And if we had bought Villa for £50mill who is to say he would have helped. We can’t say he will have been suited to the English game, there is a better record for players going EPL to La Liga than La Liga to the EPL. And even if he had fitted in would that have forced us to play differently and then not gotten anywhere near the level we got out of Rooney. And he could have got Injured for some of the run in just like most of our striker options did.
We have to trust SAF and the whole backroom and scouting team to use their vast knowledge to decide which players have value to the club, as we know he felt Benzema at the 30-35mill range did have value but when Real came in before a deal with the player could be struck it was pointless as the player had stated he would like to join Real
@redscot
My posts aren’t all over the place. Its just that either you don’t have the mental capacity or the desire to actually understand.
The problem with you as shown with some of your comments and wanting yes no answers is that you want whats the complex world of business finance reduced to a few ‘sound bites’. Its easy to simplify is from an Anti-Glazer pov but not so easy if you want to bring balance to these ‘sound bites’
Anyway
Q1: No, we are £506mill in debt
Q2: No, its in the ballpark of £260 unless you are throwing in none cash costs
@ Wakey thank you at long last you have agreed that they have sucked money out of Manchester United.
Thank fuck, it took a while, you got there in the End.
Bless.
@redscot
Except I haven’t agreed with a SINGLE comment you have made. Here you are either acting like a twat on purpose or being too simple to comprhend anything past simple yes and no.
The world isn’t black and white so things are more complex than yes and no’s but accepting and understanding that would require you to act like an intelligent adult and not a 5 year old kid who thinks its big and smart to be part of a propaganda campaign that relies on more and more outragous claims.
People like you will be the ruin of the club NOT the Glazers and that’s really sad because while there is a lot of complexity to the issue getting a lot of the basic facts right rather than forming your opinion on exagerations, rumours and lies. As a group United fans could be taken seriously by the ownership and we could help make the club better BUT when we have groups like MUST willing to spread the lies to get support and people like yourself willing to make us all look like idiotic inbreds that’s never going to happen.
@ wakey £260 it’s not pounds what cant you get ITS FUCKING MILLIONS.
When you care to type sensibly and get it through yer fucking think skull I will react.
Accept you are beaten and cant defend the defenceless
type it Wakey its not difficult they have lost for Manchester United in Excess of 300 MILLION POUNDS
@ WAKEY call me what you want, sticks and stones will break my bones but whips and chains Excite me.
Deal with the facts not your theories.
@redscot
See this is where idiots like you keep falling down in your arguments. You are so one sided you ignore the FACTS.
Yes they have paid £260mill in Interest fees but they haven’t lost the club £260mill.
We can immedialy remove 89mill from that in the Coporation Tax savings they have made. So thats down to £171mill immediately. Then we have the £100mill in Dividends they have been entitled to but have passed on which reduces it to £71mill. They have then vastly increased revenues so much of that can be covered.
And at the end of the day the way the buy out was done we effectivly have two owners, the Glazers with their 400mill investment and the bank (now bond holders) with their 500mill investment.Owners of any business are due a return and that’s what the interest is, if the Glazers had of funding the 500mill part themselves they would be expecting such returns as well.
With Chelsea Abramovich had before preferntial share linked to the 700mill ‘loan’, do you seriously think he isn’t taking a major dividend on that (Even if the Preferential shares are only paying back at 5% that’s £35mill a season, they are unlikely to pay out les than this and probally pay out more) and since Jan the debt for equity swap has increased the number of preferential shares.
At the end of the day no matter how much you want to put things into Black and White things aren’t. As everyone who you would label pro Glazer has said they aren’t perfect, there are concerns with the but the vilify them the way that is being done is over the top and isn’t helpful to anyone but those who want to damage the club for their own agendas.
@Wakey, This is my final post to you on this matter IN This thread.
Start with the truth regards the interest and “management service” charges the actual total! not some imaginary figure you are plucking out of somwhere.
FFs corporation tax is paid on profit, its got sweet FA to do with “costs” Which part of that is the Interest they have exposed us to reduces the profit which Manchester United achieved.
The dividend is a stupid arguement and only illustrates your ignorance, it is not relevant as it still is a drain on the funds that are retained in liquidity.
Vastly increased revenues are you being serious I think you need to check or recheck the facts.
What the fuck are you speaking about,”Owners of any buisness are due a return and thats what the interest is” what utter and total rubbish.Owners of a normal buisness achieve there return from the profits attained and Salaries recieved throughout the financial term and dividends on shares as a result said level of profit!
Your other point regards the “Two owners is hideous” Who set up the 2nd owner, is that “said” second owner not being paid in the form of Interest for the “said” loan.
The rest of your post is meaningless its like comparing Apples and Pears and only for your benifit, clouds the already muddy waters.
Thank you for calling me an Idiot, that is really helpfull, I wont type actually what I really think of you, let my post do that .
@redscot
Remind me again how old are you? You have refered to the fact that you are young and i’m going to put some of your stupid comments down to you having never lived in the real world.
Anyway I haven’t plucked any imaginary figures out of the air. All my figures have been documented and many of them even backed up in this thread by ‘anti glazer’ people.
The interest fees are £260mill. The Management fees come to £13mill. The management fees are actually common business fees that you will find in any business for certain tasks carried out by the owner and directors are paid for through this accounting entry.
On corporation tax, please explain to me how you think costs are in no way connected to this. What is profit again, oh yeah its REVENUE MINUS COST. When you can make none cash write offs in the accounts, such as Goodwill then you in effect generate money by reducing things like tax liability
As for your comment on owners, its shows a MAJOR lack of understanding on how things work. Unless you are running a company at the most basic level (ie a sole trader) the profits that are made DO NOT belong to you but to the company. As the owner (or for that matter usually anyone listed as a director) you make your money from ‘Fees for services’ (either as management fees OR wages. If its wages you will often just get a ‘Token Wage’ however for accounting purposes) and from DIVIDENDS. Dividends can either be profit based OR can be ‘preferential’ and paid out before anything else and at a set rate.
As for “The dividend is a stupid arguement and only illustrates your ignorance, it is not relevant as it still is a drain on the funds that are retained in liquidity”. How is choosing to forgo their due dividends not relevant. By passing on it they are effectivly reinvesting this money back into the club so are making a PERSONAL contribution towards paying the Interest.
Additionally the latest coming out of Glazer camp is that they have PASSED on taking the initial 70mill they are allowed under the Bond issue. They might still take it later but if that turns out to be true that’s hardly the actions of people looking to ‘leech’ now is it. Its also a sign that they have a plan and its going along as it should do as I’m sure even those of us trying to bring balance to the discussion felt they would have taken the 70mill already and it would show in Fridays quarterly results as it seemed the sensiable thing to do BUT if the reports coming out of the Glazer camp are true then they must be comfortable with the amount of personal debt they have and their ability to cover it. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2010/05/glazers_in_no_rush_to_pay_off.html)
As for saying my other points just muddy the water, only if you are trying to be blinkered. How things operate elsewhere both in the world of football and the wider business world are relevant as it bring CONTEXT to points and figures.
@ Wakey. 18, Your comment lost it for me, its a lad thats looking for reaction and comment.
Your post mate” owners of any buisness are due a return and thats what the interest is” .
Get outta here. roflmao.
When you learn you will collectively get it.Yer a fucking joke and not worth my time or care.
As I said and learn and digest, I read all posts carefully and take inwardly .
I am Scottish and no Cunts fool.
Trust this is a zero end for you!
Addios Amigos and all that Mexicain dingo dando tripe, I got better things to play with in my love nest….. lmao.
Cheers who tried maybe when you get your facts str8 get a new conversition,( proddie) pmsl.
Come on United, just believe, fucking lets hope so.
Am gonna try and replicate me, in the image of Nani. Wonderous thoughts.
lol reading through this debate just reminds me of evra’s infamous line
“Men against boys”
of course, by that i mean
“Wakey against redscot”
just in case the boy can’t figure it out
btw the links to prove this fact is on the internet. go find it yourself.
@ reDaler T, lol you aint seen me in full flow so far! I ask questions not give answers. for pontificatink knownuffings.
thanks for your lame input. pmsl