Sir Alex Ferguson has given an exclusive interview with The Mail On Sunday where he “attacks” Glazer critics. The paper labels the attack “extraordinary” and claims Fergie tells the fans to back off, giving a “warning” to all fans.
Part of me can tolerate Ferguson putting up with the Glazers, because if he spoke out against them and made his position untenable, there’s no way another manager could sustain success on the budget Ferguson has. He may well feel responsible for this mess, considering it was his petty row over a race horse that landed us in it, so will be keen to make amends, you’d like to think.
But no part of me can support the manager giving his public backing to the Glazers whilst criticising the fans. That is unacceptable. He can publicly support the Glazers, if he believes that is necessary, without having a go at us.
Forbes tell us year after year that we are the “most valuable sports franchise in the world”. More valuable than Real Madrid, the Dallas Cowboys, Barcelona and the New York Yankees, yet under the Glazer ownership, United’s transfer policy largely consists of bringing in bargains or young players on smaller contracts. Roy Keane left in 2005 but it was years before that when he stopped being our midfield enforcer. Pretty much 10 years have gone by since he was the best in the game yet we still haven’t come close to replacing him. Liverpool have brought in the likes of Xabi Alonso and Raul Meireles, Chelsea have brought in Michael Ballack, Michael Essien and Raul Meireles, Manchester City have brought in Nigel De Jong and Yaya Toure, whilst United have splashed the cash on Owen Hargreaves then given up.
The “most valuable sports franchise in the world” couldn’t even make it out of the group stages of the Champions League last season and the only reason why the “most valuable sports franchise in the world” ran the title to the final day of the season was because a 37-year-old came out of retirement after Christmas.
Lots of fans felt like enough was enough in 2005 when the Glazers bought us and gave up their season tickets. Every year since, with the prices going up and up, even more fans have given up their season tickets. Then there are some fans who every year fork out £532-£950 every year as a basic, without the cost of away tickets (which see us charged £200 more a year than fans of teams like Wigan because we’re a category A game for the home fans, a battle the club hasn’t helped us fight), only to see the Glazers not reinvest our money on signing a world class central midfielder. Nobody is asking us to spend like City or Real Madrid, but the “most valuable sports franchise in the world” ranks behind Chelsea, City, Liverpool and Spurs in the transfer league. In fact, per season since 03-04, we’ve seen £1m more going out than Aston Villa.
We’ll see what Ferguson has to say tomorrow and hopefully the Mail On Sunday will have sensationalised the interview in their headlines, but it is appalling for Ferguson to criticise the fans for being sceptical where the Glazers are concerned. He either is ridiculously detached from the fans, not being to grasp why on earth fans would be angry and pouring their money in to a club only to see that money not reinvested on the field, or he’s being ridiculously disrespectful, with a total grasp of how the fans feel, but still opting to speak out against us as if our concerns are trivial.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the socialist.
Man Utd News 24/7
good
I’d rather read the thing first before passing judgement. Daily Fail have a bit of a reputation to upkeep, y’see.
Zibbie what do u mean good?
About time Fergie came out and slapped down the fools who hate our owners. They are still fighting battles from 7 years ago and will never move on. We are well run and Fergie brings us greater success than we have a right to expect.
What an headline…you want fergie bashing scott? just wondering
what is he expected to say ffs…you never bite the hand that feeds you….
he tried it once with the racehorse people and they nearly took him down till he publicly backed off….
Right, you get the pitchforks, I’ll light the torches. We can storm Old Trafford and have ourselves a good old fashioned burning. That’ll teach the old cunt, see how he likes being set on fire. What has he ever done to deserve a bit of leeway?
Seriously, I’m not getting irate over an article in the Fail that I haven’t even read yet.
Hope you keep up the tweets @ZibbieStarDust
cyril.
agreed.
yeah, while we criticize fergie, we can buy united tops, pay for the tickets, and hold up a Norwich scarf in protest
LOVE UNITED MERCHANDISE
at least i still shout HATE GLAZER!!!
disclaimer: not meant to insult any fellow fans
To be fair though, “The Most Valuable Sports Franchise In The World” was decimated by injuries for large periods in the season. Unlike our rivals.
Yes we should have still probably beaten Basel, but in terms of our efforts to retain the league title I don’t think our efforts are anything to be ashamed of.
can we get a link to this alleged “attack”
Cyril, using that word will eventually land you in Sunderland…
I hate Glazers! They blow glass!!
Gilligan i`l have a pint of whatever you have been drinking.Deluded doesnt come into it.The parasite owners of our club are bleeding us dry and all you can do is swallow their propaganda.If we are so well run how come a player who isnt good enough to be anywhere near a united shirt is still playing for the club, he even got the winner tonight, its fucking embarrasing.
“But no part of me can support the manager giving his public backing to the Glazers whilst criticising the fans. That is unacceptable.”
Now Now Scott. He is criticizing the anti-Glazer movement, of which your blog has been a megaphone,so yes, he’s criticizing you, not all fans. You play critic all the time, even with aspects of players personal lives, so don’t be so dramatic.
Alex Ferguson owes Manchester United nothing.
I think we are all sort of turning Scott the Red , he is no longer making sense , and it really does hurt me to say that.
I have never been critical of him, it breaks my heart to do so.He is destroying his legacy at our great club.
I think not being patronising , if a most knowledgable fan , the moderator of this great United forum , Ed Barker on United rant , see Sir Alex Ferguson , is feeding us a line , in siding with the Glazer’s .It’s just a sad way for his final years at our great club to leave United.
I really want our club to compete at the top level , not only in the Premiership and domestic trophies , but the Champion’s league .I seriously think our star is falling in Europe.
I hate the ‘bitters ‘ ridiculing Manchester United at all our young potential stars walking out on United, for a variety of reason’s .Ravel Morrison , Paul Pogba , and Zeki Fryer’s !.
Implying it’s the rats jumping the ship, and the titanic is sinking .
i know what rats i would feed poision to, and they are in Florida.
It’s worrying times at United , in my opinion. Leave the £ 100 million war chest out of the equation. With around £30 million in the babk account in the last 3rds financial accounts , spend £ 21 million on Kagawa Shinji and Nick Powell , net left to spend unless a tooth fairy magically appears £ 9 million.
Of course we could be lied to that the NY float will work, ha ho the Singapore one was a real up- take.
Investors will not invest in united unless there is a return for their capital injection. Which the Glazer are not offering. no serious investor would invest in a club , that is vastly over valued, by the henchmen the Glazer employ.Wheels within wheels .
Fuck off you don’t like it and support Chelsea , he said.Not in my life time Sir Alex . Gill said , ” Debt is the road to ruin”.
Something needs to be done, to rid this cancer at Manchester United.
Ps I truly have never felt so ‘uneasy ‘ with my hero Sir Alex Ferguson , and I feel just hurt and well pride on the loyal match day going fan’s at the ‘ Theatre of dreams ‘ ,for their loyalty.
If United don’t sort out Danny Welbecks contract , or sell Wayne Rooney , i will know we are in a perilous state , and give up on United , till the Glazer are gone .
There is not much, that get’s my dander up this article did.
Spot on @dela am sorry @bob no point,just another cheap shot at bebe.if he is the prove of glazerconomics we won’t spend 7 odd million on someone playing on the street.all fine if you wanna hate glazers(rightly so)but get your fact/points right.this headline @scott is just too dramatic,fergie owes manutd nothing
I will await the article but if true i completely agree with Scott.
Fans like Gilligan make me sick quoting things like “slapping fools down, we are a well run club”
That must be a fucking joke, do you mean Sir Alex is a genius that regardless has kept us at the top. That we can never thank him enough but Scott is right our net spend on transfers is shoe string. I dont want play boy billionaires or some joker running us but why should United Money but the club for the Glazera. They have never put a fucking bean into this club and have done nothing but take money out.
Debt is the road to ruin – David Gill 2004
Sir Alex should leave this subject alone.
The ownership of the club is not his business.
Any position he takes he alienates either the fans or his bosses.
@Gilligan how can we be well run with half a billion pound of debit we had no debt until these yank leeches got hold of it we are at war with them until they fuck off .For fergie to say this team can win champions league he must think us fans are chumpions . And now he says BEBE has a future with us somebody is taking the piss out of us.just sign some world class players ffs not cheap shit again
TonyBee – Can you see a difference between not slagging off the owners and actively slagging off the fans? Why on earth does he have to criticise us?
——-
Disgusted by some of the responses from people on here.
Wait and see on the actual comments, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
I said it yesterday and as crazy as it sounds, in my view the public confirmation about the Van Persie interest was just the manager’s attempt to convince the masses that we are not cash strapped. And probably the same applies to the Moura situation.
Actively slagging off the fans? Dramtic again(exaggerating),i await this MOS interview impatiently
” Sir Alex Ferguson owes Man United nothing”
I find this comment strange, i love SAF but I love Manchester United more. No one man is bigger than the club.
Can I ask if there are any fans who go home and away that like the Glazers and how the prices have risen ten fold yet team investement has declined?
I say this with great respect when i say its easy to say club is well run we are winning things when your main priority is the team and its success. My main concern is the club and these cunts are raping it.
Scott the Red – Fucking correct mate
Too many fans care about sucess and not the long term longevity, thank fuck for Fergie and his genius to do what he has under their regime.
Sir Alex has always been supportive of the fans right to protest. I believe it when I see it
Wait for it, but really its not surprising – I would bet good money that if SAF gave a candid interview on ownership he would probably slag the fans of over the ownership issue. But I wonder why he even bothers commenting on this stuff? Having said that this bollocks on here about transfers and us not spending because we’re broke is also nonsense. I cannot believe SAF would stoop so low as to agree to oversee a transfer policy which is designed to take United down with it. The fact is I think on transfers SAF and Glazers have funnily enough found themselves in the same place. SAF doesn’t want to spend exorbitant sums, and the Glazers wouldn’t want to fund it – but if SAF was to ask for the 30+ mil for a top signing, I am pretty sure he’d get it because keeping SAF (a united institution) is key to them retaining any legitimacy in owning this club.
We all love manchester united most but yes sir alex owes manutd fuck all.in as much as i know fergie can’t go abt criticizing the owners,he wouldn’t slagg off or criticize fans too(atleast not in a way the ABU’s and to some extent scott will make us believe).SAF is manutd tru and tru(fact),he is a massive fan too.hate the glazers(we all do).they burdened the club with a crazy debt,somethins tells me they regret that massively nw and working towards righting their wrongs(IPO),gudluck to them.take off the debt and they’ve being superb owners.i repeat Sir Alex owes Manchester United nothing
In a fanzine not too long ago there was a picture of Sir Matt and Sir Alex together .tThe caption had Sir Alex asking `What will my legacy be matt?` Sir matts reply `That takeover probably`. think about it ……….
This is it I believe:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-united-manager-sir-alex-1153299?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
@Giggs12Gerrard0 – Spot on with everything you said, I’ve mentioned the whole glazer thing and how it will effect us in the future a number of times, its all good whilst Fergie is here the proof of the pudding will come when he steps down.
Just typing that made me realise why people want Moyes as the next manager. It’s simple he works miracles with little money people have actually accepted that. It’s not on.
Haven’t read the article COSTAS posted but looking at the headline alone, I actually believe SAF like I said in my last post. The transfer issue is not on the Glazers it is on SAF – so if you have a problem with the money we spend/don’t spend on transfers, take it up with SAF!
Cheers Costas. Read after I posted. That £30 million they are spending on the training ground best come with a state of the art medical centre,
@gerrard I’d like to think all fans care abt longetivity and good health of the club @costas fergie admitting bidding for players to deceive fans coz we don’t have money,when we had a bid of 32m accepted for hazard,29m rejected for moura and signed kagawa for a fee that could be worth 17m,dearie me(enough said).
Sir Alex said:
“I think there are a whole lot of different factions at United who think they own the club. It will always be contentious with them whoever owns us. When I first came, Martin Edwards was always getting pelted because he was going to sell first to (Robert) Maxwell and then to (Rupert) Murdoch and Michael Knighton.
“When the club became a plc there was disaffection and again when the Glazers took over. So there has always been wee pockets of supporters who have their views – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think the majority of real fans will look at it realistically and say it’s not affecting the team.
“We’ve won four championships since the owners came and also the Champions League. They have always backed me whenever I have asked them. I have never encountered opposition. They have always been as sensible as they can be in terms of financing the team and they have to invest in the team to maintain the value of their asset.”
He added: “I think the problem for the Glazers is that they aren’t publicists. They don’t go out of their way to seek good publicity. They are happy to stay in the background, like (Roman) Abramovich at Chelsea. Look at what they are spending on the training ground. It’s going to be fantastic.
“It’s a bit of a bomb site at the moment, but we are hoping it will be finished on time in October. When you start a project like that it just gets bigger and bigger. They’ll be spending £30million – and it’s all down to the owners.”
Jay4
Mate its an easy statement to make as we love SAF but he actually owes Manchester united and the fans as much as we owe him. He played a big part in the take over with his rock of Gibraltar feud and he should not criticise the fans. We are the most important people at the club.
@Mahesh
It wouldn’t surprise me if Fergie was on the same wave length. After all, it seems like he doesn’t like how complex the transfer market has become. However, and imo this had to be a Glazer policy first and foremost, the last 2 summers have seen us save quite a bit on wages. And now it’s reached the point where (for example) Fergie has to work with only 2 recognised full backs, one of whom has seen his form drastically drop in the last 12 months. I can’t imagine him being happy about that.
@Notorious
Ha. I sure hope so as well. Although it won’t make much difference when some players are injury prone anyway.
Fegie saying he can pick 11 kids,city can’t(classic)
Well, if Fergie ‘s telling the truth, which i doubt, then it’s his fault for not asking for the money fir a top central midfielder then, cos if he did the Glazerswould give him whatever he wants………
To add I love Fergie he is a genius and has taken the club to New levels.
Lovely read dis
m.mirror.co.uk/article?id=1153260/
Spot on Scott..He has no choice but to defend the owners but there’s no need to have a go at the fans..Glazer pays him but where does Glazer get the money to pay him? the fans!
@Costas: I wonder too, but I have trouble believing that this is SAF playing up to the Glazers’ wishes. I find it difficult to believe that our left back woes are somehow down to the glazers being unwilling to fund a 15 million transfer (which is what we would pay at most for good left back I would think). On wages, I have no idea what’s going on – either we’re taking a principled stand on wages or we’re willing to let top talent go because we’re cheap. Now on that I myself am on the fence – paying obnoxious sums to unproven players is something I don’t like, but then that is the market – so what is one to do? Can’t blame the young kids then can we?
I have to agree with the comments by Bob, “…how come a player who isnt good enough to be anywhere near a united shirt is still playing for the club, he even got the winner tonight…”
For some unknown reason we cannot buy decent players, no I do not believe it is an ‘unknown reason’, we all know the reason is the GLAZERS!!! Full stop saY NO MORE.
The comments coming with more regularity from SAF that there is no quality for money out there. Who is he trying to kid? I will not list the names of the players we missed because of our tight arse owners. Oh and another thing, I do not believe for one minute that the so called IPO will be successful. What a fucking farce, two different classes of shares, class 2 for supporters and NO VOTING RIGHTS and class 1 for the Glazers who retain ALL THE VOTING RIGHTS.
You know lads, as much as I’m bred a red, I honestly believe we have been fucked over by a mob of unprincipled Americans who are using our team as a cash cow.
Time we woke up and accepted reality folks.
Bred Red
@gerrard fergie is part of us,he is manutd through&through,and yes he is the most important in the club(he is a massive fan too)and for what its worth thanks to @costas for the article,he neva criticised the fans atall.the headline is just too dramatic,as i suspected at first sight.thnx @costas for d link,loveley
Many should get their panties unbunched because that article hardly had any seething attack on fans. There are many supporters who don’t appreciate/hate the Glazers, but SAF makes many great points about the club.
SAF isn’t going to alienate himself from the supporters, he’s not fucking stupid. He’s methodical in all his opinions and comments. If he believes something is right, he’ll have a go and live with the outcomes. More than not, he’s been right.
Sir Alex Ferguson only owes the club and fans respect and he’s done that time and again.
Didn’t get the “real fans” comment personally. I’ve seen plenty of real fans worry that the whole situation has affected the team. And I am not talking about titles. It’s about the overall quality of the squad and how it has changed in the last 4-5 years.
@Mahesh
Nah, can’t blame the youngsters. It’s how the system works today. The Welbeck case is another illustration that every youngster (whether they came through our ranks or not) will look for the best possible deal. Not saying necessarily that someone like Fryers should have been given 20k per week, but selling both Brown and O’Shea at the same time? To this day I can only describe that as a budget cut.
@Jay
You’re welcome. I just wonder if this was an abstract or his comments in full.
Raul meireles? are you kiddin me?
STR Wille and I had the CDM talk and we have no fucking clue of his resistance to get a CDM???
And the financial ???? Are all good, but to burn the Glazzers in effigy slam, cry pout and shout, fine line between opinion and slamming the man.
STR wtf SAF can’t question us when we question him????? I reread and??
If the article is the same as the one Costas linked then I personally don’t see anything wrong with it though someone should tell the Daily Fail it’s not an ‘exclusive’ if it’s appeared in The Mirror too.
I don’t like the Glazers but I don’t have this rabid hate that some people seem to have for them at every opportunity. There’s no guarantee that the next owner will be any better.
To be blunt, the idea that Fergie is covering up for the Glazers while they rape the club and everything is a smokescreen just sounds like petulant bitching to me.
Why would the greatest manager of all time choose to devote year after year of his life to the club if he was just there to cover up for the Glazers? Why risk his reputation as a professional and the goodwill he has earned from the fans just to be a Glazer lackey?
He doesn’t have anything to prove as a professional. He’s won plenty, his legend is already written.
He doesn’t need whatever cash they pay him, he’s already rich (and deservedly so).
He doesn’t need to keep working just for something to do and, even if he did, he could walk into practically any football job or take a cushy ‘ambassadorial’ role.
So why? Why should he carry on trying to keep everything together, keep the club successful and put up with all the bullshit spouted from some (not all) “supporters” who do nothing but complain and think they know how to do his job better than him?
Whatever mistakes you think Sir Alex has made, he’s more than paid you back with years of success. He doesn’t owe you anything and does not have or need to do any more. Be grateful because you will never see his like again.
Honestly, it’s a good job some of you support Manchester United because you haven’t got the balls to support a Grimsby or a Wrexham. Let’s hear you bitch about multi-million pound players when your next away game is against Hyde in the Blue Square league.
Until few months ago…and last year you ve been defending United.policy of buying players. now you shit on that. PEOPLE LISTEN TO ME….WE DONT HAVE SPEND LIKE CITEH….BUT THE FACT THAT WE CANT BUY ANY WORLD CLASS PLAYER, AT LEAST ONE WE WANT….SHOWS THAT WE ARE ‘BROKE’…WE CANT EVEN SIGN OUR YOUTH PLAYERS…
WHEN I SAID THAT, YOU TOLD ME THAT I M NOT A TRUE FAN…NOW WE SEE THAT THIS IS TRUE. AND WHEN YOU BECAME ‘CLUB WITHOUT MONEY’ IT IS VERY, VERY HARD TO WASH THAT TICKET. Like Arsenal….kids.comes.there to develop and then they go to bigger clubs. what kind of biggest club in the world we are when we can t buy any of players we.wanted
He is spot on about the hardcore anti Glazers group and the sheep they manage to win round with their lies and half truths though. I have been saying all along what’s more damaging to the club than the Glazers are MUST who have since day 1 of the Glazer ownership have been pushing the doomsday line and have been putting out stories with no evidence to back them up, there is more truth in Snow White than much of what MUST have managed to spin.
Redscott is always the perfect example of this, he buys every single sensationalist headline (For example his transfer fund comment above, sure his figures work but it ignores the fact that Football clubs revenue is top loaded so cash funds are always lowest in the quarter at the end of a season before getting a boost at the start of the next when season ticket sales, previous season prize money, TV Money, Sponsorship and the likes all come in)
If people wish to think the Glazers are the most evil thing in the universe then fine but as I keep saying it needs to come from reality and from an understanding not from fairy tales from MUST, The Media and grouos like Red Knights. While people are being militant based on these lies then these fans as Fergie seems to be suggesting are a disruption and a problem
The club broke revenue records, doubled in value, 4 of 6 PL titles, one lost on goal difference, the other to real bad calls in the Chel$ki game, 3 of 4 CL finals and a twisted Rooney ankle from 4 of 4 and another CL title!!!!
Do some ever read the shit by the banking types. All good in the MUFC ownership hood.
WHAT YOU WANT AND OIL PIMP, PLAYBOY DICK MEASURING TOOL FOR MULTI-BILLIONAIRE TOOLS!!!
If FFP ever hits even 1/4 of it the Glazzers will rule the FOOTBALLING WORLD post 2017.
New TV contract sick, the next one bigger and so on.
Perhaps SAF and the Glazers share a long-term vision that a large portion of myopic supporters are failing to grasp. Get behind your club and your owners. Why can’t SAF criticize fans? No one at United, not he players, staff, or even supporters is bigger than him. That policy has served us well, no? Get behind him for fuck’s sake. Or at least wait to hear what he has to say before slating him on the blog.
SAF says and has always says that he gets who he wants in the market. I honestly believe his investment in youth has been prompted by a Wenger-esque philosophy that these cash cows are ruining the integrity of the game. Now perhaps it has dawned on him that winning titles is, was, and always will be the most important objective of a footballing club.
And let’s be serious, when you see Carroll sold for 35 mil you have to scoff at the inflated market.
The responses pretty much confirm what I thought. Those who hate the Glazers will continue to hate the Glazers whatever happens and they’ll talk only about the Glazers. The rest of us will watch football and talk football and leave balance sheets to those who don’t care about football any more.
If this is the complete article then I’m confused as I don’t see anywhere SAF “criticizes” or “attacks” any set of fans….
Article is now on the Fail website, a bit more content than the Mirror article but still no ‘scathing attack on fans’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2176993/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-defends-Manchester-United-owners-The-Glazer-family.html
is he going to get an apology now?
Some people ask, do think with out the debt we would have more success WTF, no way. Who were the owners before? How could 4of6 PL titles be toped 6 of 6 wow, Flecth gets Ill more games missed last year in PL history. shit fuck greedy ass fans.
Thanks @Cyril Sneer and others who have posted.
I can’t believe how many of you are letting a rumor from the Daily Mail turn on your manager. THAT is disgusting.
STR made the attack on SAF, not SAF making an attack on us, just saying, imo
Thats fine another Berba the Great story and one on how disrespectful Rooney the cunt is. Love RoM and thanks STR for what you do, what you are tiring to accomplish here is beyond me. You going to start attacking SAF what we stupid poster are not enough?
Mara
Most of what you said is true, however, ‘ then they go to bigger clubs ‘?? Actually they just go to the club that will offer them more money! I mean,I don’t think west ham is exactly a bigger club! Which brings us back to the Glazers issue… LUHG
Thanks Cyril. I found the Hazard part interesting. 34mil for him is a lot but 32 (what we supposedly offered) for Moura isn’t?
I would like to flex my writing credentials upon the subject matter alas I won’t and maybe after what’s happened with the eye I don’t care anymore.
Because I love United and if I draw a parallel to The Dark Knight Rises, when this club falls then it learns to get back up again.
Now that is as easy as it is and hard – everything else is beyond the realms of understanding. We are merely supporters who will never stop following this club. Have the Glazer’s done bad? Yep. Have they done good? Yep
Figure it out accordingly and goodnight
Remember the club has a heart and soul that is nothing without those that learn to believe in it, because we too are inexplicably and intrinsically linked.
19
@cyril i wonder if he is gonna get an apology,that headline just sickens me.ve read it like 50times over again and nowhere has he criticized any fan and yes i repeat SAF owes Manutd Nothing.no coincidence that i like @costas,sensible criticism(don’t always agree with him)and all but why make it seem like the fergie is rubbishing the fans.just annoying
He can`t bite the hand that feeds him, so SAF has to defend the Glazers and as fans we don`t have to. We`ll be here long after they are gone so hope he`s not going to drive a wedge between us and him now if this article is true.
From the off i just knew the headline is crap.imagine paying 6m for agent fees,apart from salaries and transfer fee,ridiculous.@zibbie spot on are we to win 10 in 10 league title.madrid hasn’t won the chanpions league since when now and only won the la liga dis season since when? The last time i checked they aint owned by the glazers
19, heath concerns put a new prospective on things, as death of the ones we love does.
GO ROONEY!!!
The way Sir Alex and Manchester United does business in the transfer market and has a club policy/ethos of youth, attacking football with width in mind, says it all. The club’s history is in mind. Manchester is a working man’s city, “A city forged from steel, a club steeped in history and drama.”
Sir Alex isn’t going to buy a player just because they’re good or have world-class potential. You’re not just buying a fucking football player, you’re letting an individual into your house and become part of the fabric of your club’s history. Why the fuck did you think Sir Alex let Tevez go; he and his agents didn’t respect the club. Sir Alex didn’t let Rooney walk out the door with out a fight and made Rooney look like the dumbass he deserved to be, but at the end of the day, Manchester United without Rooney would have been a little unthinkable at the time.
You know, the fact that United has the debt loaded on from the owners, recent failures at big transfer market targets, injuries/misfortune is the drama and the “doing it the hard way” that makes it all that much sweet when United are successful and win, because that’s where the saying “not arrogant, just better” really, really rings through when you go through with the club as a supporter every week of your life.
Someone on twitter to long gets a mind bend, talk at people in 140 figure. AT THEM NOT WITH THEM!!!
WOW!! Scolded then left. One of my Indian buddies is all on STR for that, me 2 now. One comment by him on were all stupid and back to twitter??
RoM 2 years ago when I first found it, 20 to 50 post per story, 15 guys for the most. If you went off topic smash 4 dude scold you to flat out insult and went from hi to you cunt, no in-between. Over 2 years it has turned into what you see, I like it now, not fighting calling everyone who disagrees with you a cunt. Some good computer skill guy pull a thread from 2009 , all hate filled insults and personal attacks.
Just in case STR pulls the plug on RoM it is his, (THANKS) we need a back up.
What are other good Man Utd blogs?
Costas – Just comes down to the club’s estimation of potential I suppose. Maybe they feel Moura will ultimately be better than Hazard and are willing to pay a bit more or the fee for Moura is mostly add-ons based on performance etc.
To be honest though, I think the club would have gone a bit higher for Hazard if he hadn’t messed everyone about with dragging out the decision and all his Twitter shenanigans. I always belive that Fergie buys players with the right personal attributes, not just football skills and I don’t think Hazard fits the bill as a person.
Personally, I don’t care how much we pay for players because there’s no guarantee the funds wouldn’t just sit in Uncle Malc’s bank account. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; any money spent on players or the club is good in my opinion.
So according to you Scott if we had signed a top class midfielder like Meireles we’d still be top of the pile? Did you read what you wrote BTW calm down read the bloody interview before you start questioning what Sir Alex said ya dick
Well said Scott.
Finally we get fergies yearly backing of the owners but this time he slags off the very bloodline of the club, the fans. Just What is Fergie getting by backing these leeches year in year out? Money? Everyone else in this world seems to be selling out why should our great manager be any different.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what they are doing to the club when it comes to bringing in and keeping players. I find it disrespectful that he thinks we cant see that and then for him to feel the need to basically brush the fans off as if we are irrelevant with comments like ‘real fans’. Who are the ‘real fans’? The ones who don’t question ticket price rises while profits have never been higher during a period of nearly ten years where are net spend is less than Stoke.
His legacy is been tarnished and I fear we fans are been lead up the garden path by the very man they have loved and trusted for 2 decades.
The Old man seems to have lost touch which is not a good sign. An apology must be issues IMO.
P.s the idiot who said ‘fergie owes man utd nothing’ …Are you dumb he owes Man Utd Everything!
@Ando i will pretend like i didn’t see you calling yourself an idiot(month of Ramadan)don’t reply inferiors.
andooo is the type who back STR on this, simple as….
@zibbie
What do you mean type? Please explain..
Entitlement,
Entitlement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation. A “right” is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, such that an “entitlement” is a provision made in accordance with legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are laws based on concepts of principle (“rights”) which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
In a casual sense, the term “entitlement” refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit[1]—if given without deeper legal or principled cause, the term is often given with pejorative connotation (e.g. a “sense of entitlement”).
Contents [hide]
1 Narcissism
2 Land development
3 References
4 External links
[edit]Narcissism
In clinical psychology and psychiatry, an unrealistic, exaggerated, or rigidly held sense of entitlement may be considered a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder, seen in those who ‘because of early frustrations…arrogate to themselves the right to demand lifelong reimbursement from fate.[2]
[edit]Land development
In land development, the entitlement process is the legal method of obtaining the necessary approvals for the right to develop property for a desired use. This process is highly dependent on the desired use, if the desired use conforms with the current zoning for the property, the particular jurisdiction(s) the property is subject to and the size of the property.[citation needed]
[edit]References
^ http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20030828.html
^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 499
[edit]External links
Sense of Entitlement
Look up entitlement in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
[hide] v t e
Narcissism
Types
Acquired situational Aggressive Amorous Closet Collective Compensatory Conversational Corporate Cross-cultural Cultural Destructive Egomania Elitist Exhibitionist Fanatical Gender Group Healthy Inverted Malignant Medical Megalomania Pathological Personality disorder Phallic Primary Primordial Secondary Sexual Spiritual Unhealthy Unprincipled
Characteristics
Arrogance Bad boundaries Betrayal Boasting Bravado Conceit Criticism (intolerance of) Egocentrism Egotism Empathy (lack of) Entitlement (exaggerated) Envy Exploitative Fantasy Grandiosity Grandstanding Greed Haughtiness Hidden agenda Hubris Magical thinking Manipulative Narcissistic abuse Narcissistic elation Narcissistic injury Narcissistic mortification Narcissistic rage Narcissistic supply Narcissistic withdrawal Omnipotence Opportunism Perfectionism Self-absorbed Self-esteem Self-righteousness Selfishness Shamelessness Superficial charm Superiority complex Tantrum True self and false self Vanity
Defences
Denial Devaluation Distortion Idealization Splitting Projection
Cultural types
Control freak Dandy Diva Don Juanism Dorian Gray syndrome Drama queen Jerk Metrosexual Mr. Toad Prima donna Queen bee Snob Status symbol Trophy wife Valley girl Walter Mitty (fantasist)
Related articles
Codependency Counterdependency Cronyism Ego ideal Egomania (UK TV documentary) Elitism Empire building Generation Y God complex History of narcissism Messiah complex Micromanagement Narcissism of small differences Narcissistic leadership Narcissistic parents Narcissistic Personality Inventory Narcissus (mythology) Nepotism On Narcissism (Freud essay) Sam Vaknin Self-love Spoiled child The Culture of Narcissism (Lasch book) Victory disease Workplace bullying
Oh for eavens sake. Just seen his comments in Mirror. He is not bloody slagging off the fans. Very sensible and true comments. Get over your little late night strop and back to supporting the team. And Scott – perhaps next time you want to wait until the article is published. All you did tonight is what we slag the press for doing – publishing something that is not true
@Costas
Actually the wage bill hasn’t shrunk, it’s grown. And to be fair we haven’t operated with a wealth of full backs for years. Brown and O’Shea for example were hardly Full Backs but acted as cover so that’s nothing to do with the wage bill.
@Mahesh
It’s not a principle or cash thing. It’s a long standing Pre Glazer policy that most successful companies operate on. Wages are the biggest drain on cash for companies and they have to be managed otherwise they quickly spin out of control. Giving one player more than he is worth may seem a small thing BUT it has a snowball effect.
@Bred Red
The Unknown reason is simply that players are More and more concerned about money rather than glory. So you have 3 choices
1) Get a sugar daddy who will let the club spend more than it makes on wages which is fine till they get bored and leave
2) Overspend and like most clubs in England (not to mention Spain, France and especially Italy to name a few) run at massive losses that are unsustainable.
3) Run on a sensible business principle of wages around the 50% mark. Yes that will mean losing out on the greedy players but does anyone really want greedy players dragging the club down.
@mara
Morrison had pretty much the same deal on the table that he got at West Ham and that Newcastle were offering. His agent decided to negotiate (his right) while he decided to act like an idiot and not turn upto training, hardly the actions you should be taking when in talks for a new deal. United rightly decided it was a lost cause and pulled the deal. Pogba was also said to have been offered roughly the same deal as he had at Juve, for some reason he decided Juve was a better option (I suspect his agent played a part as he wanted his 1.3mill)
Zeki was the only one of the 3 who can argue he was low balled. Apparently the deal was in the 1.5k a week region. However 18months ago he was no where on the radar and his handful of games hardly makes him worth any more, without the injuries he wouldn’t have got near the first team and would have been happy with the deal on the table
@Costas
If you read the following part though he goes onto discuss the ‘extras’ after the fee. £34mill for Hazard was a lot but then we were happy to bid that but it was widely reported out personal/agent terms were worse. 18% agent fee just to Hazards agent alone (there will have been other agents involved too) is ridiculous and that’s before Chelsea’s silly wages they are paying him and the players signing on fee and it’s that side of things rather than the fees themselves that have gone crazy.
I suspect with the Lucas deal even if he thinks the fees too high it’s clearly in the uniteds acceptable range for a player like that and I suspect the ‘extra’ fees will be less
now, now fellas.
If the Glazers are a Cancer do people really think United can keep a flowing mane of hair whilst undergoing radio therapy? Before you OUST the Glazers you’d HAVE TO DESTROY THE CLUB FIRST and that can’t be done with fairy dust and clicking your mouses together.
Do you lot think for one second Ferguson is gonna stand by and let faceless Red Knights sabotage the Club in order to save it ? You’re having a laugh. The destruction of Manchester United by a section of it’s own fans won’t happen on Fergie’s watch, he’d expose and topple the 5th Column before that happens.
Those who underestimate Fergie and reckon he’s losing it will have to wait for a chance to slit his successors throat imo. Poor Ole! But something tells me the interview will be all hype and no trousers anyway so im glad im on holiday soon as this kinda pre-season publicity ain’t what I wanna hear.
One last thing, Scott mate, if this interview really is a criticism of certain supporters why can’t Alex Ferguson express those opinions publicly? Im yet to read the interview, but if Charlton happens to agree with whatever the manager says about a portion of supporters (which im sure he will) does that mean Charlton is bang out of order too? Where does it stop if the opinion of the manager suddenly becomes taboo? I don’t know if the Red Knights are still in existence but they and their followers sure do seem the only ones with carte blanche to say and do as they please. Funny that.
UTID
Adroooooo
Entitled people have no logic, I’m owed everything. That type of fan. A Yankee fan in the US, a Real fan in Spain. Nothing ever good enough, I deserve this, if I don’t get it someone else’s fault!
You see you in a small minority here.
Like the 1000 post loss VS 330 post win.
Zibbie your a tool but I’m not sad enough to copy and paste extracts from dictionary’s. Simple as that really. I’ve read far too much of your shite to even want to have a discussion with you.
If the link Costas posted is the same story STR is referring to (STR said the Mail on Sunday, the link is for the Mirror from Saturday), then it’s a storm in a teacup, because (a) SAF is not slagging off the fans in that interview, and (b) he isn’t really saying anything new that he hasn’t said before.
I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth about our transfer and salaries policies during the Glazer years. Has SAF really been given everything he asked for? He says so. Many of us think not. Even if he is telling the truth, it may well be a case of him being smart enough not to ask for money that he knows he won’t get.
But in the end, I do believe that’s all irrelevant. Because, as I’ve said on here before: even without the debt, United are in no position to compete against owners who have 10 or 20 billion dollars of free cash in their personal bank accounts. These are vast sums of money, well beyond the imagination of ordinary mortals like us.
According to most reliable estimates, when the sheikh saddle up his camel, trots down to his local ATM, sticks his card in and hits the Balance button, the figure that comes back is $20,000,000,000 (give or take a few million). That is a million bucks, 20,000 times over. Even if he never added another cent to it for the rest of his life, that’s enough to spend a million dollars a day for the next 54 years — and at the end of that, he would still have $290 million left. But the reality is, his bank account is growing all the time. And I want to emphasize: this is just his personal money. It does not include any of funds he controls as the head of various businesses, nor does it include the equally vast personal fortunes owned by many members of his immediate family.
Abramovich isn’t quite so well off. His fortune is estimated at around 9 billion dollars. At a million bucks a day, he would have to stop spending after only 24 years, at which point he’d be down to his last $240 million.
When such vast sums are under the control of individuals who answer to no-one but themselves, then it isn’t possible to compete on financial terms. Our revenue, in US dollars, is about $500 million a year. Even without debt, how much of that would be available after you subtract our “genuine” running costs? Let’s be generous and say $200 million. That is 1% of the funds available to the sheikh, and a little over 2% of the funds available to the Russian.
Under these circunstances, I think our debt becomes pretty much irrelevant. Of course, I still wish it to be gone, but I don’t believe it makes any real difference when it comes to transfers. The Arab and the Russian can always out-bid us, any time they choose, and that will remain the case until they are prevented from using their wealth this way (and I am not confident the FFP rules will achieve that).
When your opponent has an overwhelming superiority in one particular area, then you are insane to do battle on his terms. You have to find another way. And that, in essence, is what SAF has been doing, by buying younger players who fall “under the radar” of those other clubs, and by applying his own brand of tactical and motivational genius.
Could we have bought some better players, if we been debt-free? Sure. Would it have been enough to have made a difference? The Glazers have been in charge now for 7 PL seasons, so let’s look at that.
In the PL, we have won four of those 7 seasons. In the three we didn’t win, we were second. In two of those (last season, and 2009/10), the margins were extremely close: goal-difference last season, and 1 point in 2009/10. So yes, it’s conceivable that we might have won both those seasons if we had been able to spend a little more. But it is by no means certain. I hate not winning the PL as much as any fan, but I have to say that 4 titles and 3 second-places over 7 seasons is not so bad.
As for the CL, I honestly don’t think it would have made much difference. We have won it once in those 7 seasons, and been runner-up twice. But to be brutally honest, I don’t know what we could have done, or who we could have bought, that would have made a difference in either of those losses to Barcelona, who played out of their skins on both occasions.
Next thread Sir Bobby is a commy!
Scott, One of ROM’s best articles.
Stateside man of financial knowledge.
If not the Glazzers who.
I been a business consultant going on 25 years. Every place I went 80% new all the problems and had no answers to fix them. Some offer a fix. If not them then what?
Stateside his Family is worth right at one TRILLION FUCKING$$$$$$$$$$ THATS BANK.
This is the second time he’s laid into the fans recently
. He slagged us down for the noise levels yet sits in his dugout, stands when he likes and shouts at the players without a wanker in high vis telling him to sit down or cool it.
This looks like its aimed at MUST and the GG campain which to be fair has actually gone dead. No anti Glazer chants last season, or so few you couldn’t hear them. You still see the scarves and hats but thats generally day trippers who’ve bought them from the mercinaries outside at a fiver a throw.
Having said that he’s no right to slag any Utd fan down who has different views to himself, some of these are the fans who pay a fortune every season going home and away, travel long distances and sing their hearts out. Freedom of speech Sir Alex Freedom of speech.
Got to add some comments are down right insulting.
Still Love the ol fool though. UTD UTD UTD.
Zibbie
You swallowed a dictionary
Go cubs Go Rooney.
It comes down to American hate and no so vial Jewish hate.
Solution not just your pollution guys come on a rational option still waiting!!!
no harm but scott the red us&why are all these wankers jumpin on anti-fergie bandwagon??crying bout ticket prices/lack of transfer funds fuck off&get behind the team u pack of paranoid insecure glory-hunting twats.so if utd do go bust&shit hits fan kike rangers are u preaching this bullshit so its ur get out clause??UTD TIL I DIE!!remember that
no harm but scott the red us&why are all these wankers jumpin on anti-fergie bandwagon??crying bout ticket prices/lack of transfer funds fuck off&get behind the team u pack of paranoid insecure glory-hunting twats.so if utd do go bust&shit hits fan kike rangers are u preaching this bullshit so its ur get out clause??UTD TIL I DIE!!remember that
GO ROONEY!! Prwan eating hand sitting fools who get guard to keep em quiet?
James your a fan who goes to games, I always respect your view. In the US it would not bother near as much. As you see by my posts. HUUMM
I am not a big fan of the Glazers but during their ownership we have been very successfull both in the league and in Europe. Maybe the most successfull time in the clubs history.
Jame a dictionary, fuck me sideways, that must be what Sue served yesterday, it gave me a bad case of the shits.
A day without Willie, is a day without sunshine.
The old fart has lost his mind
Zibbie … a man who’s as broke as I am, can’t possibly claim to have any financial knowledge. But cheers, anyway.
@Andoo
Boo goo hoo. Who really cares about our net spend. It’s just another one of those figures that can be twisted to suit MUST so they can whip fans I to a frenzy.
The club have spent the 3rd most in the league on players during the Glazers time and are well above those around us in the net spend table. We are around the clubs we are in net spend because the club have done decent business when selling players on even without the Ronaldo sale BUT the Ronaldo fee has certainy skewed it even more.
Net spend is simply meaningless on its own and without context so just give it a rest ffs
Wakey – many don’t wanna digest all that but well said mate. Supporters can afford to live in a United shaped bubble, im NOT even criticising that, but the Club itself is a business so it has to be run like a business at all times. Thats the harsh reality, but even if we had fairy godmothers for owners I don’t think Fergie’s transfer activity would’ve been any different. A lot has changed since the 90′s.
Also, just like you’d be a mug to re-mortgage your house in this economy to buy a brand new (depreciating) Aston Martin with huge insurance payments, I think our manager and owners would be mugs to follow the example of Chelsea and City and pay over the odds on a single player. Who really gives a monkeys who they throw money at? They are living on borrowed time and their business models are unsustainable. I’d much rather secure the roof over my head and drive a hatchback than be johnny big bollocks and lose the lot trying to keep up with my soon-to-be-repossessed neighbours.
So I have to say im with the manager on this one. The alternative people are asking for, namely judging our state of affairs by how much we spend on players, doesn’t make bloody sense. Valencia and Hernandez have brought huge success with them for example, but how much did they cost and how much were they slagged off because Chelsea and City were spending 100 million each?
Even the shrewd Levy is adopting the United way and placing emphasis on home grown talent and signing young players to develop them. Not only does that make sense financially it will also increase the likelihood of England producing a team that isn’t completely shite and insupportable. Big changes are over due in the financing of the English and European games so I think I’ll keep trusting the manager on this one fellas.
Laters.
Californikation did you in mate. Greed gone mad, spend spend spend.
I friend in 88 quit his job to go work for the state, he said he could retire with good $ and benefits in 20 years come 2008 all his pension gone, still working we talked 2 years ago and remembered myself and another trying to tell him Caly was going down the drain!!!!!
Zibmiester
We don’t hate the Americans in this country. Some of us historical folk still Remember WW2 and the help given when this country was on its knees.
Think I must have eaten one too, my bowels are churning.
Martis
Giggs12 mentioned it @ 22:21. Giggs 12 goes home and away, has done for years, he is certainly no glory hunter, he’s a top Red.
@StatesideAussie – top post.
Regan 1st west-coast Pres, fueled the cold war all his west coast boyz got rich in the war machine bus. Most defense contractors based there. After the break up of the USSR and less military spending, over inflated real-estate BURST WENT THE BUBBLE! His entire cabinet was within 6 years busted, resigned in disgrace of fraud and people still love him. Teflon President nothing stuck to him, as we found out his last 2 years dementia had set in bad.
James – Didn’t know you like your history mate, me too
Pointless comparing Net Spend in relation to success. Liverpool have a higher Net Spend then us after spunking 35 million on Carroll and 30 million on Downing and Henderson but they’ve hardly set the league alight….
“Look at what they are spending on the training ground. It’s going to be fantastic.”
“It’s a bit of a bomb site at the moment, but we are hoping it will be finished on time in October. When you start a project like that it just gets bigger and bigger. They’ll be spending £30million – and it’s all down to the owners.”
I mentioned this months ago. I know the Gardener. The amounts mentioned kind of make a mockery of the idea that the Club is skint.
Not you James the Ranters of Glazzer hate, we are almost one country born from England. U all good in this RoM hood.
Cyril
Yes mate. I even remember the Racoons, Cyril Sneer was actually and Aardvark.
Staeside
Thats me and Zibbie together. Always leave the financial stuff to Wakey. My place is vocal support
James – This guy? http://images.wikia.com/raccoons/images/3/31/GoldRush.jpg
He’s an impostor!
Later gators….
I’m watching Contagion wow, I remember gay cancer turns into AIDS I was in Caly then. A scare when I was 25 and sexually active. Scary time. 1 in 4 University girls have some type of STD.
Cyril
Bet you’re not as evil and don’t have a son called Cedric.
Laters mate.
Night Sneer
ROONEY ROONEY ROONEY!!!!!!!! nigh James.
@Giggs12Gerrard0 — I said Alex Ferguson doesn’t owe Manchester United anything, I never said he was bigger than the club.
Look, it’s like this, I don’t want United to be in massive debt either. It just is. If you are mad about how the Glazers bought the club for example, then you should be giving as much energy to fighting the football authorities that allowed a leveraged buyout in the first place, while at the same time talking tough about fiscal discipline. In 2010, the big protest against the Glazers erupted again, with calls to boycott season tickets and shirt sales and so forth. Why? To cut funding to the Glazers? What do you think the first place they will target to cut their losses will be? The staff. It’s also futile since United continues to gain spending fans overseas.
United do spend money.. I think the problem with fans is that City and Chelsea spend MORE money. Particularly now that City are champions, there seems to be belief that we can only overcome them if we shell out £100 million on hyped up players, even though we lost the league on goal difference and clearly had some of the worst luck we ever had in terms of injuries and how we lost and drew games (Everton 4-4 in particular). We lost 6-1 to City because we went down to ten and lost our composure without key players, like Vidic.
Then there’s the more silly argument that if the Glazers weren’t here, United would have had hundreds millions more to spend, would DEFINITELY have spent it on players and would be unstoppable. This is nonsense.. one word… CHELSEA. Ye, they jammed a champions league win, but they finished 6th. They were rubbish all season. Liverpool spent a metric fuck ton of money and look where they finished… with only the mickey mouse cup to show for it. Then there’s the convenient forgetting of the rise in revenue under the Glazers which is not guaranteed had they not taken over… don’t take that as a compliment to them though, since so much money goes on interest payments, I’m just pointing out that the extra revenue was not a guarantee
I don’t like them either, but that’s what happens when billionaires with enormous liabilities take over a cash cow like Manchester United. We aren’t the only club surrounded by leeches. Half the clubs in the top two tiers of English football have shadow-owners. or completely uninterested investors who only care about revenue gained from TV and staying at the top level etc. Also, if someone offers money for Manchester United, the debt won’t magically disappear. It would be like the takeover of Liverpool, there would be an enormous debt to clear immediately for the new owners.. which is money you may BET they will be expecting to make back and hundreds of millions more.
There is no easy way out of this. None at all. Organized boycotts might bring about completely unintended consequences. What if United suddenly couldn’t make a debt payment and was considered in default? We would actually be risking being kicked out of the Premier League altogether, which would be absolute ruin. Fergie would then be gone, and it would take perhaps decades years to reach the same level again.
What bothers me is that pointing out these risks.. you get treated like some kind of Glazer apologist and less of a fan. You aren’t allowed to criticize MUST, or the Red Knights who never came up with a bid, OR other fans. Every time Fergie hints that he’s happy with the midfield, or that there won’t be any big signings, and says its because he doesn’t see value or whatever, the reaction is basically that he’s LYING. He has been on the receiving end of quite a lot of criticism too over the last few years and if he decides to give some back, then try not to take it so personally, he’s just one guy shouting at many, instead of many shouting at one. I actually think it would be good to see him come out and fight back if he truly feels he’s right. He has never had a problem standing up to a player, or big shareholders in the company, why should he fear asserting his control to fans too? He is the boss after all.
Stateside me too mate.
!st time i went broke, business partner was shagging the accountant, he got diviorced they took the money to Florida.
Second time I went broke a women, mine that time.
I’m sinking fast going for a 3rd time. Medical bill, under insured, now no Insurance company will underwrite me, have to many assets to get State help ( not for long0 and well no kids so just me. If things do not get better in a year, I will be busted. From millions to nothing for the 3rd time. I have come to terms with my new situation and could have died that July day some years back when a farmer lost a big round bail of hay weighing some 2000 lbs smashed into me at 60 mph, I could have easily died that day. I celebrate each day with stupid optimistic tones. As MG is finding out, not to long ago he would be blind. We live like Roman Senators with metal chariots with thermostatically controlled environments. GPS I-PODS heated seats ect…
Dela
Said.
In 2010, the big protest against the Glazers erupted again, with calls to boycott season tickets and shirt sales and so forth. Why? To cut funding to the Glazers? What do you think the first place they will target to cut their losses will be? The staff. It’s also futile since United continues to gain spending fans overseas.
One of the reasons I always thought the protest was futile. I wouldn’t ever see the team suffer regardless of who the owners are. But I respect the ones who do protest. not for me though.
Also MUST are a waste of space, they got fans to jump on the Glazer bandwagon, most who wear the G&G don’t even know why, they’re daytrippers who just want to be part of it on their big day out.
oooh is that controversial.
@Dela great post.
On being asked to become a Patron of SU/MUST Ole said: “I am honoured. I think it is important that the club remains in the right hands. I am absolutely on the supporters’ side and think the club is in very good hands as it is today. I am a United fan myself and only want what is best for the future.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, MUST Patron
Born in Mitcham, Surrey in September 1942, Alex was signed for £55,000 – then a world record fee for a ‘keeper- from Chelsea, in the 1966/67 campaign, which was to end with the Championship pennant flying at Old Trafford. Rated as one of England’s leading ‘keepers, his assurance in the United halls of immortality came in one heart-stopping moment at Wembley in 1968, in the European Cup Final. Extra time loomed as United and Benfica were one apiece. Eusebio outstripped the United defence and found himself with only Alex between him and glory. Eusebio shot, Alex dived, caught the ball and United went on to reach the end of the rainbow! For 12 years, under 5 different managers, his name was synonymous with that of United. Even after he plied his trade elsewhere, United remained in his heart. His favourite player was George Best. Alex agreed to become a Patron because he wants to help carry on the tradition of United, as a club for the supporters. He hates the idea of faceless moneymen coming into the club who would spoil the fabric and traditions we hold so dear.
Alex Stepney – MUST Patron
xol and when was that quoted? wow And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China.
Terry was the former singer with the legendary ska band, The Specials, who enjoyed both critical acclaim and chart success in the late 70′s and early 80′s. After the band disbanded he went on to front other groups such as the Fun Boy Three and the Colourfield before going alone in the early 90′s. Terry fell in love with United through George Best and moved up to the Stockport area in the early 80′s so he could watch the reds regular. Nowadays he resides in London but gets to as many home and aways as possible. Terry is proud to be a patron of MUST.
Terry Hall – MUST Patron
MUFC broke a revenue record of 100 million, just a start.
Nigel was born and educated in Swansea and still owns a convenience store there, which his grandfather set up in the 1930′s. He has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Ribble Valley, Lancashire since 1992. A member of the all- party groups dealing with music, tourism, manufacturing, drugs misuse and space group. He was made shadow Secretary of State for Wales in September 2001 and in October 2003, was appointed to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. He also serves on the Trade & Industry Select Committee. An avid United supporter, he was more than happy to become a Patron of SU.
Nigel Evans MP
I’m a Utd fan too Ole, from birth. I’m actually honoured to be born a Red and to support a team with such amazing history. The last 20 years have been something else, far better than the 70′s and the early 80′s when I went to my 1st game and saw Stevie Coppell for the 1st time. Oh memories.
As one of the mighty Legends of United, Harry needs very little introduction to supporters. Born on 27th October 1932, in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, Harry arrived at Old Trafford bearing the tag of The World’s Most Expensive Goalkeeper. Prior to leaving Ireland, he was capped at every level, schoolboy, youth, amateur and Inter-League. Strangely, in nine years at United, the only medal he ever won was an F.A.Cup Runners Up medal from the cup final in 1958. As we all know, Harry was a survivor of the Munich disaster, showing unbelievable bravery, saving a 20-month-old baby, a pregnant woman, and trying to revive Sir Matt Busby. He was part of the patchwork team that Jimmy Murphy built after the crash. Even after a horrific shoulder injury, when surgeons said he might never play again, he battled back to fitness, to play against Benfica seven months later. The death of his first wife, Mavis, was a shattering blow, which took a heavy toll. Although Harry was once again United’s first choice goalkeeper, he suffered injuries and a very bad car crash, missing most of the 64/65 season, but remained in the first team until Alex Stepney was bought in 1966. In a playing career, which spanned almost two decades, he won 25 International caps for Northern Ireland, assisting his country to the quarter finals of the World Cup in Sweden in 1958, where he was voted the tournament’s best keeper. In 1995, Harry was rewarded by his country, receiving an M.B.E in the Queens Birthday Honours List, which he accepted on behalf of the many friends who perished at Munich. We are honoured that such a man accepted our invitation to become an SU Patron.
Harry Gregg
It appears that my comments were not fully understood. So I ask only one question, the rest has been adequately answred for & against in the many reponses to this post: WHY ARE THERE TO BE TWO CLASSES OF SHARES?
When they first attempted the two different types of shares on the Asia stock market it was rebuffed. Again it is apparentlet a ‘no no’ on the U.K stock market so what do the Glazer Family do, (Oh by the way I do not hate the Glazers, I just hate what they have done and continue to do to the club I have both ‘initially’ supported travelling the length & bredth of the U.K, and as I now reside overseas, follow the furtunes of my club, MANCHESTER UNITED.
If the Glazer family were fair dinkum and issued only one class of shares where every investor would have a sense of ownership, they’d have no problem selling the shares. As it ‘appears’ people are not so gullible and can see through the Glazer Family tactics. They bought a club with no debt by saddling the club with almost a billion pounds debt. The ‘owners’ have regularly ‘drawn down’ funds with little if any interest to be paid for their own personal gain and NOT FOR THE GOOD OF THE (OUR) CLUB.
These views are mine, but I imagine there are many other genuine United supporters & followers, (Note a distinction) who only want the best for the club.
NO, I do not want an oil rich Shiek, Billionaire playboy or nepotanistic entrepreniers;
(FROM THE DICTIONARY: favouritism shown to relatives or close friends by those with power or influence
[from Italian nepotismo, from nepote nephew, from the former papal practice of granting special favours to nephews or other relatives]
nepotic [nɪˈpɒtɪk], nepotistic adj
nepotist n
to own my club. I think it is a fundamental right for every true supporter/follower to own shares in their club and said shares to have equal value for all.
If this sound a little over the top, it is my right to express my feelings and have such feeling respected, as I respect the views of ALL other posters, whether I agree with their comments or not. Is that a fundamental concept within democracy?
71 years old, a Manchester United fan since I first understood a little about football, the same year that my team beat Blackpool in 1948 and proudly displayed the F.A Cup to the people of Manchester.
Yes, I claim to be BRED RED and after 63+ years I have supported and followed my team through thick and thin.
Go United.
xol still waiting for a smart counter argument. Not just shit. So fucking what some people think, ask a footballer about high finance, why not ask the pizza delivery guy about your brain tumor.
In an unprecedented change to the usual Patron, John Leech, the new Liberal Democrat M.P. for the Manchester Withington constituency, has been a Manchester City season-ticket holder for 21 years. But he was more than happy to become a Patron, because he agrees so strongly with our views on the Glazer takeover and wants to support our aims and ambitions for the future of the club we love so much. John, born in Hastings, has lived in Manchester since he was 4 years old, presently living in South Manchester with his girlfriend. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, Loreto College and Brunel University, where he studied History and Politics. He is Vice Chair of the Grandparents and Extended Kin Group and a Member of the Select Committee on Transport. Asked why he had agreed to become a Patron, his reply was a simple one. “I strongly believe that football clubs should be better protected from individuals just out to make a profit, who appear to have no obvious commitment to the club. As a City supporter, it would be very easy for me not to care about the future of United, but football SHOULD be about the fans, not about the money, regardless of which team you support.” We welcome John as a Patron who wants to be an active member of the Patrons’ group.
John Leech MP
xol
Don’t forget Victor Meldrew, ie Richard Wilson. I don’t bloody believe it.
xol
Stop cutting and pasting, Zibbie got spammed for that.
Mani, as he is affectionately known, is one of the most friendly and recognisable faces in Manchester. He grew up in Failsworth and loved the reds from a very early age and cites the Docherty era as very memorable. Mani was the bass player with the legendary local band who achieved national success, The Stone Roses. Their debut album, The Stone Roses, along with the Beatles and Radiohead, is in every music critic’s greatest album list. Nowadays he plays in cult Scottish rock band Primal Scream. Everywhere you go in Manchester someone will know Mani and the 99% of people adore him. He gets to the games whenever he can and is proud to be a patron alongside Pat Crerand, one of his all time heroes. Next time you hear the opening chords of ‘This is the one’ at Old Trafford think of Mani and enjoy it more.
Mani – MUST Patron
James ok, thanks for the warning
United Til I Die … cheers mate.
Dela: top post. I have never understood why some fans think we could, and should, attempt to drive the Glazers out through a boycott. I am incapable of understanding anyone who argues that the only way to save this club is to destroy it. To borrow a quote from one of the most misunderstood geniuses of our time, the late great Frank Zappa: “This would be the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.”
Zibbie: man, you’ve been through it, haven’t you? I went bust about a year ago. In my case, it didn’t take much. I was in the US then. Out of work in the middle of a recession, with a family to support and no hope of doing it. But I was lucky: I had an escape route (Australia) and was able to find a good job here and bring my family out before we all ended up on the street. Now, at the age of 51, I am starting all over again. Every day, when I wake up, I am grateful for it, and so I get out of bed and rejoin the battle. And every night, when I go to bed knowing that we still have a roof over our heads, and have put food in our bellies, then I know that this day at least, I have won the battle. And if, along the way, I can watch my kids grow up into fine young adults (as two of them have done already), and I have the opportunity to watch by beloved United play (if only on TV), then it doesn’t seem so bad. Cheers man!
Bred Red nice post.
Liberty, is awesome. I might not agree with what many people say, I will fight to my death for them to have the right to say it.
GO REDS!!!!!!!!!
Been Red crazy only going on my 9th year.
I began watching the PL when the Gunners had their undefeated year, then Chel$ki raied the bar to () points to win the PL. For my first 3 years no PL title. But I know and get championship sides, I saw SAF retooling, out my then favorite player Keaneo, Becks Ruud, in Rooney, CR7 and Teves!!!!!!!!! I’m a long suffering Chicago fan in all pro sports outside a run with the Bulls of the NBA with Michael Jordan, not many Champions there in 45 years. No team is Entitled to win, none, not even MUFC is my message.
FERGIE QUOTE FROM THE “OFFENDING” ARTICLE:
“……..‘We buy in the right way and that’s the difference between United and the rest — we can play 18 year olds because it’s part of our history. It’s like a destiny for us that when a young player emerges we play him, and that has never failed us.
No other clubs can do that. City won’t do it. They definitely won’t play any young players who have come up through the system. Their buys are all 25, 26, 27-year-old established players with a good maturity, experience and good ages. They won’t go away because the age group tells you that. They don’t have any over-30s in their team.
They don’t play any young players and the fans don’t expect any youth players to come through the way we expect them to at United.’
While Chelsea have spent huge amounts to sign the likes of Eden Hazard, the United boss has spent a total of about £20m to bring in Japan forward Shinji Kagawa and teenage midfielder Nick Powell….” END OF FERGIE QUOTE.
Dela – great post in all respects. From a finance perspective, it almost requires a sugar daddy uninterested in returns to fund an acquisition of this size without debt, so it is extremely unlikely that the next owner(s) would not use debt as well (unless they are the qatari royal family or the like).
Great family I have Stateside.
Zappa wow.
Stateside, here is a favorite stuff have fun with Frank and Dick look through them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeUe5-HcsT0
Wonderful Post, Dela. For a club being accused by its fans of not spending money, we spent around 50M last season on just three players with around 18M just going for a GK.
For all its money, City won the title on GD. We had an unprecedented amount of injuries to our defence and lost our captain for the best part of the season.
United are a club which is used to winning titles but we mustn’t be blinded by the fact that we have a team good enough to challenge for honors this season.
Who knows, maybe Kagawa is the missing link perhaps.
Slim ME!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yq7043awb4&feature=related
The $40 bill didn’t mater no more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4hzVpYAP-U&feature=relmfu
Bred Red good stuff post more please
I posted that link some 50 post ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2176993/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-defends-Manchester-United-owners-The-Glazer-family.html?ITO=1490
I don’t know Zibbie, maybe people who haven’t yet formed a view on Supporter’s Trusts might be shocked at the variety of people who support them, after reading so much derogatory stuff about such groups.
xol sure, ask Ole now not back when. See his response now.
To be honest don’t know much can be done about this but Fuck the yanks. Period. This entry seemed a bit hasty,after reading the article. But I still feel its a timely reminder. We need to get out of this debt and get the glazers out. I believe we can have far better owners/structure
Wow…just wow…this is fucking ridiculous! In Sir Alex Ferguson I trust. If people can’t see the bigger picture and how our great club is geared to profit in the long term then fair enough…but how anyone can DARE question SAF is beyond me! How have you forgotten how much this great man has contributed to the club in the last 2 decades??? The man is Utd through and through…FUCK ANYONE who thinks otherwise. I won’t be giving your daft opinons the time of day…FUCKING INGRATES!
Bred Red … it’s not unusual for US-listed companies to have two classes of shares. Nor is it unusual for a company to declare that one or both classes of shares will never pay a dividend (as United is planning, as I understand). One reason to do it this way: it limits the ability of the huge institutional investors (like mutual funds) to take control. Because the shares don’t pay dividends, and because it would be virtually impossible to ake control (unless the Glazers actually wanted to sell out), mutual funds and large private investors either can’t or won’t invest. Thus, unless the Glazers decide they want out, we re stuck with them.
One way to look at this: it reduces the chance we will bought by some prince charming who has bags of money and just wants what is best for the club.
Another way to look at this: it reduces the risk that we will be bought by some scumbag who has bags of money and just wants to play football manager against the Russian and the Sheikh.
So take your choice. But in my view, there are more rich scumbags around than there are rich prince charmings.
hmmm Zappa. See you in a few days.
slim what, what is better, WHAT , just don’t spew and give no better owner. who what????
I mean I’m going to listen to Frank Zappa recordings for a few days, it’s been to long! Maybe the answer to the debt can be found there.
@James this is the type I was talking about, just hate, no scene.
slim says:
To be honest don’t know much can be done about this but Fuck the yanks. Period. This entry seemed a bit hasty,after reading the article. But I still feel its a timely reminder. We need to get out of this debt and get the glazers out. I believe we can have far better owners/structure
Hi Zibbie,
Sometimes I get carried away, I guess it’s age or something!!! One thing for sure, I see both sides of most arguments and will try to be objective in my posting. If I cannot offer something constructive I keep my Salford gob shut.
I have so many memories of all levels of United teams. Often I used to frequent the Cliff on weekends. Sometimes Salford Boys team played there followed by either United A team or the B team and was even fortunate to see some of the Salford Boys team progress to the B usby Babes. Geoff Bent and Eddie Coleman to name just two.
One of our teachers at my primary school used to give away ‘United Reserve’ team tickets for Old Trafford, that was the start of catching the bus in Lower Broughton up to Ordsall and crossng the swing bridge over to Trafford Park and walking along the train tracks to Old Trafford. I used to save my three penny bits and every two weeks spent my tanner to get into the Stretford End. I was fortunate enough to see many great United teams.
The lowest time in my then young life was on February 6th 1958. I recall the arrival of the ballet dancer (sic) Albert Quixall for the then record fee of £48,000.
Many memories locked in the (very) old grey matter. Maybe I’ll post more before they are lost to alzheimer’s.
‘Nuff said, BRED RED.
Zappa has many messages and answers!!!!
I grew up in a small industrial Catholic town.
Bred Red no worries mate that is what Blogs are for, I love you point of view and personal MUFC history, Stateside is a good man to answer your stock questions. So is Fletch and many more.
Please come by more often. Your views will be appreciated by many. I wish more gents your age chimed in, thanks.
Bred Red post early and often!!!!
@james21 – Ye I respect people who protest too, but I don’t like being lumped with them.
@james21 –> Hit the submit button accidentally
But ye, I respect fans who protest too, but I don’t like lumped as one of them. I was against the Glazer takeover at the beginning, but unfortunately they legally took control of the club with the nod of approval of some really hypocritical suits. Of course, people can protest their ownership all they like, but where I start to get upset about it is when it becomes “with us or against us,” or fantasies of scaring them away by not buying a shirt etc. which might only do more harm than good to the club.
@Zibbie – Thanks
@StatesideAussie – I love Frank Zappa. A few years back, my uncle gave me a bunch of Frank Zappa CDs and I didn’t really listen to them. After he died in 2010, I dug out the CDs and listened to them quite a bit. Grows on you very quickly
And yep, agree about the “starve the beast” philosophy being very risky.
@Esteban – Yep, that’s the problem. Until UEFA actually stops talking and does something, any billionaire can just buy up a club and pay for trophies. City have done it with an enormous backing from the United Arab Emirates, Chelsea with Roman Abramovich. I don’t think we need to match their spend to compete with them though, since the amount of money they spend on some of their players is way over what they are worth. The selling clubs know they can afford it, so they slap ridiculous price tags on them.
@Vivek – Yep, we do spend money, alas not as much as City etc. Looking at the article by STR (who I want to point out I have no personal beef with over his backing of the anti-Glazer protests etc, I read this blog everyday and appreciate it) there is one line I have to point out..
“Nobody is asking us to spend like City or Real Madrid, but the “most valuable sports franchise in the world” ranks behind Chelsea, City, Liverpool and Spurs in the transfer league. In fact, per season since 03-04, we’ve seen £1m more going out than Aston Villa.”
See that’s something I’m HAPPY about. I’m not entirely convinced that if we matched City’s spending we’d have won the league. I reckon had we avoided Cleverely’s injury at Bolton, Vidic’s injury, Fletcher didn’t have to bow out, Scholes hadn’t retired for six months etc. We’d have won it comfortably. Ye, of course, we didn’t get out of the Champions League group, but then again, neither did City. Liverpool spent like hell and had an awful season. Chelsea managed a cup double, “somehow”, but still finished 6th. I’d genuinely rather finish 2nd with nothing than do that.
Of course it’s all just a case of what could have happened differently, but that applies both to avoiding injuries and bad luck AND to whether we spent £50 million more or not.
MUST should shut their gobs up, find some “sugardaddies” and give the Glazers an offers they CAN’T refuse.
I mean destroying club first to help them? WTF is that?
Oh STR as much as i respected you, i think you’re being silly enough to let yourself fell into the Daily Fail “sensational” news…
MUST should shut their gobs up and find “sugardaddy” somewhere then give the Glazers an offer they CAN’T refuse.
I mean destroying club first to help them? WTF is that?
Oh STR as much as i respected you, i think you’re being silly enough to let yourself fell into the Daily Fail “sensational” news…
@James21
The reason why MUST are a waste of space is they might sit there and claim they are there for the fans BUT if that ever was the idea it quickly went out of the window. MUST exists simply to make those running it feel important and rather than representing the fans they try and use us to grab more power.
I was pointing this out before the Red Knights but that showed MUST up for what they really are, the minute they got offered any sort of power in the form of a golden share (which to remind people didn’t give them any input except being able to boycott the sale when the Red Knights decided to flip the club if they didn’t like the new owners) they were behind the Red Knights and their calls to have us as fans boycott the club. This is despite the fact that anyone looking at the Red Knights with a critical eye could see the flaws in their proposal and claims
@xol
They are patrons though, it’s basically a honorary title which requires very little of them. Turning the role down for most of them isn’t an option as it would be a PR disaster for them.
It’s the actual leadership of MUST that’s the problem. They have ended up down the same route that sadly most Trade Unions end up in and that’s they have to become publicity whores and whip it’s members (and potential members) into a frenzy to justify their job and keep them in power.These patrons aren’t MUST if anything they are being used as pawns by MUST as much as MUST members and the wider United fanbase are.
If MUST were a serious supporters trust they wouldn’t have continually stepped over the line during the takeover which alienated them completely and wouldn’t have continually made the divide wider with their lies and half truths. They didn’t ever want to be at the table to try and fight for the causes of the fans they just wanted to feed their egos.
Fuckin’ idiot phone!!
Been calling for the retirement of SAF and removal of Phelan for quite some time now……..they are starting to drag the club down and should leave whilst they can still retain some dignity. Truly enjoyed your comments on SAF and the fact that fergie was the direct cause of glazers ending up owners of the club because of his dispute over a race horse with the previous owners……because it was spot on !!! Fergie is too cocky and thinks he is beyond reproach with his criticism of us fans when he should realize that our comments and concerns overs the years are coming true right before our eyes…….Time for the old horse to be put out to pasture !!!
Good grief…..
I can bet if the IPO becomes a success then people will stop hating glazer. Sir alex cannot publicly criticize Glazers. It would create chaos we will become a comedy. Imagine Mancini criticizing sheik, How will we United fans react to that. I can bet Scott posting a comedy at city thread.
I agree we need reinforcement and We are trying to sign but Its not right to criticize SAF. I have seen many more bad owners than Glazers. THe point is we are still a top club and we will always remain. One more signing we will again be a top contender to win the league.
@Utdfan:
oh yeah? Tell me Whos better manager in this circum? Stop being ungrateful twat.
@Utdfan:
oh yeah? Tell me better person who can manage United in this circumstance than Fergie? stop being ungrateful twat, u sounds like a dipper.
@Utdfan:
oh yeah? Tell me better person than Fergie who can manage United in this circumstance? stop being ungrateful twat, u sounds like a dipper.
@utdfan you need to change your name, your not a fucking united fan slagging Fergie off like that. He’s the best that’s ever been, fuck the rave horse, since the glazers have come in we have been successful. Got to European cup finals, won the premiership time after time and played great stuff. Idiots. The lot of you keyboard warriors bashing Fergie should be ashamed
i always live by one mantra. NOTHING IS ILLOGICAL. there is a reason for EVERYTHING on this planet. Fergie is backing the glazers for a reason.
1. they are the owners of the club and are more than capable of sacking him as they do not have the respect for fergie that football fans have for him and he wants to stay and rebuild the team cuz he puts his life in it.
2. when has Fergie asked for money for transfers and they have refused to give him? our lack of a world class midfielder to replace scholes is not the fault of the owners. that is ALL FERGIE. he’s been given the money.
3. as for criticism of fans well i certainly know he’s not talking about me cuz while I have raised concerns over the general financial health of the club, i am not as invested in this anti glazer movement as many.
Scott The Red needs to post the link to this interview to quash any speculation about what it is and what it isn’t.
If the link Costas posted is the one in question I did not find one “warning” to the fans to back off. And like Stateside so brilliantly put (cheers btw mate) we have unanimously been dominating the EPL for the 7 years Glazers have been in charge and have been the most consistent team in Europe bar Barcelona (which is arguably THE finest team we have ever come to see). And the point about the transfer league and us being ranked below teams like Liverpool and Spurs; I ask, WHY is that such a bad thing? I mean, i’d love for us to finally capture that elusive worldclass center mid as much as the next red, but for us to have unparalleled success on a budget that is lower than a team who’s best accomplishment in decades is to finish 4th, well, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH THAT? I think that just speaks volumes of the greatness of SAF and demands even more respect for him.
We have not finished outside the top 3 in over a decade. If you look at the tables from previous years, there are so many fluctuations, from Chelsea to City, and Liverpool and Newcastle teams have come up and teams have gone down. Arsenal might be one more to maintain that consistency but I don’t need to remind ANYONE of what their trophy haul looks like compared to ours. The fact of the matter is, we have been cleaning house for quite a while now, which is quite obvious by the amount of haters this great club has as well. Why do they hate in the first place? It’s because they’re SICK of seeing United pip everyone to yet another title. That’s how good we are.
All the man said was that there will always be people who will have problems with the way things are run, and that stands true for not just United, or any football club, but for every major organization in this world. YOU CAN NOT PLEASE EVERYONE ALL THE TIME.
Utdfan…I am stunned. I have read a lot of ridiculous things over the past couple years in comment sections on blogs but that might take the cake. Unbelievable. What reasoning is that based on? He to most students of the game is the best manager in the world and if it was not for he and Phelan we would not have done as well. Since 2000 we have not placed outside of the top 3 and have won the league 7 times. 100% Champions League football, won the league nearly 60% of the time, finished in the top two 84% of the time, won the champions league (and would have won more if United didn’t run into the best club team of the decade) and last year we had our weakest team (according to the media) in decades and lost the league on goal differential last season. Blame all the people you want but it is a large stretch to blame Fergie for our new owners purchase of the club and even more irrational to proclaim we would be better off without Sir Alex. Your comments are based on ifs and there are hundred other ifs that could have occurred, fact is they didn’t and there isn’t a manager alive who could have done better.
I don’t like preemptive reactions to possible stories. After reading the article it is a sensationalized headline and besides saying “real fans will look at it realistically and say it’s not affecting the team” is not a scathing attack on some United fans. Its always better to argue comments then headlines and based on the comments what is their to be so upset about. So Fergie disagrees with fans about the Glazers. How many times has his opinion been right and some fans were wrong? We should be glad Fergie doesn’t agree with us a lot of the time. We are to passionate and most are near sighted. We react to headlines and the what “ifs.” Some fans are downright unrealistic and even less rational. At least he is not and consistent. This to me is no different than what he has said previously and I hope he is proved right. Criticizing Fergie in this manner is wrong not because no one has the right to do it because there really is nothing to criticize.
I could not agree more with Stateside, Dela, and Costas who, as per usually, bring reason and thoughtfulness to the argument. We can’t compete with the money other clubs (Madrid, City, Chelsea, etc…) have no matter who the owners were and no other owner would be perfect. For me you can dislike the owners but this criticism of Sir Alex is unfounded and unfair.
a bit off topic but :
[The Times, Telegraph and Mirror] All reporting United in pole position to sign Van Persie and he prefers a move to Old Trafford.
Rafael da Silva: “I have told Lucas [Moura] he should come to Manchester United – of course.” #mufc
This one’s gonna piss off a few fans.
Listings on the stock exchange have a short code that gets used on the ticker tape. According to the news they’ve picked a code already. Anyone guessed it yet? Yep: MANU
You couldn’t make this shit up could you!
The Times are reporting that Robin van Persie’s preferred move this summer would be to Old Trafford to play for Manchester United.
“Van Persie is a romantic and sees United as a club of history and tradition, similar to Arsenal and his original team, Feyenoord. ”
“Working under Sir Alex Ferguson also appeals. Ferguson made tentative efforts to land Van Persie in 2009 before he signed his current deal” “He is flattered that Ferguson has coveted him for years.” – The Times
Article goes on to say that Van Persie has seemingly told his friends that his goal is to win trophies, not to cash in.
It also says that Wenger would sell for no less than £30m, but the Arsenal board is afraid of losing him on a free. £20m is a minimum
City are supposed to have offered 225k-a-weekm Juventus would stand ready with 190k-a-week and United won’t match any of those
Manchester United were and should be the biggest swinging financial dicks in world football, but some idiots came along and lopped it off…
that’s all i have to say for this..
Morning all
Wanted to stay on the fence on this one but changed my mind…… When the boss was critical of the noise level at OT he was SPOT ON……..Sometimes our home games are like playing in a morgue, yet we take the piss out of the library that is the Emirates. Give me a 43,000 capacity standing stadium any day of the week, when we could be heard all the way to Birmingham.
Now, for the new issue is Fergie right? I will reserve judgement on the matter till I have more facts, is Fergie beyond criticism? Perhaps not but not as far as I am concerned and that is my opinion…..
Its one thing being critical of the man but for some to use this story and come on here calling for his head is down right pathetic
one of RVP’s agents wants him to go to city the other to united
Stateside 02:04- excellent post. Glad to hear you pulled yourself back up. Been busy myself and, though no kids at the time it’s tough. Like you a roof over my head, food basic comforts and united is the essence of a good life for me.
I think Fergie’s earned the right to say whatever he thinks. A man has a right to speak his mind, and Fergie’s earned more than that in my eyes. We should all take the man at his word and just support the club. If we sign Moura and/or RVP wouldn’t that put to rest the spending criticism?
Sorry, Scott. I disagree with you here.
Stateside
You’re 51? Fuck me sideways that’s 4 people now older than me on the blog! Really happy things worked out for you back home………..Been through some shit my self that would make grown men weep
Neil
I must say that I utterly and completely agree with you!
Stateside Aussie’s posts just blew my mind. I always make it a point to read your posts Sir because they are so insightful and well written. I don’t think I can add anymore to what you have written. Some fans may criticize the Gaffer but I will never ever do that. I don’t care if we don’t buy RVP or Moura because I get immense pleasure by watching youngsters like Tunnicliffe, Lingard, Petrucci, Amos, Blackett play for UTD. We will always invest in youth, we will always give players like Bebe a chance because that is the Manchester United way and I don’t think it would have changed even if we were debt free.
Utd4life
Welcome to the club of proper REDS my young friend
There’s always a misconception about the net spend. The Ronaldo sale has played a huge role in making our figure look less impressive.
@Wakey
Are you sure that the wage bill in total has grown? I find that hard to believe when you look at the amount of arrivals and departures in the last 12 months. The departures’ figure is significantly higher. And I know contract renewals should also be taken into consideration, but I doubt they made a huge difference. I don’t belive the club releases those figures, but there was an article last summer that estimated we saved up around 200k per week in wages. The De Gea, Young and Jones transfers included.
As for the full backs, I have to disagree. We are going into the season with only 2 recognised full backs and that’s not something I personally remember happening often. Maybe in 94-95 when Parker got injured and we had to use Keane and May at right back. But since then, there’s always been at least 3 options. Brown and O’Shea are the types of players that learned to play just as well on the flanks than they did centrally. That’s why I use them as examples. Case in point, if O’Shea had stayed Valencia or Smalling wouldn’t have played at right back.
Finally, I did read his comments on Hazard and there are 3 areas he has an issue with. One is Hazard’s fee. And like I said, if 34 million for him is a lot, what does that say about the amount we are willing to offer for Moura? A player more unproven? His second issue is the agent’s commision. It’s not something we haven’t dealt with before? Bebe’s agent got half the amount in commision that Hazard’s got and I doubt Bebe cost us half of what Hazard cost. So we’ve done business in those conditions. His 3rd issue is the amount paid in wages and that’s something I can’t disagree with a great deal. If we are interested in a player that Chelsea and/or City are interested in, we will always end up offering less.
Manchester United, after all the rumours that have been disregarded, are after 19-year-old Lucas Moura. A €33 million bid was made and rejected. This week, a €38 million bid was made and, also, rejected. For a position that United do not need to strengthen on, it seems a bit peculiar that a risky bid would be put in.
Lucas is only 19-years-old, but has already established himself as a young prodigy. Ever since he made his debut for São Paulo in 2010, he has looked more and more confident with every game he has featured in – and has more importantly improved. He has electrifying pace, can more than easily beat his man one-on-one, great close control, good dribbling, and can score some great goals.
Whilst many – and I do not mean a minority – are formulating opinions based on footage they have viewed on YouTube, what these fans do not know is that Lucas is still very much raw and needs more time to improve. His decision making, for instance, has come under heavy criticism, which is justifiable. When he runs with the ball, he tends to cement his eyes on the ball and not look up, which subsequently results into chances being wasted. Another flaw is that he has never really made his mark in the big games.
Certainly, if I had to compare Lucas to another player, then it has to be Theo Walcott. Now you might think I am being absurd, but my explanation for this will win you over. What the former offers: more directness, tremendous amount of energy, close control, and better dribbling. Apart from that, both players have erratic decision making.
So, the important question: Do Manchester United need Lucas? No, they do not. The reason being is that United have other areas, which need to be reconstructed. Left back and central midfield are still weak areas, and it would be a very risky move to pay such an excessive amount. It is best for Lucas to stay put, and progress even further, where he will receive first-team action.
a small scout report on moura by SAFstandblog
Martis
What a stupid post, its complety ignorant and void of any substance for me to take offense.
I would take no success over the next five years of which I would still go every game to rid our great club of these parasites. If that’s a glory hunter then I guess I am.
Cedars. Hello Sir ( I just realized you were way elder to me and it would be highly disrespectful to call you mate or pal or buddy) I have been very well hypnotized and indoctrinated by the many proper, die hard reds on this forum. Like many fans, I wish we signed a world class player but honestly I get more joy by watching players who came through our academy like Cleverley, Welbeck, Tunnicliffe play. These lads are Manchester through and through and we know that they will give their all for the success of this club.
Yawn….. BigTee in da house…… mawning one and all….we sign Rip Van Persy yet…..
I honestly don’t care.
Whatever Sir Alex says does well for me. Do we actually think his concerns over United are any much lesser than that of the fans?
In my opinion, how much do we actually know what’s going on. Analyzing stats, looking at facts and figures-that’s pretty much what we can do. We moan at all the players whom we ‘could have possibly gotten’-really, do we really want them all?
To me, it’s not about the glazers. Its the football that matters most.
Utd4life
Mate you can call me whatever you want!
STOP PRESS NEWS
Everton have pulled out of a bid to sign Michael Owen!
Presumably they found an electric blanket was cheaper for warming the fucking bench
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2176993/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-defends-Manchester-United-owners-The-Glazer-family.html
article in full
Big Tee? In reference to what exactly? Bet you’re one of them 2 inchers who were always shy in public showers
I was playing Fifa earlier, and found that Chicago had a team called Chicago Fire. I was disgusted, imagine naming your sports team after the worst event in your cities history. You don’t see the New Orleans Katrinas, the Boston Massacres, the Oklahoma Bombings, the San Francisco Big Ones, or the New York Jets…
Time for the old grasping cunt to fuck off, net £66m spent since the Glazers came in.
mattbw7
Seriously the most daft post I have ever read on here……..Now I know for a fact that you are RED through and through but to be calling the boss a cunt is down right stupid and daft as fuck
mattbw7 : language mate..
Thank you for posting the link Tony Bee.
Don’t see anything sensationalist in there, nor any ‘slagging off’ the supporters.
Fergie is being balanced and objective, citing a number of FACTS that some people have chosen to forget/overlook.
Trigger expression is ‘….majority of real supporters….’ which appears to have caught a raw nerve with some people.
And as for those who have chosen to denigrate arguable the best manager who lived on this blog overnight – hang your heads in shame. You know who you are. And now, thanks to your overreactions – so does everyone else!
Scott the Red says:
TonyBee – Can you see a difference between not slagging off the owners and actively slagging off the fans? Why on earth does he have to criticise us?
————————————————————————————————————–
Scott…if You were Utd’s manager would you be as openly critical of the owners….
is it his actual opinion and or his he treading a corporate fine line…. as for slagging off the fans he just mentions apparently a few disgruntled few….but are these his words ,his backing of the Glazers ….would like to know what his private views are ….wont see that till he retires or the Glazers fuck off…..
we all know that you have to speculate to accumulate and my own personal views are i wish UTD could be sold to the Qataris where a shit load of shillings just might be available but would SAF spend them or just stick to signing good young kids,,,, when he splashed 30 odd mill on Berba that seems not to have worked although ….still we have the best club and i am no fan of the Glazers as i truly feel they have held back the club with the huge debt they gave us… time will tell
all this deep thinking has gave me a headache…..
Alas Cedars he’s destroying his own legacy.
SOME REALY TERRIBLE POSTS HERE . FIRST OF ALL WE WERE NEVER A BIG SPENDING CLUB LIKE REAL MADRID . I DONT THINK GLAZERS HAVE AFFECTED THE TRANSFERS.THEY HAVE GIVEN FERGIE WAT HE WANTS,. WE HAVE MISSED OUT ON A FEW BIG PLAYERS BECAUSE THEY PREFER SPAIN. EMPHASIS HAS AND WILL ALWAYS BE ON YOUTH AT MANCHESTER UNITED. I AM GLAD THAT HASNT CHANGED. SOME PEOPLE WANT US TO SPEND MONEY JUST BECAUSE CITY AND CHELSEA ARE DOING IT.WELL LOOK AT CHELSEA THEY FINISHED SIXTH.AND THE CL WIN WAS A COMPLETE FLUKE.AND SHITTY WILL JOIN SOON. abusing sir alex for this article is down right FUCING PATHETIC.
GOOD MORNING CEDARS KING ERIC WILLIE COSTAS AND OTHER TRUE REDS
TonyBee actually wrote a serious comment. What’s wrong with this world?
@Matt
I get the anger and frustration, but that was uncalled for mate. Any decent point you can make will get undermined.
Arun, we have broken the British transfer record more times than any other club.
Oh for gods sake UtdFan.
This is the man who has won Utd every major honour. Who is so respected by all his backroom staff and says hello to all he meets weather he has met them before or not. This is the man who arrives for work before everyone else and has dedicated 25 years of his life making the club what it is today, he has built an acadamy that develops youth. You only have to look around the leagues to see ex youth players at many of the clubs.
The man is the backbone of Manchester Utd and has still won honours yet still lag behing Chelsea, City, Liverpool and Spurs in the transfer league, 2 clubs of which have Rich owners who have invested billions into said clubs, who wouldn’t be anywhere near if not for these investors. We all know the Scousers like to waste money because they’re desperate so enough said.
You know what James21 there was a United before Ferguson and it won things as well.
In other news, today Rio is finally eliglible for his testimonial. Congrats to him.
Speaking of Rio, according to wikipedia (which cites our PLC accounts): “The final book value of Ferdinand’s contract in Manchester United’s accounts was £34 million. This included agents’ fees, with Leeds receiving just under £30 million”.
Doesn’t seem like his agents received a hell of a lot less compared to Hazard’s. And that was 10 years ago.
You know what matt. I didn’t know that, only being old enough to see Utd in the late 70′s and 80s.
To call SAF a Cunt is a disgrace. I know you are a red but if any new poster wrote what you just wrote this place would destroy them.
If SAF had retired when he said he was going to then Utd would be up the creek without a paddle. There’s no other manager who could have handled The threats of Chelsea and shitty.
I would take a manchester united team not winning the league for the next ten years rather than a united team being bought by a rich sugar daddy who make us compromise our principles, doesn’t respect our traditions and is interfering…
Winning the league hardly ever depends on who you buy, it depends on the team that is the hungriest, the most willing and have the best team spirit… Those are the things that define our team.. That’s the reason we’re leagues ahead as a club…
I am so sick of this thread. I for one and thrilled for the start of this new season and won’t let a bunch of wanks get me down. God I hope we can move on soon…
In Fergie I trust. If Fergie trusts in the Glazers, well, you do the math.
@mattbw7 : when sir alex criticised fans, it meant people like you…
“United would be up a creek without a paddle” give it a rest, my previous post was to illustrate that there was a United before Ferguson (and latterly the Glazers) and it’ll continue after they’ve all fucked off. The Glazers are leeches on our club, anyone who argues different just doesn’t want to understand basic facts. As for Ferguson, it’d be one thing to keep quiet about their ownership for whatever reason he may have but to publicly back them in the way he has is contemptible.
eric keane says:
@mattbw7 : when sir alex criticised fans, it meant people like you…
Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out, he loves the cock suckers though………….
For people who knows me I am the first person in Malta that Sir Alex met when he came to my country for the first time way back 1986. Since then we’r still good friends and I look at him as my late father, he also call me sometimes as his son BUT as a MANCHESTER UNITED DEVOTED FAN I congatulate you Scott for this magnificent article!
This is a sincere explanation of how we the fans feel at presant about our beloved Man Utd!
Nobody can expect (not even Sir Alex) that the Glazers buy our club,drown our club in depths, if they decide to leave they ruin us and we stay on the roof playing the ARP. No way Sir that this is not going to happen. We are not a project like others so called football clubs. We have a passion for our club, we have pride, we have love and we live for Manchester United and Sir Alex knows exactly what I’m talking about.
I even suffered a heart attack when for the first time we lost to Barca in the Champs Lge final 2009.
This is how you feel when you support United since 1963.
Of course we are concerned about our future. We are seeing our level of play dipping. This year has to be our reinassance if we are not to end up like the scoucers lingering in the middle of the table. Thanks Scott and keep up the good work for the benefit of OUR 1 LIFE AND 1 LOVE …..MANCHESTER UNITED !!!!!!!!
New thread Scott!! The amount of hatred and bias on this one is too damn high!
Yeah new thread Scott, talking about the true state of the club is too much for some.
matt
Get real.
You give it a rest. you only appear when there’s a thread like this. Total doom monger. So anyone who supports the manager is a cocksucker.
I didn’t say that James21, now did I? Either argue a point or fuck off expanding my comments.
BORING…! Have we signed anyone yet..?!
Lucas Moura would be nice.
Also to those who have been screaming for a ball winner in midfield. SAF says there is no need for them anymore.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/9416956/Manchester-United-manager-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-claims-Michael-Carrick-holds-key-to-clubs-success.html
I remember the days before SAF it was fucking awful getting beat by every fucker. Akinson did well but the early seventies were horrible
matt
Sorry. It must have been solely aimed at eric Keane then. my bad.
Either argue a point or fuck off expanding my comments.
OK I’ll Fuck Off, personally thought I was discussing a point. Ah well you live and learn.
Fact is you called SAF a Cunt. Out of order.
The man is a cunt.
Hey, Scott. Please can we get this ^ guy time out for a while? 25 years should be long enough.
can we get a block on this asshole already?
hey matt, the true state of this club is that we are currently the 2nd highest ranked team in all of Europe. I didn’t see you pull that out of your ass. That was more SAF’s hard work. You know, the guy you keep calling a cunt?
James, mate i thought you were arguing a point and fantastically to might i add. Seems like we’re all just idiots though. Need to fuck off and QUICK
fantastically too*
@mattbw7 : who is not a cunt then? You? You’re a dim nitwit..
Let’s make mattbw7 the manager…
He can win 37 major trophies. Rebuild a team 4 times. Outlast and beat wenger mourinho that fat waiter and countless others. Can he??
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and its my opinion that your opinion sucks.
For those criticising and disrespecting the boss,blame them as much as the architect of this headline,pathetic.the intention is to find negatives and fergie bashers.am so sad at the disrespect of the greatest manager ever,as @bob cass(the original interviewer)said on twitter,if you can’t take his word,then just let it rest and support the team.the headline of this article is the worst ever,much more worse than any Abu’s..goodluck to ferggie and us all nxt season(20&4)..Ramadan kareem to lovely muslims around the world
We cunt have that in here…
It’s no wonder that the Glazer haters could never win the argument. You show them proof that the club is continuing to be as successful as before the Glazers and spending more on players and idiots like mattbw7 start throwing the C-word around. They did the same to Bob Cass of he Mail on twitter for publishing what Sir Alex said to the press.
The Glazers have been good for United because they haven’t changed anything on the football side. That’s all I want from an owner.
utd_fc and eric Keane.
Sorry I did Fuck Off.
My comment at 9:25 didn’t even suggest there wasn’t a Utd before SAF. so as Matt put it ,expanding my comments.
There was a huge decline when, or just before Sir Matt left right up to 86 when SAF took over. He took over from the mess Ron Atkinson left behind, the club was full of as he put it ‘A drinking culture’ There wasn’t a great deal of top class youth coming through and Bryan Robson was all we had really. SAF has worked tirelessly and built Utd to what it is today, and brought the Glory years back. If that makes him a cunt then I fucking love this old cunt.
mattbw7 says:
“Time for the old grasping cunt to fuck off, net £66m spent since the Glazers came in”
I say:
Time for the grasping mattbw7 to bugger off, he has attacked United and slandered Sir Alex since long before the Glazers came to United. mattbw7 is typical of the brainless sponges that suck up anything and everything that suits their own agenda. With added vitriol he regurgitates the lies he swallows, and is clearly and selfishly against United. mattbw7 does not care about our club, he only cares about his club. He is not United at all, but is actually Divided.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
Scott the Red is not at all like mattbw7.
StR has United’s best interest at heart. He shares many views with mattbw7, but his approach is completely different. StR is focussed on what he perceives to be in United’s best interest. This is laudable, and I pay close attention to StR’s views. There is much that StR says about our ownership that I agree with, and just as much that I disagree with. I do not see StR as a selfish blurter of twaddle, this opinion is reserved for those who bluster moronically while lighting fires intended to destroy our club. I see StR as a very concerned United supporter, who applies his logic constructively. He is trying to show us what he sees, hoping to save our Club from the impending disasters that he fears. Scott the Red loves Manchester United, perhaps more than life itself. He is not selfish; he is concerned, caring and proactive in his driven desire to protect our club. Whether or not I agree with StR’s views, I respect him. I respect his right to express his truth, and I respect his open, honest methods.
mattbw7 loves himself, and only cares for his own United. mattbw7 believes that he is entitled to hate our club, and enjoys attacking United. mattbw7′s only contribution to RoM is the occasional vicious attack on all we hold dear. For years mattbw7 has abusively trolled the internet, spreading lies and vitriol about Sir Alex. mattbw7 despises the majority of United fans, believing that only he is qualified to judge our club. mattbw7 is not a United supporter, he is a selfish rabble-rouser who will continue to bitterly attack United as long as he lives. mattbw7 does not want the truth, he only wants to be respected by his drunken peers.
mattbw7 is a selfish coward. It is time for the grasping mattbw7 to bugger off.
@james21: didn’t get you.. I never called the boss any names. Nor will I. Ever.
@dreadedred : you have a way with words sir!! Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Only cunt on here is the one calling the boss a cunt………..I would happily suck Fergie’s cock to be honest
Costas
TonyBee has been admitted to rehab mate, that serious post of his damaged his remaining 2 brain cells!!
eric Keane and utd_fc
Sorry I did Fuck Off.
Lads the post wasn’t aimed at you two, I forgot the smiley, that part was aimed at you two. I was being sarcastic towards being told to fuck off.
The rest of the post was aimed at anyone who wanted to read it.
CedarsDevil says:
Big Tee? In reference to what exactly? Bet you’re one of them 2 inchers who were always shy in public showers
charming …just got back from Sunday Service to read this…..
you bastard Cedars….you wouldn’t want it as a wart on the end of your nose….
2″ is right … that’s just the japeye……
Jimmy James
You Fergie cock sucker, we all know you’re just a glory hunter, ever been to OT?
Tunnicliffe : my only regret is not being able to play beside scholes.I’m itching to play beside him..
Now that’s a fucking proper red!! Here’s hoping he reaches the heights achieved by keano..
@james21 : got that a bit late. Dim as I am when slightly high
@Cedars
Lol, definitely mate. Poor bloke couldn’t handle all the thinking.
Ten years ago, today we signed rio ferdinand!!
One of the best defenders in the world in his prime.
A twitter warrior too..
Back in 15……….Oh and Matt, you have seriously become a cunt of the highest order…Just saying
@CedarsDevil
“I would happily suck Fergie’s cock to be honest”
We wouldn’t want to see your natural talent for cocksucking go to waste.
“I dont want play boy billionaires or some joker running us”
You do this on purpose Giggs12?
I agree the Glazers are a bane to our continued existence though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2176993/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-defends-Manchester-United-owners-The-Glazer-family.html
Here is the article. What he says if a fair point, he doesn’t slag the fans down at all. He mentions factions and righly states
‘I think there are a whole lot of factions at United that think they own the club,’ said Ferguson. ‘They will always be contentious about whoever owns the club, and that’s the way it has always been.
‘When I came to the club, Martin Edwards was always getting pelted because he was going to sell to [Robert] Maxwell, then to [Rupert] Murdoch, Michael Knighton, and when they became a plc there was disaffection.
eric keane – thanks mate!
Our views and the fair expression thereof, is what makes RoM a thriving hotbed of Reds.
We love United, and are partisan in our support. We seek the truth.
I enjoy the fact that other Reds on RoM are able to refine my views, and even alter them.
Much is learned by me on this forum. I want to learn, and others here are willing teachers.
Our roles reverse regularly. Each of us is a teacher, and a student.
Unfortunately, there are some who have no desire to reach the truth. Only their own personal truths are considered viable. They selfishly focus only on teaching, falsely believing themselves to be oracles.
They spew vitriol. and then dismiss counter-views out of hand; while falsely claiming that other Reds do not discuss the issues logically. They completely ignore any fair and valid views that go against their own biased conclusions. They are selfish liars who care not for truth, they despise most Reds, and they would rather destroy United than see it flourish in a form that doesn’t suit their own personal agenda.
They are not United. They are divisively selfish bigots, only exhibiting obstinate and blind devotion to their own beliefs and opinions. They are intolerant, and display only contempt for those who do not agree.
They will fail, for we are United, with them or without them.
Zibbie
Fact is fact the glazers are amongst the worst owners. I wont claim to have a strong grasp of the financials, that said they are sucking money out the club. They’re better owners and ownership structures out there compared to what we have. If you cant appreciate that. thatd your problem. FFS we’re supposed to feel grateful for the new facility. I’d like to see them slack of in that aspect of the club too. Fucking leeches. SAF was right about one thing- only partially though.
They may not seek the line light- As if; but they definitely could do a whole lit better with the fans of Manchester United. Fuckers have no backing and they know. I’d like to see how long they intend on hiding behind SAF public backing. The msn is off in a couple of years. We’ll soon see what they’re really about
Debt is the road to ruin– David Gill 2004 nuff said
Good Morning seems like a war zone around here
I can’t see anything wrong with what the gaffer has said because he’s said it many times before, I just can’t understand what’s happened here – it seems we’ve hit defcon 1 without actually having an issue to contend with.
I’m sorry that most of us feel a certain disregard to go into SAF, I mean what has he done apart from run us into the ground?
It’s a shame that we lose sight of our own selves when we assume to think we know better, thus we come up with things that are said that shouldn’t be said, but for some reason our ego’s just take flight and carry on without purpose or measure.
It’s funny what a serious eye condition does to you, I have no need to make it personal anymore we are all in it for ourselves.
However it still works better when we share a common ground, but unfortunately at times we let the Glazer’s run us into a hell hole for reasons which I still don’t understand.
Yes, they have done bad, but they have also done good, so where exactly is the status quo? And then to leave other players like MUST out of the equation in order to run a point of view is seemingly ridiculous – if anything they are equal to the Glazer’s aren’t they? I mean they advocated running United into the ground to achieve their own means. If that is acceptable by some then fine I have no argument anymore, just don’t be hypocritical about the situation.
19
Scott jumped the gun a bit here, specially considering that the story was coming from Daily Fail, but then shit happens
I agree with SAF when he says that the fans will never be happy whoever the owner is. Remember even Chelsea fans are unhappy about their owner so there’s no way that you can get a perfect owner. The thing to remember is Chelsea fans haven’t tasted success before Roman still they are not happy with him despite him being responsible for giving them 3 league titles and a CL and I have to say that we United fans are a little more spoilt in that regards (we are used to winning something every year).
I don’t have many complaints with our owners although I would love our club to be debt free and all the earnings of the club to be available for use for the club only. I like their low profile their seemingly little or no interference with the running of the club which i don’t think many owner would be willing to accept.
If the IPO is successful which I think it’ll be then I am sure our club would be in a great position and despite the investors not getting any dividend there will be good capital gains to them that I am pretty sure about.
Trust the Boss if no one else. For me SAF knows the best, that doesn’t mean it don’t make mistakes but I am sure he won’t commit a blunder, i.e. he won’t back/support Glazers if they were damaging the club in any way what so ever.
Peace
ProScouser
It would not be wasted on him to be honest
Morning everyone
Hope you are recovering well MG, take care matey
Morning shit flickers
It’s getting heated on here fellas eh.. Sheesh. Not read the article in it’s entirety so will not comment on it. However, to call Sir Alex a cunt… Haha! What a loser!
Top Ten Premier League 2012-13 Shirt Sponsorship Deals in £ sterling:
Liverpool – £20m – Standard Chartered
Man City – £20m – Eithad Airways
Man United – £20m – Aon
Sunderland – £20m – Invest in Africa
Chelsea – £13.8m – Samsung
Newcastle – £10m – Virgin Money
Tottenham – £10m – Aurasma
Aston Villa – £8m – Genting Casinos
Arsenal – £5.5m – Fly Emirates
Fulham – £4.2m – FxPro
(Note: Value of United Shirt Sponsorship excludes DHL Training Kit deal – £10m)
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2177186/Premier-League-shirt-sponsor-deals-rise-147m.html#ixzz21LYjNxul
Devils Own
Manchester United were and should be the biggest swinging financial dicks in world football, but some idiots came along and lopped it off…
that’s all i have to say for this.. Are you Andy Green or are you just lifting his quotes and passing them off as your own?
Mike
Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me you’re another Fergie cock sucker?
Mikekelly12
If it’s for me and you have misquoted my name then no I am not Andy Green and I am not sure what quotes you are saying I have picked up from him. I have only picked up on what SAF have said and given my view on that.
Manchester United were and should be the biggest swinging financial dicks in world football – Ok what do you mean by this, we should buy every fucker who cost more than 25-30 fucking million? If so than I am sorry mate I don’t agree with that. But then we can’t expect everyone to think the same way. I respect your opinion but I would stand by mine
Cedars
Your language is awful, wash your mouth out with soap of I might have to complain to STR.
M19ke
Get off the fence, its not heated its a discussion. some make it heated but thats up to them if they want to wind themselves up.
Indian Devil
Mike was not making reference to you pal, there is a poster here who posts as Devil’s Own
I’m sorry, but what the FUCK is this from the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18944637
“Champions City have emerged as the dominant force in English football – thanks to backing from their wealthy Arabic owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan.”
They win ONE title. On GOAL DIFFERENCE. And all of a sudden, they are – definitively – ‘the dominant force in English football’.
Fucking do one, you shitstains. On recent trophy records, both United and Chelsea have displayed a far greater degree of dominance than Shitty.
Cedars ok thanks for the clarification mate
I just did a Ctl+F with Devils Own but didn’t found any one so I thought it was for me
Sorry for the misunderstanding Mikekelly12
To Mikekelly’s point, from twitter:
Andy Green @andersred
“Manchester United were and should be the biggest swinging financial dicks in world football, but some idiots came along and lopped it off…”
1:33 AM – 22 Jul 12 via Twitter for iPad · Embed this Tweet
Link: https://twitter.com/andersred/status/226807255738224641
Wouldn’t want Mr Green to sue anyone here for copyright infringement.
kanchelskis – BBC is shit mate, I only view the gossips column there as that doesn’t contain any news from BBC
I dare not visit this site after SAF retires.
@Indian Devil
devil’s own posted at 06:37 ROM time.
@ Dela 01:33….in some way you are.right…but if we look things that way that mean we can t do nothing. If fans don t buy tickets….that means less profit or no profit…that means you can fire people or sell bussines to someone who will do the bussines different…or fail and lose all the money…Those who are against the Glazers, hopeing they will do second thing i said- sell the club to someone else…
But the biggest probkem it is not Glazer but stupid Frenchmen from Uefa Platini who has no power to get salary cap or new rules about financial stability and club spending. why? because football became a sport with lot of money and interest…so you have to sing like rich people say…
@Costas – Thanks mate
That error was due to Mikekelly12 he didn’t copy the name correctly, blame him
I searched Devils instead of Devil’s
I can now understand that post by Mikekelly12, so sorry mate for that misunderstanding mate.
Germans should lead Uefa…they would make order in that stupid football…someone said good: we pay Spanish debts, they buying expensive players and we admire to.their football…
James
No splinters in my ass pal! A certain poster was getting heated and his language in reference to Sir Alex was as blue as his principles on running a club. I just didn’t want to comment on an article I hadn’t read. Having said that, I’m pretty sure whatever I read is unlikely to change my opinion of the boss. I find it hypocritical that Sir Alex is being slammed for “attacking” some fans, when those slamming Sir Alex attack the said same fans regularly on this blog?!
Cedars – Cheers for explaining to Indian Devil.
Costas – I thought Andersred may have been posting on here under a different name. You know how precious some tweeters get about people lifting their quotes.
The negativity on here pretty much summarises the the way most fans feel about the club at the moment.
I Will briefly write once again Why i think that the glazers are not as bad as most abu’s want us to believe
the glazers bought Manchester united in a leveraged buyout, this is not uncommon in the business world, they then saddled the club with all the debt that their takeover cost, if not for the global financial meltdown and the weakening of the pound the club would have been debt free in Just the coming year.
there’s a change coming, this might sound like a Hollywood movie trailer But the float on the NYSE is the biggest thing since the takeover itself, couple that with the fact that the greatest manager of all time might not be with us in the following seasons makes it probably the biggest event in the history of the club in the past decade.
Its like the soul of the club itself is asking Its fans are you united?
The thing i would like to know is How many of the fans on here would buy a share if the price falls in your budget?
If you look closely you’ll find that the two questions above are the one and the Same
@Indian Devil
Yeah I know mate. I had the same problem. He didn’t bother to add the apostrophe. Lazy Mike
@Mikekelly
I think Green would have posted under his real name if he ever showed up here, so personally I didn’t think it was him. It’s only natural that a lot of fans share the same ideas, but no need to copy something verbatim, lol.
So based on that Saf has just blatantly ignored the gaping holes in our midfield for the past 3 years? And just because in his opinion there’s no value? I’m sorry but that’s a load of bull. You pay what the market say is fair price or you need a La Masia. Also, we are most certainly not in for Moura since he is about the same age as Hazard and in the same price category. We might go for RVP just because his contract is running out and we might get some value, but only if he wants to join us specifically.
Also, while we are rebuilding our training ground we could fix the OT pitch at the same time. It has been in terrible condition for a couple of years now, specially during the winter. The Emirates should be the benchmark here, stunning pitch.
M19ke
Just kidding mate. Get yourself involved I have posted a link to the article, although I see some have posted as well last night.
Mike & James
Your abusive language is starting to get under my skin……Complain being typed as we speak……
Personally I blame Costas for all of the chaos
Costas – Thanks for reminding me about the word “apostrophe” mate I was trying to recall it but wasn’t able to hence the lengthy explanation above
Regards Mikekelly12 he is so lazy he even fail to acknowledge my apologies
Anyways time for me to go off. keep it sane here and maintain peace as I don’t want Scott to disable comments. I might not post often but I love reading the comments here
Emirates is a stunning pitch…….whats their trophy cabinet like?
Have to say, there’s a lot of insecure United fans knocking about. Don’t think Fergie said anything out of order. Maybe his timing wasn’t the best, but not the savage attack some media outlets had reported it as.
I see nothing controversial in this interview whatever.
@Indian Devil
I would be ashamed if I forgot it mate. Apostrophe is a Greek word.
Bye for now. Drop in more often!
@Cedars
In a world where TonyBee writes serious posts, I guess I am the bad boy of the blog.
It’s clear FERGIE believes in the young players coming through. He believes in them enough not to squander money. I feel there’s bundles of midfield talent in the team. No point developing them and not giving them the opportunity to step up.
People want a ‘hard man’ with no ability in midfield. Why not go to stoke and pick up all their donkeys.
It’s naive to assume one midfield player will stop united conceding goals, that’s simply a myth that’s been doing the rounds for a while now. The simple fact is, if a team keeps its shape and all players take responsibility to defend then there’s less chance of being exposed.
The fact of football is, you cannot stop every attack anyway. Top teams will always find a way through. You have to combat that as a team.
anyone who thinks it is in the nature of united to spend excessively really has no fucking clue the club he supports. The ONLY thing ANYONE has to bring up as a poiby against the glazers is the debt they put on us. NOTHING ELSE. we are still as strong as ever in ALL other aspects. fans? the best, on field performance? the best in England since the glazers took over be rest assured that they will clear this debt and then i’ll see what else you have to say.
1 Everyone, fans, ‘real fans,’ STR, SAF has a right to their opinion – but for God’s sake, be adult and respectful of others’ opinions
2 Scott’s criticisms seem to be about SAF criticizing the Glazers, not criticising fans per se
3 It’s easy to be cavalier with other people’s money. How many people defending the Glazers actually pay to watch games (through SKY and television rights) or with season tickets, and going to cup and away games? Maybe when £1000plus of your hard earned dosh is going to pay the debt rather than new players, your views may have more weight
4 SAF is a spectacular manager, but no saint. He had no problem breaking spending records prior to the Glazers. And it was his be-damned attitude that created the gap for the Glasers to enter. On the other hand, one of his main strengths is managing the team dynamics – and splashing the cash on big names (wage demands, ego, sponsorship distractions etc) may be detrimental to this.
5 Did STR go off half cocked about this? Maybe. But I refer you back to my first point, which still holds
6 This subject has raised brilliant, vibrant and passionate discussion about our club. So what’s the problem?
Willie:
lol, great reply, like. And their trophy cabinet reflects the stubborn decisions of a deluded old fool who doesn’t spend any money on quality players.
Costas
Come on pal, United aside we all know you and Willie are the bad boys of this blog………Bad boys for life I hope!!!
Looking for a replacement for roy keane. The days of keane are long gone. Keane undoubtedly garnered legendary status when he played but if any player follows his style in the modern game, they’ll be spending more time banned than playing. Intercepting and reading of the game is paramount for midfielders. Ability and composure is important too.
Sorry, I will take a stance on this one, anyone calling Wenger a fool is a fool………I dislike the man with a passion but to disregard him is daft
dannysoya:
Personally, I don’t need no marquee players every year but there is a difference between spending excessively and no investment in proven midfielders since 2007. Kagawa might be an exception now, but I mean proper CMs.
Cedars:
Wenger is one of the all time greats, but had he spent more money Arsenal would be on a completely other level. He has been foolish in his transfer activity for the last years.
Passe
I will not make this an Arsenal debate, although for me they have been our most worthy challengers over the years, proper club with proper history….. Wenger’s problem is that he thinks how to make money instead of spending it, that has been their down fall……..Not that I give a rat’s ass
Indian Devil
No worries dude and no need to apologise, no offence taken.
Costas
Not sure how Indian Devil and Devil’s Own can get mixed up apostrophe or no apostrophe…haha. Re lifting quotes, it was the “that’s all I have to say….” comment, which illustrated an attempt to pass it off as his own with no acknowledgement to the real author. Some authors may get a bit touchy.
Cedars, fuck off, no blue language here fucker!
James – will have to wait til I’ve got time to sit down with a brew and read it properley.
On to footie matters, I’m surprised some fans think theres no need for an enforcer.
I beg to differ. You do need s midfield general but also a ball playing one.
I know its only preseason but you can tell there’s still a problem with possession. What rankles me is I’m not sure a lot of work is being put in that side of the game. That in itself worries me even more as the gaffer dsys no hard man type signing.
Is really like to see a 3 man midfield of scholes,Carrick and pettruci/rotation. Maybe ando swapping with scholes. This I believe is a far better education for the young lads. Hoping to play 442 without some get off your seat world class talent is admirable but we’ll eventually come unstuck.
3 man midfield probably allows for better rotation and is a step in the right direction from getting swamped.
I reckon this is a RoM ploy to get supporters hype for the Season. Must be! You will follow this article up when the shitty daily heil is issued, won’t you Scott ole Pal? haha, should be interesting.
As for the article itself, it gave a glimpse into the managers thinking and nothing more. He’s spot on about not paying 34m for a player he values at 18m, and I don’t doubt his claims that the Glazers back his plans. Theres only one sentence that can be described as an “insult” and its nothing more than a sarcastic, humorous response to a stupid question. Guess this debate all boils down to who I trust more, and to state the bloody obvious I don’t know the Red Knights from Adam!
@Dela – brilliant post, spot on about where a real protest group should be directing its attention (at the bloody top/FA) and about the financial viability of the United Way. As you illustrated, its not a flippin gimmick its the best Club system the English game has ever seen.
@RoM – just wanted to add we’re all smart enough to spot a troll. Everybody on RoM supports United. If its one thing I’ve never done on here it’s question any other bloggers “loyalty” to the Club. We don’t need to do that lads, not only is this not a pissing contest, but the football United play and the history behind the Club have many admirers. Its a complete waste of our time trying to put that into a hierarchy, especially online. I only say lads because the lasses usually have more sense!
@marits – Lol on another night I would have probably posted the same thing. Yes your right, it IS a piss take when Alex Ferguson is blamed and accused for fuck all, and saying that doesn’t make you a Glazer fan boy. But at the same time when Giggs12 said Fergie isn’t bigger than the Club I doubt Fergie would deny that tbh. Case of crossed wired I think, no biggie mind.
@Giggs12 – obviously you’ve got every right to rant about more money coming out of your pocket, and to an extent I agree about the absence of a 30 miller since DImmy, but be fair mate there has been the small matter of a unparalleled global recession between then and now so all bets are off tbh. Sod the money City and Chelsea are spending as well imo, I’d rather see our Club tuck its tail and ride out the storm, fuck knows I am Lol. Jokes aside slow and steady is better than fast and risky in this economy, and its not like we haven’t bid big numbers for “big players” because we have – they just didn’t want to come to OT…
As for the Glazers themselves, im no fan whatsoever but it could we worse we could have the Scouser’s owners! Yes, if the situation called for it I’d support United risking relegation just to get rid of detrimental Owners, but the current debt situation doesn’t call for anything like that to be honest. The debt definitely isn’t ideal, but our Long Term financial standing is still very solid hence why we’re being exploited as a Club.
What the Glazers did was 100% legal, so what makes you think another owner wouldn’t do the exact same thing Pal? I say it to my mates all the time, imagine if the bank gave you ownership of a house by allowing you to use the property’s address as the name on the bloody mortgage??? Its a crude example but that’s the kind of relationship the 1% have with their creditors, so the Glazers or somebody just like them really are here to stay. When Gill said Debt was the road to ruin he was stating an obvious truth we all wanted to hear at the time, but the reality is debt is fucking omnipresent thats the damn problem mate. The Theatre of Dreams isn’t immune to that but in many ways the football we play is, hence the Worldwide Support from people who will probably never step foot inside it.
Cedars
I have a lot of time for Wenger. As with Sir Alex, only time will tell if his transfer activity was based on his beliefs or enforced by his bosses.
Passe – I know we’ve had issues with our pitch in the past but last season it was spot on.
Mike
As I said, I do not really like him but he is a fucking great manager…..Along with United, Arsenal have played the most eye catching football over the years, anyone denying that is either daft or have been watching fucking cricket
AntiScouser
Your only comment on this thread is an attack on CedarsDevil.
CedarsDevil is not a scouser. He is a United fan.
On RoM, you sometimes attack the scousers.
On RoM, you always attack at least one United fan.
Had you selected a bland username, such as ‘Joe Smith’, all on RoM would hardly realise that you were anti-scouse. However, all on RoM would still know that you are always anti any and all United supporters that disagree in any way with your views.
You display far more anti-United than anti-scouse.
If you were the last fan left on earth, our club would still be better off without you.
You ‘support’ United because you are anti-scousers.
We are anti-scousers because we support United.
United first, then anti-scouse; not the other way round.
You are using us to get at your hated foe.
United is merely a vehicle you use to hurt scousers.
Shallow are you.
Wakey
Top post mate not often we agree on finance thread
Utdtillidie
To be fair mate my argument is not so much about buying 30 mil plus players its more so getting the ones we need. We spent 28 mil on rio a decade ago so economical recessions or not we bought Roo 8 years ago, Dimi 3 years ago and the Ronaldo sale alone has cleared that. Fergie does like bringing youth through but then doesn’t play them. Last year we never added due to pogba yet he played park and Rafa in midfield and brought scholes back before using him?
I love Fergie he has kept us at the top, SAF. Chooses the transfers and outside of that 500 million has been paid out on debt. We will have to fork out a shed load in 2017 when the bonds mature. I don’t believe united money should make the Glazers rich. They have spent nothing every penny spent has come from self made coin.
Blah Blah Blah.
Also when I said Sir Alex is not bigger than the club this was not having a pop he just isn’t. He has been magnificent for us and the day it comes to an end will be a hard day to get through.
I will add though Manchester United was formed 1878 not 1986. We were here before and will.continue after. That’s when I say Sir Alex is not bigger than the club.
Some of the comments on here from certain cretins is what I’d expect of scousers. I believe the premiership trophy will be back where it belongs next season. I’m a firm supporter of SAF. Not of the gimps. I love Manchester United. Who owns the club isn’t an issue for me. If that pisses you off, I really couldn’t give a fuck. It’s coming home. 19
Who owns the club isn’t an issue for you? What an absolutely remarkable thing to say.
I despair.
Scott the Red – what happened to you mate, were you in a bad mood when you posted this. Sir Alex does not “give a warning” to United fans or “have a go at us”. Why didn’t you get your facts right first?
Bad post mate.
My two or three cents:
-”You are not allowed to buy a house (mortgage) without at least paying 30% in deposits in the UK”.
How the fuck was the Glazer allowed to by United …with LOAN MONEY. They didn’t spend a penny from their own bank. That means any Tom,Dick,Virgina and Larry who is broke as fuck can approach a club and buy them because they took out a loan. No…..the takeover should have been rejected there and then.
-”United are spending like tight mother-kissers”.
Not necessarily, I’ve been ok with the budgets of £40-50m, We’ve bought VDS,Vidic,Evra,Anderson,Nani,Carrick,Valencia,Hargreaves,Chico,Berbatov. Jones,Smalling and youngster cost us a bomb…£18m for De Gea and Jones, £10m for Smalling, combined £40m for Nani + Ando. If anything SAF is to blame for not investing in a midfielder. I blame SAF for this personally because he’s had funds available but has overlooked it countless times.
-”Glazers are a cancer”
Yes they are, they are HIV. They will be here a long time to suck the United tits dry. But remember we are now a business first and a club second. We are like Arsenal but with a Top Notch Manager. The Glazer have improved the commercial side of United for their own tit sucking purposes, being shareholders their aim is PROFIT. Thus all they do aim to take money, ithat means bigger kit deals, deals with DHL, sponsoring anything and anything to get the brand noticed. Hublot,Chevrolet etc. The Cancer is basically making it’s home more comfortable so when they day comes…they will strike us (sell up) and take our club for all it’s worth ! They are a disease that has helped our growth but not for our own benefits, so so they can sell the club for £2billion and make a £1.5bn profit after their loans have been paid off.
- “Us Fans deserve to complain, we pay shit loads”
We do ! Fuck SAF, he’s obviously forced to take sides but don’t fucking stab the blood of the club. We are Manchester United…they (Glazers, the players,Manager) represent us ! Manchester ! If we fans all pull out financially, the club collapses. The club is struggling for season ticket holders and are now begging us to buy them by posting videos, sending letters home, leaflets, telling us what they can guarantee us. If you want to be a paying fan however…it’s your own choice, I opted out of paying the Glazers 3 years back but I still buy the merchandise. We are at crossroads because we don’t want to hurt the club but neither fund the cancer.
IMO…SAF should keep quiet and talk about stuff that concerns him. The fans don’t criticise him for spending ( majority don’t) so he shouldn’t criticise us back for our expectation of our clubs owners. Tbh, its the fans that really own United and Glazers are the leaches that have glued themselves onto our skins
I wonder if anybody read this
It’s not now. The Glazers feet are firmly under the table. Might be a shock to you, but I’m no sheep mate. Cheers!
You despair? Don’t be a drama queen Scott. Do I wish we had owners from Manchester? Yep. Who loved the club, yes. We don’t have that, though. Fuck knows what we’ll get after the Glazers. At least the debt will be cleared.
I’m not being a drama queen. I just am genuinely amazed there are people who claim to be United fans who don’t care who owns the club. You’d care if we hadn’t won anything since 2005 though eh?
STR
I’m more amazed there are people who claim to be Utd fans who come here and call SAF a Cunt.
Dreaded Red
Auntie Scouser always comes on and slags someone. We’re used to him doing that.
Cedars only laughed, thats the best thing to do with the Aunt.
This is a row about nothing in my opinion. Mild comments from Sir Alex, certainly no attack of the fans as Scott suggested it would be. Personally I’m tired of the whole anti Glazer movement because let’s be honest it hasn’t made a slight bit of difference! These are hardened business men. Selling hundreds of thousands of green and gold scarfs has just lined some other sods pockets with gold while having no affect what so ever on the ownership of the club.
^
In a perfect world, we would have good owners and they would be wealthy version of the Glazer Family (who are bankrupt ,malls closed, broke bank account and not a penny to their name).
If Glazers had funded the takeover with their own funds, I truly believe they would get the mug for “best owners ever”
But they didn’t….that my reason for the dislike and disapproval ! Nothing else.
Ticket prices was always going to rise, that’s how it is in this market.
The Glazers do not have my support but they have given United, us fans against them, a common enemy, a shared moral code, That we must be run in sustainable fashion because the day the Glazers take the club for every penny it’s worth, we’ll be alone and will have stand on our own feet and the club will have to provide for itself (Youth system, revenues etc ).
The Glazers will sell up after SAF leaves ….he keeps the club profitable and successful.
Dark Times are ahead when SAF steps down, we will be ready.
When SAF leaves and the Glazers sell up, we will have to catch the club when it falls. The dynasty will not collapse in Fergies reign….he holds it all up.
///zzzz
I support the club whoever owns it. Not that hard to understand. I didn’t want the Glazers. We’ve stayed competitive throughout their tenure. Largely down to Fergie. Take your point if we hadn’t of won much during that time, my opinion would probably be different. I’ve accepted our position for what it is. I don’t like mate, but what can I do? Stamp my feet and call the Glazers cunts? They are cunts. Who have taken huge sums of money out of our club. Maybe I should retract that bit about who owns the club. Of course I’d love a debt free United. And hope to see it one day.
I think calling Fergie a cunt is a joke. I think not caring who owns the club is a joke. If Fergie wasn’t the greatest manager to have ever lived, the Glazers would have ruined us. Incredible that people say they don’t care about spending £500m on financing in debt over 7 years because we’ve won trophies. Embarrassing actually, more than incredible.
james21
Laughing at Auntie Scouser’s idiocy is the best, you are right.
I too have seen that he lives only to slag off United fans (and the odd scouse)
Later Reds, I’m out.
WilleRedNut – Hold on, you didn’t say you support the club no matter who owns it. We all do that. We all support United even though it’s owned by the Glazers. You said you don’t CARE who owns it. Can you not see the obvious difference between those two statements? If we hadn’t won anything, your opinion wouldn’t be “slightly different.” You would be outraged if we hadn’t won anything since 2005, you would despise the Glazers and you would want them gone. Amazing that a fan of a football club could say they don’t care who is in charge, as long as we win some trophies. Mind boggling. Like City fans when that “human rights abuser of the worst possible kind” owned their club.
United will never collapse in the fashion like they did when Sir Matt left. Football has changed far too much since those days. Yes when Fergie goes it’s almost a given that our days of dominating will come to an end, everything does, but the club is too valuable and will always be sort after by suitors. The long term future of this club is assured and there is only a handful of clubs in the world you can say that about.
Clint
I read it mate. Seemed very sensible to me. The problem with the Anti Glazer situation is that we will never get everyone to commit to a single intervention as we are too big. If EVERYONE ditched their tickets or refused to buy merchandise we’d hit them where it hurt. But for every one fan who does this there are anothe 5 doing the opposite!!
Admitted my mistake Scott. It came out wrong. At least I got you engaging in mind boggling debate!
People have turned this into a debate on the Glazers but fail to understand one very simple premise:
There is nothing we can do about it.
The Glazers own the club and no amount of complaining on the internet will get rid of them. Buying a Green & Gold scarf from some opportunistic leech outside the ground will make no difference other than give that guy your fiver. You think waving it about inside the stadium makes a difference?
Not buying a shirt or not going to matches etc makes no difference either. There’s always someone happy to take your ticket. Don’t give them your money, somebody else will hand over theirs.
Even if we all stopped giving them money, all they would do is cut the wages, sell off players and turn us into Everton. Then everyone will complain about that. Boo hoo hoo, we stopped giving you cash so you didn’t buy more multi-million pound players to entertain us.
The Glazers aren’t ideal but they’re what we have and it could be far worse. Would you rather have different owners and have to sell players every summer?
Personally, I accept that it could be worse, hope it gets better and am grateful for what I get. I also tend to think that Sir Alex knows a bit more about the Glazers’ plans than the fans do.
You can’t tell McDonald’s what to put in their “food” so what makes you think you can tell a football club owner how to run his team? Your annual £1,000 season ticket won’t even pay Rooney’s wage for an afternoon.
eric keane if it’s about opinions then mine is as valid as yours.
I could not find another story on this but here is a brief one.
STR and Willie not being a dick or Zib, but why would MUFC be shit with any other gaffer? Sure SAF is the man of men. But a fallen club. Come on guys. Not drama queen stuff, a little drama princess for sure.
oopps
http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/ferguson-man-utd-will-survive-when-i-step-down-3397871?utm_source=main_feed
Mikekelly hit’s the nail on the head by saying if you’re that irate about the ownership of the club you’d give up putting any money into the club. In this sense that makes a whole lot of people hypocrites! Though like Mike says someone will always replace that bum on a seat because of the popularity of the club. The Glazers are not going anywhere any time soon so unless you’ve given up your season ticket and don’t put any money what so ever into the club I would avoid any articles like this.
Cyril
Being apathetic as you suggest, in my opinion is more pathetic.
Either Bitch or Back…sitting back is what cowards with no spines do.
This is isn’t a storm, it a long battle against a flesh eating worm.
SAF is the doctor keeping the body alive whilst making sure the worm doesn’t contaminate other areas.
I predict the Glazers to leave in 2018, they are only here for the money, when the clubs valuation is maximised and has peaked financially they will say “Ta-ra” and leave….as fans we have to oppose our clubs being beaten up like some whore in the process. We are allowing them to whore our club….yuck !
Cyril – So the conclusion is, whatever goes wrong, do not voice your opinion on it. If something is completely wrong, but you feel as though you can’t change it, shut up and get on with it. There is always a worse off alternative, so be quiet and don’t talk about it.
Someone should tell Amnesty International.
Clint, why would the Glazers leave, UTD anytime soon, the club is their biggest cash cow, the IPO they’re trying raises them capital while they retain full control.
@Giggs12 – I was frustrated at not seeing the youngsters perform last season as well pal but as was pointed out to me at the time perhaps the manager simply decided they weren’t ready? We topped the table points-wise so our squad was clearly strong enough last season with out relying on want away teenagers. It was our BIG PLAYERS who dropped the ball tbh not our transfer policy.
Instead of regretting not spending 30m extra last summer we just needed to NOT switch off against Everton and not drop points at Blackburn, know what I mean mate? Putting our loss last season down to transfer policy is daft imo. We had it in our hands and we didn’t need to spend an extra 30m to hold on to it.
As for the amount we’ve been spending on players since the takeover, its irrelevant to me mate, not because of blind support or a causal attitude about the Glazers, just common sense.
For example, Valencia in hindsight is easily worth 25-30 million in my book. If we was still in Spain, and we knew about all his goals and assists before we signed him, everyone would’ve been happy to pay 5 times more than we did. Now compare him to David Silva. City paid 24 million for him, nearly 4 times more than we paid for Valencia, and now Silva is demanding 200k a week just to stay! I know he has his fans on here and im not denying his ability, but give me 7m Antonio Valencia any day of the week never mind the fact I think he’s the better player. If we paid 24m and 200k a week for Silva it would drive up all our other salaries and let agents know that we’re a soft touch like City. Thats why Clubs all make City pay through the nose cos they’re got more money than fucking sense over there. I can’t compare our transfer strategy to theirs bcos its apples and oranges mate. Like Alec explicitly says in the interview.
As for midfield, there is a shortage of available, experienced, quality players compared to an abundance of wingers and strikers, so when SAF blames the lack of CM signings on no value in the market I believe him. We put in a HUGE bid for Sniejder but he wasn’t worth the salary he held out for so fuck him. Not sure if we ever wanted Modric but he’s holding out for 30 odd million anyway and he’s never ever worth that.
…..On the other hand Kagawa at 23 and the best player in Germany last year was well worth the amount being demanded so we rightly snapped him up, and if he’s half the big game player Park was the 13m we paid is outstanding value. BTW Park is another player easily worth 24-30 million imo, especially if you judge him on his goals, assists and performances over the years. Alex knows how to get value.
Its frustrating at times waiting for signings but I don’t think theres anything wrong with our transfer policy. Fergie always comes up smelling of roses because he knows what he’s doing long term. I trust him when he says there was no value – on the whole there isn’t – and I honestly don’t believe the Glazers have ever said no to his requests for money.
I said it else where, but I also don’t believe we’d have bought more (or “better”) players if we had different owners. Thats probably where we disagree. I think Fergie would have signed exactly the same players even if he has all the money in the world. Signing the likes of Silva for 200k a week when we can pay a similar or better player half that is bad business imo. Thats why I trust what the manager says about the Glazers – who I don’t like in the slightest.
MK12
Spot on with the last line, the size of this club means that even the glory hunters. day trippers, tourists etc have to share the concerns of the intelligent fans who have concerns about the owners.
In conclusion, the club should never have been sold to guys that didn’t have even have a penny to their name. The guys to blame are the old shareholders and David Gill.
Glazers in a decades time will be known as the smartest business men of the sporting industry, no doubt about it, they take investment + profit to another level.
£0 in
£2bn out !
Papii, big business now, so in 2018 who then. Could it become to profitable to sell. New TV contrac and breaking of revanye record of 100 million just the start. Here in the US a virgin market PL growing leaps and bounds, Asia will have 100,000,000 more, new middle class consumers in the next 10-15 years who will buy MUFC shit and TV rights for China and India 1/3 of the world population growing football crazy. And MUFC will be, is there favorite team.
@STR the Glazzer question, why not just bring up abortion, PRO vs CON or religion.
@STR the Glazzer question, why not just bring up abortion, PRO vs CON or religion.
What do you mean by this, please elaborate?
@Tonka Norris
It may not be ideal but you need to remember they don’t have a free reign to pick any ticker symbol they want, they are limited by what is available.
Also the ticker needs to be obvious to an average American who isn’t a United fan so while it’s not ideal for us it is perfect for the job it’s aiming to do
Oh and may I add that Busby called us ManU so perhaps rather than be s negative about the term if it was good enough for Busby perhaps as fans we should reclaim it from other teams and be proud of it.
@Costas
Yes I’m sure. Our % of revenue spent on wages remain the same while revenue grew so that means wages increased. While the replacements may have come in on less wages it was hardly a case of them getting paid peanuts so new deals for existing players used any savings with little problem.
On the Fullbacks, both may have been passable fullbacks but they still weren’t fullbacks. Evans played a lot of international games at LeftBack while Jones and Smalling are decent Right Backs and Valencia is more than capable of playing there.
The only reason it looks worse this season is the Fabio decision but let’s be honest it’s a gamble that was required. If he didn’t go on loan he was never going to be ready to replace Evra. Otherwise we would have 3 like we have had for a few year now.
As for keeping O’Shea who is to say Smalling or Valencia wouldn’t have had to play RB. O’Shea could have also been injured or he would have been needed to cover the more serious CB issue. I also wasn’t ever impressed by O’Shea at RB as he always looked more confident at CB and LB. At Right back he would often fail to fully support the winger in attacks and his passing which was never his best asset was all too often negative or downright awful when playing that position. Would have much preferred Brown was retained as a RB than O’Shea. Brown though seemed to make his position untenable and with both we had younger versions of them and wouldn’t have got the money that was on the table again. Was just bad luck that made it look a bad decision to get rid of them but who could have predicted it.
Oh and the Bebe agent fee was different. United didn’t pay him that Money. He owned half of Bebe’s economic rights as is common in Portugal which he bought from the club in Portugal. The Portuguese club received the money and then as per their arrangement they gave the agent what he was worth. This is different to a single agent demanding 18% alone when the total agent pot is usually around 10% of the fee.
As for Moura/Hazard, he may feel that both fees are high but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t find them acceptable in the circumstances. Pretty much any transfer fee will after all be high as the buying club will always pay more than they feel the players currently worth. But it’s like going to an auction, you know what you value the item at but also know how much over that value you are willing to go. I can’t really think of a player in recent years we have under paid for, some have gone on to prove the fees to be bargins but at the time they were overpriced.
Another thing is how much of the Lucas fee is upfront. While Chelsea and City apparently prefer paying unconditional fees to secure players United do apparently like structured deals with addons for various things (even Bebe’s deal is supposed to only be in the 2-4mill range upfront. The rest being addons), if there are a number of addons then will the fee still be that high? If he flops then the addons never get paid and if they do get paid then he has almost certainly justified the fee.
As for Lucas being more unproven. How exactly? He has played roughly the same amount of games as Hazard both in club and international football. The Brazilian teams a lot harder to play for than the Belgium one that’s for sure and anyone who considered the domestic situation in Brazil to be much weaker than France is wrong. Brazilian domestic football is tough, skilful and physical and they play a ridiculous amount of games. As well as a usual 38game league season and a Cup competition there are also the South American versions of the Champions League and Europa League. A total of 12 teams qualify for these 2 (a 4/8 split)
On top of that they have region leagues in the off season which are highly competitive. It’s like the Manchester Senior cup being turned into a 20 team league followed by a home/away knockout but with a higher quality entry list and with all teams playing their top players.
So it’s not like Lucas is inexperienced even at 19 and as I have said elsewhere that I believe a Brazilian who has played a good amount of Senior football in brazil and then come directly to England is almost certainly more suited for England’s more physical league than a European coming over. I think Hazard will be like Silva and will need 6months plus to come to terms with it but I think Lucas would need less. Ofc culturally a European may find it less of a culture shock moving to the UK than from Brazil but if he is mentally strong enough that shouldn’t impact his football too much (and we have a good crop of Brazilian and Portugeuese players at the club that will help him settle)
@TonyBee
Fergie wouldn’t spend it as he would walk out within a week of them buying it as we see at every club bought by Sugar Daddy’s that the owners buys players they want not who the Manager wants.
We don’t want a Sugar Daddy who will use the club as a play thing until they get bored and leave the club to implode, we need a business focused owner that will be sensible while growing the club as a business.
@Costas
There is a difference. The £6mill with Hazard was the fee that was specifically paid to Hazards agent ontop of actual fee. The figure for Rio will be Rios agents fee and the agents of both Both clubs getting their cut.
And under the PLC we were renowned for overpaying agents fees. It was a constantly issue for the Shareholders and played a major part in the Irish lots 99 Questions letter to the board. Rather than the combined 10% that’s the norm United would often pay 20% combined. Their reasoning was that they needed to pay All 3 parties agents more due to the unique circumstances that being a PLC put them in. However it’s still a case that Hazards agent alone is 18% and it would be safe to assume both clubs agents took at least a further 7%.
@mattbw7
“The Glazers are leeches on our club, anyone who argues different just doesn’t want to understand basic facts”
Lol someone who uses the leeches line and then accuses others of not understanding basic facts. You haven’t actually even BOTHERED to look at the facts, you are just buying the MUST lies left right and centre.
All in all the cost of the Glazers when you minus the increased revenue and the streamlining of the business costs much of which the PLC wouldn’t have done is offset. People seem to want to assume that the PLC cost nothing but it didn’t and it should also be noted that the board was taking out more each year as a PLC than the Glazers have. It needs to be taken into account when talking about the Interest payments but it never is
@Zulu-Utd-Malta
Did you even bother to read the article? No you didn’t. This is the problem someone like Scott or the Media or MUST knee jerks and makes old sensationalist claims and people like you buy it and refuse to actually look at it critically.
@slim
Seriously how can you say that? They don’t interfere in the team, they don’t buy players behind the managers back, they have grown revenues, cut down wastage, improved the training/medical facities and authorised massive transfer bids. They have taken less out of the club in their ownership than the plc did in it’s final 7 years and the costs of ownership is well below the amounts constantly quoted when you actually take the PLC costs into account.
So to call them amongst the worst owners is just crazy, there are aspects other owners that are better but also aspects of the same ownerships that are worse and of all the ownership types a Business based ownership is the one that fits with United ideals the best
matt – I mean just because something is wrong and it feels as though we can’t change it, it doesn’t mean we’re not entitled to talk about it. The reaction of some people on here has honestly shocked me.
@Hattebw7
No Right answer just opinion.
In a bad mood, this will pick a fight.
People have srong feeling about both sides.
Matt guys like U and Anti show up just to exaggerated and argue, cause trouble, stir shit.
Guys like you I call Cy B. Chpace, here to agitate to fight. I say up you say down, I say down you say up. You say right I say your left is wrong.
Like a scab you pick at it. There does that help.
I wasn’t having a pop at you Scott, I do despair at some of the wibble on here.
Like this gem from Wakey
“All in all the cost of the Glazers when you minus the increased revenue and the streamlining of the business costs much of which the PLC wouldn’t have done is offset. People seem to want to assume that the PLC cost nothing but it didn’t and it should also be noted that the board was taking out more each year as a PLC than the Glazers have. It needs to be taken into account when talking about the Interest payments but it never is”
Wakey you’re fucking deluded trying to punt that as fact, try reading http://andersred.blogspot.co.uk/ it’s a good starting point and don’t align with me with MUST, thanks.
Wakey you go man,
No Zibbie, on this you’re dead wrong, the Glazers discussion has only one answer, it’s open to debate in the way you suggest those other topics are.
Scott – There is a world of difference between human rights abuse and how a rich man runs his business. Nobody died because Glazer put the ticket prices up.
I have no problem with people protesting outside the ground or writing articles or whatever else to tell the Glazers there is a degree of dissatisfaction in the fan base. But, realistically, it boils down to telling the owner of the restaurant you didn’t enjoy your starter. You can’t change the receipe if he won’t listen.
Manchester United is a business and it’s up to the business owner how he runs it. We can all walk away, but there’s plenty more queueing up outside.
matt guys like you start wars, my way or your wrong, I for your own good will impose my view on you! Get it. You are not god, even though you think your one. wow only one side …
Tigers ego gets him.
I don’t think Scott is as flabbergasted as he’s making out. Still, nice to see him down here with little folk and the dregs!
Off topic, Hello all. A great day to be RED!!!!!
Here LB, Lucas and RvP and a CDM!!!!!!!!!!
Willie, me 2
STR need a 500 post thread to reach reavanue projection for July, with him it’s all about the $$$$$$$$$
Go McDowell!!!!!!!
Zibbie, the debate about whether the Glazers are good for the club or bad is surely done isn’t it, tbf they’re only doing what their rapacious business instincts tell them to do.
Clint – You are misconstruing pragmatism as apathy.
I’ve got no problemn with protests but please don’t try to tell me that writing “LUHG” in your forum signature and occasionally posting “Glazer out!” makes a difference.
Either get directly involved in the protest or hush your yap. “Moral support” while you sit at home watching others protest means nothing.
Personally I don’t think the Glazers are as bad as they are made out and even though I don’t like Uncle Malc, I trust Sir Alex.
If the Glazers pay off the debt with this IPO and set the club up to dominate for years to come, who will look a chump then?
Let the IPO play out and see what happens. See, pragmatism, not apathy.
STR has amassed great debt in his Social Media rise to MUFC kingpin status, now he is making his fans pay for his greed!
@Matt we use to talk, then I quit sending post your way just for that mind set, only one answer to complex situations, not me dude. Be well and take a chill pill, if you have a thing against pills try some shank.
Cyril even the IPO is fully subscribed it’s only a limited offering and would only pay down a small percentage of the overall debt, we still don’t know what happened to the PIK debt, the Glazers tell us it’s been paid, with what though. It would be far more interesting to see what happens if it fails and at the moment it ain’t looking good.
Matt – Fair enough, but I still say let it play out and then react. Give them a chance, even if it’s just for Sir Alex’s sake, rather than acting like it has already failed.
Cyril – Of course there’s a world of difference, that was hardly the point. I wasn’t arguing the Glazers owning United is like abusing human rights. I thought that was fairly obvious. My point was just because you feel as though you can’t change something, it doesn’t mean the fact it is wrong shouldn’t be discussed. What’s the point in moaning about it on the internet? Pssh. What’s the point in talking about anything then? If you can’t change something that is wrong, then be quiet and accept it? Nonsense.
@ Clint – Read your post about mortgages, only need a 10% down payment these days but spot on.. Sky taking us over with their own money is unfair but the same government allows this takeover and many other dodgy takeovers happen.
Glazers have not put any of their own cash into the club, had they my views may be different. Those who think the glazers are good owners are the sorts who spend £50 quid on a shirt a season and thats it. I nearly spend that on beer money and some food at a game!!!
I take no notice of these idiots. Don’t think its a coincidence that at one point I had up to 10 of my mates going regularly and now its just 1 who has a season ticket some of them aren’t even members.
The very first thing the glazers did before any of their commercial deals (which are more to line their own pockets than that of the club) was raise ticket prices and they’ve done it every year directly or indirectly. This has made OT more of a family environment which unfortunatley means that other than Little Jimmy the only noise you’re likely to hear during a game is “calling Evans Shit” or when we score. Then get criticised about no atmosphere inside the ground. It what the club wants. Can’t believe its £40 to sit in East Stand Tier 2 next season.
Everyones mind is made up. Those that criticse people who actually go to games who have invested their hard money into the club when they just sit at home and watch it can fuck off, don’t care about your circumstances. If you’re not paying your opinion is irrelevant.
WilleRedNut – I am. I genuinely can’t get my head around the apathy. The fact that so many people are happy to acknowledge the only reason why they don’t take an issue with us spending £500m on servicing debt is because we’ve won trophies is shocking. But you wouldn’t want to be called a glory supporter would you.
@STR great stuff mate,
What a blog!!!!!!!!!!!
IPO stuff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/10/manchester-united-accounts-share-offer
Why now
http://andersred.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/why-have-glazers-changed-their-strategy.html
But the clubs debt with money borrowed from the club.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/07/08/business/08reuters-manchesterunited-glazers.html?_r=2&hp
Scott at 14.39 sums it up perfect for me I can’t add to that.
STR there are some investment banker types here, financial gurus, over the last year they have un-bunched my panties about mu worry of the Glazzers. Even without the IPO all debt even with the banking meltdown 5 years back, will be gone by 2017, if FFP hits even 1/4 of what it should. MUFC and the Bavarian s will rule the FOOTBALLING world. Have and will MUFC have won more without the debt, sure they would. I personally have no clue what or whom would be better. A oil guy worth 50 bill who would let football people run the show and give them all they need? Have in his will never to be sold and 1/2 his fortune goes to an % baring investment and all earning are put into the club. Outside of that. I like the Glazzers, I could be all fucked in the head.
GO ROONEY!!!!!!!
Scott – As I said to Clint, it’s not about apathy.
I say give them a chance to play out this IPO and see how it goes. They might just surprise us all.
You know as well as I do there is a difference between having a discussion (as we are doing now) and the typical “Glazer is a cunt, LUHG” nonsense.
The point of discussion is to inform/educate each other and that’s good. That’s the point of talking about it. However, my original point was that no amount of complaining or discussion will ultimately make any difference to the Glazers.
We can tell them we aren’t happy, but we can’t change it. That doen’t mean we can’t talk about it, it means let’s not over-estimate our own power. Fan power exists only if the entire fan base works in unison, and that will never happen.
Cyril – “No amount of complaining or discussion will ultimately make any difference to the Glazers.” So? Are we only allowed to talk about issues we can change? I feel like I’m responding the same way every time and every time you ignore it.
And I disagree. It is about apathy. If United had won nothing since 2005 you wouldn’t get anyone saying the things they are on here.
One more thing why do people assume, that if you’re anti-glazer it means you’re automatically
- want a sugar daddy owner.
- totally agree with what MUST have to say,
- think Fergie is an unmentionable.
That isn’t the case at all.
Glazer have been here since 05 just before we lost the cup to l’arse I believe. Thats 7 seasons. If you look at the 7 years before them, the stats on winning stuff are actually worse.
98-99 – 04-05 – 4 PL Titles, 1 CL, 2 FA Cups, 1 World Cup.
05-06-11-12 – 4 PL Tiltes, 1 CL, 3 Carling Cups., 1 World Cup
The way people talk about the Carling Cup makes it less than the FA Cup in my eyes and also many others so for 2 FA Cups>3 League Cups. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t be taking the piss out of the vermin. We may have finished runners up in a few competitions as well, but you don’t win 2nd place and I’m sure Fergie sees it that way too.
So on the pitch it’s hardly changed off the pitch, shirt changes every year now, that was sly of them, raising ticket prices no in line with inflation and use the London excuse to justify it. It’s Manchester United not London United!!! Things like that have ruined the club in my eyes, I have had 4 letters through the post since the back end of last season asking me to get a season ticket. I was on hold for nearly an hour trying to get one (and failing) back in 2003.
So since its harldy changed on the pitch what ownership structure is better the old one, nobody was pissed at the owners the way they are now. The only criticism of that structure was our transfer targets got leaked from time to time. Now its even worse, we do all the donkey work and chelski and cit-eh just make bids on players we are scouting.
So the old structure was better the only way that would have gone into debt is if we spent beyond our means.
If not the Glazzers then WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY??????????????
Just spew shit is not fine or OK, discussion is great if there are two rational parties.
So we do not watch them buy no tickets or kits then what? Fucking so frustrating WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s never easy to wrap your head around the Glazers’ tactics and especially the enormous amount of the club’s money that was spent on interest payments. There’s no going back there and it’s one of the reasons I’ll never warm up to them. Like I said yesteray, it’s not about trophies as much as it is about the state of the squad and how it compares to 4-5 years ago.
What I took from Willie’s comments, and since we’ve talked about this for years, is that for him (and the same applies to a lot of other reds) the main priority is supporting the team and keep believing that Ferguson will keep working his magic under these conditions. Others feel something drastic ought to happen now, others believe that in time the club will overcome this. Willie falls in the latter category. Whether his stance would have been the same if we hadn’t won much since 2005, is anyone’s guess and opinion. I do know that he’s old enough to know what it was like supporting United during the dark years before 92.
Scott – I’m not ignoring your point at all. It’s not a question of being ‘allowed’ to discuss it. As I say, the point of the discussion is we inform each other as fans of what is/may be happening at the club we all love.
I’m trying to say that the debate in and of itself makes no difference to the Glazers. It makes a difference to us as it might change our minds or teach us something we didn’t know, but it will not matter to Malcolm and his boys. For every fan that leaves, there are plenty more to take his place.
If we hadn’t won anything since their takeover, you could even see it as a good thing. Everyone would blame the Glazers for the lack of success. But that hasn’t happened. Maybe we have been successful in spite of them, but the success has happened, some funds have been spent and we remain competitive. Is that down to Sir Alex? Then he deserves a bit of respect and patience no?
I’m not apathetic, I care very much about my club. But I trust SIr Alex Ferguson, maybe a bit blindly, and I’m willing to give them a chance to sort it out. I can understand a period of relative austerity if it sets the club up for the long-term.
I love a debate, but am i correct to say, the interview is out and Fergie didn’t really have a pop at the fans.
He actually says there will always be debate at United and there always has done
“They will always be contentious about whoever owns the club, and that’s the way it has always been”.
He also says, rightly I think, that the Glazers aren’t bad compared to our previous owners.
Is that why we are having a pop at Fergie? Honestly?! I am a bit mystified.
Matt
I think you are wrong when you said we will be only paying small amount of debt. Here is the thing 423 million is our debt. The minimum amount that is expected out of IPO is 63 millions. This is manchester united that we are talking about. And I checked some top companies are interested in buying shares. IPO does a good benefit for us. I am predicting we will raise somewhere upto 150 miilions atleast. We don’t need to p ay the annual 40 millions which we used to pay on debt so we have money to spend. So whatever we raise is a bonus for us. I have looked at many news and the estimated amount that is expected to raise is 191 million ( $300 millions) Earlier we were expected to raise 270 miilions ($500 millions) but now we are expected to raise 190 millions. If we raise that amount of money then it will be a huge plus for us. 230 million debt will be remaining and honestly that will be somewhat managable. I would be happy if we raise atleast 150 million. If the debt figure comes under 300 million mark I would we have been successful in IPO thing
Off Topic, Wiggins has just crossed the line, magic, he lives just up the road from me as well.
You may think I’m wrong that’s up to you, I’ll take my info from the NY Times, The Telegraph financial section, Andersred and Swiss Ramble who see it differently.
@Wakey
Only have time to answer the Moura/Hazard bit for now, but in my opinion, a European will always have an easier time settling down in the Premiership compared to a Brazilian. If the Brazilian has never played in Europe that is. When I said unproven, I meant compared to Hazard. Not that he’s a bad player in general. He has enough hype surrounding him to suggest that he’s good. I can’t compare the Brazilian or the French leagues either, but I do feel the Brazilian one is also overestimated at times. While they were playing there, you’d hear a ton of hype about Adriano (the Inter player) or Robinho. Good players, but not world class as they’d have you believe at the time.
Anyway, going by the numbers, Moura has 26 goals and 20 assists in 106 games and Hazard has 50 goals and 38 assists in 192 games. Hazard is also a year older. So I can see why he should cost more at this stage.
Matt
Apart from Swiss ramble I have read all the other papers and blog that you have mentioned and honestly no one has criticised the idea of IPO. Yeah every paper have pointed out that us getting knocked early from champions League has harmed us but that we also know. Like I said We are Manchester united. I am confident the IPO thing will be a hit for us,.
Err I think you’ll find there is Ash, also try David Conn at The Guardian all mention the fact the US institutions don’t like the fact they’re using last years set of accounts.
Scott – Your nose is getting bigger? Lol. If my comments came out like a glory hunter, it wasn’t my intention. The £500mill taken out since they took over is shit. The Glazers have rinsed us. But I guess that night in Moscow, not one United fan was thinking of the debt. Maybe our success over Glazers tenure has blinded many fans. I hope MUST and IMUSA keep fighting. It’s important the anti Glazer campaign have their views heard.
Cheers Costas.
Matt
What you are doing is taking all the negative things from every article and highlighting here. If you have read this weeks news then you will come to know that the estimated amount that is estimated to be raised is $300 Millions which amounts to 190 Millions pound so with that we will erase ample amount of debt. IPO may not be as successful like you say but it will also not be a flop. Like I said if we reduce our debt amount to less that 300 million then we have done a good job.
I think you’ll find it’s between 62 and 100 mill, sigh!
From Andersred
The big news in United’s “preliminary prospectus” (the Form F-1 SEC filing) was 1) that the proceeds from the IPO will be used to repay some of the club’s enormous debt and 2) that no dividends will be paid “in the foreseeable future”.
The big question that stems from this, is “why?”. Why after seven years of running a highly leveraged balance sheet and only two and a half years after the bond issue have the Glazers executed a huge u-turn? Why suddenly decide to reduce the club’s debt?
I believe it is highly unlikely that the change is due to a sudden realisation that cash wasted on interest should be available for investment, although that may be a positive knock-on effect, but because of the financial pressures the family is under.
What follows is only my theory (and apologies if you don’t like speculative articles like this), but one that I think is near the truth….
The amazing disappearing PIKs
Followers of the United financial story will know that out of the blue in November 2010, the Glazer family found £249.1m (around $400m) which they injected into the club as equity and used to repay the infamous “payment in kind securities” (PIKs). These short-term debt instruments had festered on the balance sheet of Red Football Joint Venture Limited for more than four years and had accrued £111m of rolled up interest on top of the original £138m loan.
In August 2010, the PIKs had become even more expensive as the Red Football companies breached a key debt covenant (section 8.2 of this document). The covenant stipulated that total debt in the group (from Red Football Shareholder Limited downwards) should not be more than 5x EBITDA (essentially cash profits before transfers). If debt exceeded this limit (set when the PIKs were issued in 2006), the PIK interest rate would rise from 14.25% pa to 16.25% pa. With debts in August 2010 totalling £773m and EBITDA of £102m the rate duely rose, making the PIKs even more toxic and in need of repayment.
The bond issue of February 2010 had created a “carve out” which allowed the Glazers to take £95m of the club’s cash out and it was widely assumed (and mentioned in the bond prospectus as a possibility) that this money would be used to pay off a chunk of the PIKs. But the Glazers didn’t use the carve out to repay them in November 2010. The exact source of funds is unknown.
What I do know, from impeccable sources, is that the money was borrowed by the Glazer family. They didn’t have £249m in cash, few people do (and the other bits of the family empire are leveraged up already). The money was borrowed by one of their US companies from a single US financial firm.
Throughout the summer of 2010, the family and their advisers were hawking the deal around the market. Amusingly an old college friend working for a private “intelligence company” was retained by an American debt investor (I won’t embarrass him by naming the investor) to look at the deal and initially asked me for help. The invitation to meet the potential investor was quickly dropped after they did some due diligence on who I was.
So that’s what we know. Since November 2010, the club has been carrying the bond debt, and the Glazers have been stuck with what you might call “PIK2″, expensive personal debt secured on their equity in United, presumably costing less than the eye watering 16.25% of the PIKs, but more than the senior bond debt’s c. 8.7%.
Could there be another total debt covenant attached to “PIK2″?
Stories about a potential IPO (in Asia) first started to circulate in mid 2011 as the first anniversary of the PIK repayment approached. As we now know, nothing came of the attempts to list in either Hong Kong or Singapore, but the Glazers kept going. Despite terrible market conditions, a moribund IPO market, weak results due to the Champions League etc, they have persisted.
The explanation for this burning desire to IPO the club must be to do with their personal circumstaces, and yet they are not seeking to cash out but to repay debt. I believe that it is highly likely that the PIK2 debt has “total debt to EBITDA” covenants attached to it of a similar sort to those in the original PIKs. Such covenants would be very common for quasi-equity financing of this sort. Breaching these covenants could be very costly for the Glazer family and the existence of such would go a long way in explaining their apparent change of heart on the debt. Under such a scenario there would be a very strong incentive to try to reduce the debt across the Red Football group of companies, and the easiest method is an IPO.
The change of strategy actually dates back to Q4 2010 and PIK repayment
It is worth noting that although the prospectus sets the new strategy down in black and white for the first time, the Glazers have been pursuing deleveraging for a while, using bond buy backs, and that this new approach began as soon as the PIKs were repaid.
The club first bought back bonds in the final quarter of 2010 (when £24m were repurchased) and has now spent a total of £92.3m. No less than two-thirds of the cash the club had at the time of the bond issue (all that Ronaldo and Aon windfall) has been used on bond buy backs. The peculiarity of holding almost £150m of cash when issuing £520m of bonds and then, just a few months later, using that cash to buy back those bonds is striking.
Something has definitely changed…
So since the repayment of the PIKs and their replacement with “PIK2″ we have seen a completely new financial strategy. The best part of £100m has been whipped to buy bonds and now we have an IPO being launched into terrible markets to reduce the debt further. None of this proves they are under pressure from debt covenants in PIK2, but it all fits with the theory.
Even fellow “lineal descendants” can fall out
The other chat coming out of the US about the Glazers is that Darcie, Edward and Kevin don’t like having wealth tied up in this pesky soccer club that Joel, Avram and Bryan are so fixated with. If the six of them are personally on the hook for $400m of “PIK2″ and covenants are in danger of being breached, you can sort of see their point.
Theories and facts
Apologies again for such a speculative post. My theory may ring true to you or may sound like laughable rubbish. It would be lovely to think the Glazers have had a damascene conversion to prudent financial management and eschewed the crippling debts of the last seven years, but you’ll forgive me for seeking a baser motive.
Perhaps there are multiple reasons for the change in tack, including fears that becoming uncompetitive on the pitch will hurt the club’s value, as well as the sort of direct pressure on the family I have described above, and perhaps the reasons are less important than the fact the burden on the club is being reduced. That won’t stop this blog trying to identify the “whys” not just the “whats” of the whole sorry saga.
Am I right in saying any money made by the IPO is subject to the share price and the interest generated, which nobody is aware of right now. It has also been suggested that Sir Alex’s public support of his employers is an attempt to make the IPO a more attractive proposition to potential investors. I guess we wait and see how the IPO pans out, unless we have a magic ball.
Matt- Just for you
From the same andersred
This is a massive change in strategy by the Glazers and a positive one financially
The much quoted “$100m” issue is a red herring. There is a requirement in a preliminary prospectus to estimate the cost of registration fees and as these are dependent on the size of the share offer, a “placeholding” assumption has to be made. That is where the $100m figure comes from. It is not a guide to the size of the eventual offer. There is little or no point raising $100m (£64m). The exact amount raised will depend on the valuation placed on the company and the state of the markets in the next few weeks but I would expect at least $300m.
The other key aspect of this debt reduction is that the prospectus makes it clear that there is no intention to pay dividends in the forseeable future. Interest payments will not simply be replaced with dividend payments.
**********
No one apart from you is saying we will be only raising 62-100 millions. But you know what even if we raise 100 millions only then also I think we have done a good job. You can be as negative as you can but the fact remains that the IPO thing will work in favour for us,
The topic of apathy is an interesting one. Maybe some fans have let our success on the pitch blind them. At the same time, a lot of fans hate how things have turned out but are starting to get used to the situation simply because there’s no solution in sight. The Red Knights? Don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that one. Green and Gold? A noble idea and one that helped create a better atmpsphere at Old Trafford game. But there’s only so much you can do with a movement like that before people start joining in for all the wrong reasons. The only solution in sight is (other than praying that an IPO helps wipe out the debt) is a bid from Qatar or something. But we don’t know how realistic that is.
Ahh yes Ash, but the one I posted was subsequent to the one you’ve just put up, wasn’t it?
@mara
You can’t impose a salary cap unless you can impose it worldwide anyway. Even the FFP is slightly dangerous as all it does is move the money to other countries not under the regulation. It’s part of the reason Lucas looks like he will costs so much as most European clubs are tightening their belts while Brazil is flush with cash due to the World Cup and Olympics they have coming up in the coming years. They have hence been able to keep hold of the players better and even attract a number of their players back from Europe.
@Passe
You don’t just buy people for the sake of it though, that’s what Liverpool have been doing and you just overpay for average players who don’t improve anything. Fergie has specific targets and its just been the case that for a few reasons these just haven’t come off (either because the players preferred another club or they are simply chasing the money which clubs who can spend more on wages than they earn will always offer more wages)
@Warwick
Is anyone’s hard earned money really going on servicing the debt though. The Glazers have generated enough extra revenue from commercial deals to cover servicing the debt. It’s easy to assume all he fan generated income is going on the debt as that’s the most obvious one to get fans into uproar while most of the other revenue streams are easy to sweep under the carpet.
@Clint
It’s not exactly right that the Glazers didn’t spend a penny of their own money to buy the club. The first 30% that triggered the takeover was out of their own pockets. I calculated it in the past and I can’t remember exactly what it came out to but I believe it was between 300-400million.
So it’s not like their wasn’t any risk to them not to mention that the PIK’s were secured to their assets so they had to be confident that their plan was viable.
As for your Cancer claim. Stop it ffs. Yes Growing the revenue Helps improve the value of the club BUT it helps United. If we were still the PLC the simple fact is we would be in the situation as Liverpool. After all if you think we struggle to compete on wages now imagine how much we would struggle with the same wage policy but with revenues being between 25% and 50% less
An owner is benefiting from ownership no matter what their motivation is, if youre Abramovich you get to effectively be a football manager while still being able to recoup all your money at the end of the day (all his investment gets put into Preferential shares with guarenteed dividend payments each year and when he pulls out Chelsea will owe him the principle). It seems however if you are sneaky about your intentions and buy the fans off you get away with it but if they are upfront about it like the Glazers you get abuse for some strange reason.
And it’s not really the club are struggling for season ticket sales. You have two options as a business on sales
1) you have more demand than supply with the aim being more to raise share prices. It’s the method the PLC took and the likes of Apple take
2) You manage supply and demand so they are roughly equal. This is what the Glazers have done
Sure for fans the method 1 is better but in the age of the sugar daddy then method 2 is a must.
And the Glazers aren’t broke. Too much has been made of their mall closures without understanding the structure of their business. Some of their malls have gone to the wall but with the structure of each mall being their own company it’s sensible approach. Why cover losses from the profits of the other malls when the cost to hsxc a single years loss is often more than their initial investment. They can write it off, save tax and keep the cash revenues.
@Scott the Red
So Scott do something MUST can never do. With valid reasoning that doesn’t resort to sensualist claims about the Glazers who exactly would be better owners of the club that would allow us to compete without undermining everything that makes United what they are.
@mattbw7
yes because we all know Andy “I’m on MUST’s payroll” Green is completely impartial.
Being a PLC cost money both directly and indirectly so you can’t just sit there and go ‘The Glazers cost us 500mill over the PLC’. If the PLC could have streamlined the operation and increased revenues in line with the Glazers then the costs would be simerlar and the transfer and wage budgets would also so it’s no where as simple as some want to make out
Matt
No mate. The article you posted wast he second article and I did read that and andy green has talked more about PIK and other debt issue. He has not criticized the IPO.
MUST don’t pay anyone, not that I’m a supporter of them.
Ash, he was initially positive about the IPO now he isn’t and what I said was you posted an older article, his position has altered and I posted that newer article.
Oh and Wakey when I say MUST don’t pay anyone I don’t mean the admin staff.
The PLC took much less out of the club than the Glazers, I will wait a long time for you to post information that proves it to be the other way round.
From Andy Greens blog
About me
Until this season (2010/11) I was for many years a Manchester United season ticket holder. I still go to away games and a few matches at Old Trafford, but cannot bring myself to give the Glazers £1,000+ a season. Professionally I am a fund manager in the City of London with 15 years experience of investment analysis. I am also an advisor (on financial matters) to the Manchester United Supporters Trust, although I am not an elected official of MUST and do not speak for them.
I’ve got time for Duncan and Sean. They’re lifelong Reds. They love the club.
Matt
I urge you to again read the article that you have posted and tell me where andy green has criticised IPO. A
Jesus Ash, the article at the top of his blog is questioning the reason for the IPO, ie that’s not the altruistic paying down of debt for the good of the club some would believe, it’s critical in terms of the reasons for the change in tack, he does put some emphasis on the PIK debt, he even says he has it from impeccable sources the Glazers took out a loan to pay the PIK debt and now that maybe due, ffs, you can lead a horse to water but……………
Matt
Andy green in that article has mainly talked about the PIK and the handling of the debt by Glazers. As much as I love Andersred blog I have to say he is an absolute glazer hater. Again he hasn’t talked about IPO. I urger you read the article properly and then comment. Honestly apart from you no one has criticize the ipo thing. Andy has not said we will be only raising 62 millions like you have said nor he has said that IPO is a flop so I don’t know how you say he is negative. He is talking about the debt issue and if you are intellegent enough you will find out that he is supporting the ipo thing. Read again
A bite size bit from Anders
I believe that it is highly likely that the PIK2 debt has “total debt to EBITDA” covenants attached to it of a similar sort to those in the original PIKs. Such covenants would be very common for quasi-equity financing of this sort. Breaching these covenants could be very costly for the Glazer family and the existence of such would go a long way in explaining their apparent change of heart on the debt. Under such a scenario there would be a very strong incentive to try to reduce the debt across the Red Football group of companies, and the easiest method is an IPO.
I’m obviously not as finically astute as the experts whose opinions are being cut a paste on here, which is probably the reason that I can’t see why the IPO, geared at raising money to pay off debt (regardless of how much) can be a negative proposal?
ASH again for fucks sake, read the last sentence of the bit I just posted “Under such a scenario there would be a very strong incentive to try to reduce the debt across the Red Football group of companies, and the easiest method is an IPO.” and this is in relation to the PIK debt.
It’s not negative if you’re a Glazer it’s just not positive from Uniteds perspective, as the debt that will be paid down is more likely connected to the Glazers holding company.
Matt
The headlines of the article is WHY HAVE GLAZER CHANGED THE STRATEGY ON DEBT AFTER 7 YEARS? and not questioning the reason of IPO. And what has PIK got to do with IPO. PIK is a totally different thing to IPO. What andy is saying why didn’t the glazer took this step early. We could have saved many money which went for debt. I honestly think you are taking everything in a negative way.
I think it would be best if you take a chill pill
for the last time Andersred is indicating that the IPO is being used to raise cash to pay off debt incurred when paying off the original PIK loans, it’s right there in the body of the article, I’ve pasted it here but you won’t see it.
mattbw7 says:
Time for the old grasping cunt to fuck off, net £66m spent since the Glazers came in.
You seem to have a big problem with Manchester united
bu dum tish
from Andersred.
The explanation for this burning desire to IPO the club must be to do with their personal circumstaces, and yet they are not seeking to cash out but to repay debt. I believe that it is highly likely that the PIK2 debt has “total debt to EBITDA” covenants attached to it of a similar sort to those in the original PIKs.
In black and fucking white ASH
Mike – A while back, the Glazers paid off the PIK loans. If you remember, people were gossiping at the time that maybe Qatar had made a down-payment with a view to buying the club.
Anyway, the theory here is that the Glazers borrowed the money to pay the PIKs from a finance company and now the repayment is due.
So people are scared that the Glazers are using the IPO to pay off that loan instead of the cash the clubs owes and that the club will still be in the same debt with a chunk of it sold off just to pay off the Glazers’ loan.
So am I wrong on the net figure of £66 mill spent on transfers since the Glazers arrived, that bit is fact, the other opinion. You can disagree with my opinion and try to disprove the fact.
Andy Green
“What follows is only my theory (and apologies if you don’t like speculative articles like this), but one that I think is near the truth….”
“Apologies again for such a speculative post. My theory may ring true to you or may sound like laughable rubbish.
Matt
Ohh my god what are you? A daft. You say ” IPO is being used to raise cash to pay off debt incurred when paying off the original PIK loans”
So how does that make IPO negative. Everyone including me knows the debt is not a good thing and for paying that we are in IPO so where is the issue of IPO being Negative. Again I will say read the article. What andy is saying the PIK thing was unnecessary because it created more debt. Glazer could have avoided that by going to ipo straight away 2 years ago.
Cyril
That is much clearer than all this cut and paste nonsense taken from somebodies theory that is being taken as gospel. Cheers mate.
So how come Sir alex has become cunt. Give some respect. We have won many trophies and still he is a cunt. You want to win trophies or buy players. If its the latter then you know who you should support.
We lost the league on GD. I am not giving excuses. Even I want a midfielder to be added but you are behaving as ifwe are being relegated. Calling Sir alex a cunt is not correct.
You are one of the most negative person I have witnessed
The IPO if used as suggested is not positive for United, as it’s using Uniteds value to again pay off debt and more interest incurred by the settling off of PIK debt which the Glazers are personally responsible for, it doesn’t help United in that sense.
The only flimsy positive outcome is that if the IPO goes ahead (yes they can pull it anytime) then you’ll be able to extrapolate a true “market” value for United and that’s maybe what certain potential bidders are waiting for rather than the reported 2 to 2.5 billion the Glazers would like.
So according to you its not good to pay off the debt. Seriously you are on drugs
Ferguson is lying when he says he won’t pay over the odds, it doesn’t make any sense when he’s clearly done that in the past and quite recently too, or do I now need to list those transfers for you.
Ash says:
So according to you its not good to pay off the debt. Seriously you are on drugs
But Ash, when did I say that, it’s their personal debt that will get paid off, how does that help United.
Oh and Mike sorry for the C&P but I did post the links originally but people choose to say they’ve red them when they clearly can’t have done, it should be simple shouldn’t it?
Matt
I know its their personal debt but apart from IPO there is no other way of wiping that debt out. Now don’t say that debt should remain.
But sir alex is still helping us to win trophies so how does he become a cunt. If we were trophyless for 7 years like goons then I would have understood your point but sir alex is the only reason why we are a top club currently. With limited budget he is managing to win trophies. He cannot openly criticize the owners. If he does that it will create chaos. WE will become a comedy club. Imagine Mancini criticizing sheik. I can bet we would be making fun of city.
He cannot openly criticize the owners. If he does that it will create chaos
No, but he doesn’t have to lie to the fans either.
@mattbw7
No Matt you are wrong about the IPO. The 100mill is simply the amount the banks helping with the Float have underwritten it for. It’s basically a placeholder as they needed a value to file the initial papers and how many shares and the price are yet to be revealed. It will almost certainly raise more than the 100mill placeholder value.
And where are you getting the ‘it’s not looking good’ from?
And ofc they are using last years accounts, you can’t use accounts you haven’t published yet can you.
@NotoriousRedDevil
Sky’s takeover was unfair from a business pov as a company who base their whole business around the football. It would have put them in position that would be anti competitive both in the football and media industries so ofc it was blocked
As for ticket price ANY owner was going to bring these in line with the market. The PLC kept the ticket prices low as that creates a demand and the waiting list was then good for share price. When share prices aren’t an issue And instead they need to increase revenues to compete with sugar daddy’s then ofc they are going to bring Supply and Demand inline by increasing costs.
To subsidise the ticket prices again we would need individual TV rights like in Spain (although even then the Spanish subsidised tickets are a bit of a myth. When you couple the season ticket price with the membership fee the difference isn’t that significant)
-want a sugar daddy owner.
Perhaps because most of those who are Anti Glazer use not being able to compete financially with the Sugar Daddy clubs for players as one of their main arguments against the Glazers. There is only, 1 way to do this, the Glazers have us in a position where our transfer budget and wage budgets are about as good as any owner could have them running it on a sensible business principle. The transfer budget could only be better without servicing the debt but under most ownerships there’s some form of debt to service. The IPO will actually leave us without a debt to service atleast for a bit as there will be no dividends to be paid initially. Only ways wage budget could be increased are to increase revenue further, to drop the long standing policy on wage to revenue ratio but that would be a major risk or to have a sugar daddy
- totally agree with what MUST have to say
Again perhaps because they almost always fall back to the MUST propaganda rather than their own informed belief
On the changing of the Shirt I believe that’s a Nike thing. The only cut of shirt sales United get are the retailer cut but even then Kitbag pay to run the online store so no cut there and it’s possible the club shop is also outsourced.
No Wakey, the last set of accounts showing our TV revenue going down after our early CL exit will be ready in time, the Americans know this and would expect to see them in the IPO portfolio, they have chosen not to so and this has not gone down well.
Blimey. Check back in, 8 hours later and he’s still there. No amount of posting can make up for calling the gaffer a c***. Looked what happened to big bad Wes – and he didn’t mean it.
I believe it’s a free country Paul H.
@mattbw7 – you probably should’ve stopped digging after calling the manager “a grasping old cunt” who is “destroying is own legacy”. Sure United was here before Ferguson came but where EXACTLY was the Club when he arrived? The Club has great history before teh EPL era but so do Nottingham Forest! Ferguson dragged United into the modern era right to the top of the pile. Sure no man is replaceable at the Club but how many other managers from the 80′s could’ve done the same thing? NONE.
Make your point but have respect ffs.
@mattbw7
Go find his hatchet job on the Glazers mall business that then became the hatchet job program on the BBC and see who he openly admits commissioned the work and then tell me he isn’t on the payroll.
Oh and he hasn’t once said that the IPO is being used to pay off what he calls PIK2, he speculates that if PIK2 does exist that If United EBITDA reaches a certain level that it may trigger an Interest rate increase on PIK2.
OFC his whole PIK2 thing and the size of any PIK2 is speculation. Their other businesses aren’t doing as badly as he would make out (The parent company with all the write offs looks to be only making a few million a year but to be making a profit with the write offs means the profits on many of the malls is far from pocket change so there’s a healthy amount of cash in them) and they had already bought something like half the PIK’s back at a knock down price in 2008 so were saving significant amounts each year from their Buisness plan. So paying off the remainder PIK without another PIK is certainly not beyond possibility and even if they didn’t pay off all of it themselves the PIK2 is going to be much lower than PIK1 anyway
And the Net Spend value is right but it’s also fairly meaningless in reality. The Ronaldo fee skews it massively and we have also received good fees for sales on our surplus players. Our total spend is the 3rd highest in the league which is a better figure to go on as getting good deals on players we sell isn’t a bad thing. And the spend doesn’t include the 30mill plus transfers we have agreed but which the player choose not to join us (Villa, Benzema, Hazard, Sneidjer)
Debt as a % of value is totally acceptable. (How many people have a morgagee at 30% of their homes value?)
Fergie’s support of the Glazier’s totally acceptable. (They have never interferred in football and have lead the way in growing revenues.)
Fergie’s comment about the support of the vast majority of fans totally correct. (I am a season ticket holder and know 11 other ST holders well enough to know their views on the Glaziers. Only three are mildly critical of them and none of them have any time for MUST.)
Scott the red full of shit on this one.
Is there any proof that Sir Alex has has even for one second lied to the fans???
@mattbw7
The accounts aren’t due until the end of the July and won’t be published/finalised until September so no they aren’t certain to be ready in time. And to include this years accounts the filing would have needed to have been left till September and then another 90 days to complete. By that time a market which they believe is ready for the IPO may no longer be ready as markets are volatile and tough to predict.
Here’s a report of what Fergie actual said. (Love the dig at Citeh! Why did Scott the Red not post on that instead of wrongly attacking our manager?)
Read and apoligise all who joined the attack.
“But speaking to a number of national newspapers during his side’s pre-season tour of South Africa, Ferguson has stuck up for the American family.
“I am comfortable with the Glazer situation. They have been great,” he said.
“They have always backed me whenever I have asked them. I have never faced any opposition.
“They have always been as sensible as they can be in terms of financing the club. They have to invest in the team to maintain the value of their asset.
“I think there are a whole lot of factions at United that think they own the club. They will always be contentious about whoever owns the club, and that’s the way it’s always been.
“When the Glazers took over here there was dissatisfaction, so there have always been pockets of supporters who have their views. But I think the majority of real fans will look at it realistically and say it’s not affecting the team. We’ve won four championships since they’ve been there, one European Cup.”
The Scot also stood by the club’s refusal to compete with the likes of Manchester City in the transfer market, believing that his policy of blooding young players is preferable.
“We can play 18-year-olds because it’s part of our history,” he added.
“No other clubs can do that. City won’t do it. They definitely won’t play any young players who have come up through their system.”
MK12 Unique character is one of the nicest ways I have been called a nutter, crazy, waked, off center, 3 cards short of a deck.
Dave Mack
Wakey
so spot on!!!!!!!
These so called fans do not let the facts get in the way!!!
Wakey thanks for all your insight! I’m not in high finance.
@Mikekelly12
No evidence at all. It’s just something that the most anti Glazer crowd like throwing around because they refuse to accept that the Glazers might not be all bad. Just like they will claim United waste time bidding, negotiating and discussing contracts with players simply to make out the club aren’t broke.
Zibbie – meant in the nicest possible way. No poster on here like you.
Mike – Sir Alex loves United mate. Don’t listen to the putrid lies by other people. The boss will always try and do whats best for United. And in all honestly, he hasn’t got the time to worry about insecure folk pontificating on their soapboxes.
Dave Mack, I think his using of the word “real fans” is what is causing the most irritation. Pretty much implying that people against the Glazers are not real fans?
Personally, I dont care much for the Glazers, but on the other hand as others have said. Then who? The only people that can afford United are going to be the multi billionaires who will buy it as their toy and inject themselves into the day to day operations of the club.
@Mikekelly12
Infact I would argue the evidence actually proves he hasn’t lied. For people who some are so eager to label leeches letting the club sit with £150mill of cash in the bank doing nothing but lose value just doesn’t make any kind of sense. The only obvious reason for having that cash so long was it was reserved for transfers, when it became clear it wasn’t going to be used for that the Glazers seemed to decide it may as well be used to buy land and buy back some of the Bonds
NOT ALL JUST A FEW. Call me a plastic cunt, because I am from the US, a fan for just 9 years, do not have season tickets, I don’t have tribal hate for Pool, don’t have hate in every 3rd post or call enough people cunts.
To all those blinded by hate , fear, and lack of the ability to dis-fifer facts.
My dad told me many years ago, son you can not fix stupid.
MK12 all good mate, I know me, a bit off and I would have it no other way! Much respect for U!
I’m actually with Scott completely on this.
Had United been trophyless like Arsenal from 2005 under this current ownership, we would have sold the likes of Rooney,Ronaldo,Vidic,Rio,Evra…all the stars would have left one by one to finance the interest repayments.
Because of winning trophies the revenues have grown spectacularly. The domination of the last 7 years winning it 4 times out of the last 6 seasons means our global growth has accelerated at such a pace that the interest payments could be easily met by the revenues. However since the Ronaldo sale, the slight decline in trophies and City &co spending more…..the pinching sensation has been felt after a 4 years delay (2005-09).
SAF has done wonders in these cost cutting measures that began to form in 2008 when our commercial strategies became more apparent….”why was the club so desperate for rapid growth?” Yes it’s for the good of United, but the Glazers are doing it obviously with the Intention of not once slipping their own hand into their broke pockets.
Now I don’t openly come out and criticise the Glazers day in and day out because Yes they have actually maintained respect towards the clubs values (youth system and being sustainable unlike others) and have never interfered in matters and trust SAF 1000000%. However, what they want for us is in vain of the debt ! Would the same have happened if they had their own money to buy the club, I doubt it.
They way I look at it this;
-The Glazers in 2000 or so, was broke as fuck.
-They was failing in shopping malls etc and baseball etc.
- They was knee deep in debt and needed to make a quick buck !
- They looked at football clubs and saw MUFC PLC “MUGS”.
- Hostile or not…the United Mugs sold to them and they didn’t spend enough of their own money.
- They pulled off a move to buy a booming FC and with ease + can now absorb the clubs nutrients.
- They have a valuable assets that protects them from ever going broke again.
- Downside, debts are there but the club will pay it off.
- When paid off, we’ll cash in and get £2bn….simples.
Thats the way the Glazers see it…why shouldn’t we oppose them !
Its not a dictatorship is it !
Football is business, we are getting fucked in the process…so I will never stand there, bent over.
We’ll moan because it’s out right to show our disapproval to club being raped….just because it isn’t as messy as Liverpool doesn;t mean its not happening.
Papii for the most I’m with you, not on this man, MUFC lost on goal difference with a record loss game to injury.
They lost by a poit to Chelski or it would be 6 of 6. SAF said he gambled with young teams in the group stages for 4 year now, he got bit in the ass last year. How did all that CL experience help over that time with better players.Not on this one dude, SAF stays competitive as he remakes the team, in 18 months 13 to 16 1st team player gone, was Diuff a 1st teamer? that why 13 to 16, some 11 in and still this response to SAF and Gill, way off pal. This is not a feeling here there are facts. Just paranoid rantings of others blur your view, you have a Red heart. Easy to be swayed to anger. You a master closer in your profession, articulate so well, tickle my funny bone and all good with you, just my view.
A Rooney rolled ankle and maybe the best player and team of all time from winning 2 more CL titles as well. just saying.
Gill and Fergie are the fall guys in all this. Caught between a rock and a hard place. “They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out”
Thought not!
Zibbie Brother I love you dude
But we stand at different paths on this one. But i respect those who fight their corner in a good manner….so this disgagreement is welcomed/
@united.george
Just to point out your selective perception – SAF said “the majority of real fans” and not, as you pointed out, “real fans”, which could be read to imply that there is a minority of “real fans”; spot the difference!!
WillieRedNut, well said!!
@The One – does not matter. I was just trying to see what was upsetting people judging from the stuff i read on blogs, twitter etc..
united.george – good evening sir. Allow me to correct you please.
The SAF quote does not imply that “people against the Glazers are not real fans”
In fact, the opposite is true, Sir Alex identifies the people against the Glazers as “real fans”
The quoted excerpt we are discussing is:
“So there has always been wee pockets of supporters who have their views – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think the majority of real fans will look at it realistically and say it’s not affecting the team.”
Summarized, the quote states:
The minority of fans are anti-Glazer
The majority of fans are more realistic
As Sir Alex calls the larger of the 2 groups “the majority of real fans”, it is patently clear that the smaller of the 2 groups is “the minority of real fans.”
Real fans! That is how he describes people against the Glazers.
Perhaps there are some delicate fans who feel peeved that Sir Alex considers them less “realistic” than those with a different view. Why the toys had to leave the cot is a mystery.
I dislike the Glazers ownership of our club with a passion, I really do but I strongly believe that sometimes a lot of people allow their anti-glazer sentiment to cloud their rationality. Mind you, many of these people even blame SAF for his spat with some racehorse owners as a contributing factor to the Glazer takeover; now, how ridiculous is that?
DreadedRed, very well put, much clearer than my attempt at clarifying what SAF said.
Dave Mack – Post of the day. You judging the majority of “real fans” on the basis of 11 season ticket holders. Haha. Are you actually being serious?
£500m has been spent on the debt since 2005. Ferguson is correct to say that the Glazers haven’t had any negative impact on the team? Did your 11 season ticket mates tell you that? Haha. Hilarious.
BTW, Just another thought. I doubt Fergie even needs to talk about the down side of this ownership model. Suspect he is actually referring to the interactions and his freedom to run the club as he sees fit.
They are very different issues, ofcourse.
The One – thanks for that! Your comment came through while I was writing mine, so I only read yours after posting. I laughed, because it took me over 100 words to say what you had said in 40. Cheers!
Hiya Reds. Sorry Scot, but the article is utter nonsense. I’ll wait ’til I read the article before I pass judgment. Your complaining about Utd not signing a midfield enforcer since the days of Keane other than Hargreaves, then make omparisons to payers like Miereles, Ballack and DeJong. I know Ballack was top quality, but he hardly made a great impression for the chavs. You also fail to mention the trophies won since Keanes departure. Why are fans obsessed with replacing Keane, there are other ways of playing football and I personally feel we’ve done pretty well since 2005, what spoilt bunch we are.
One more thing Scott, why not try comparing what we’ve won in the past 5 years with the clubs mentioned instead of transfer fees spent.
Shebangsthedrums – the article has been linked on this thread, and even quoted.
Class A shares (Glazers) get 10 votes, and Class B shares (IPO) get 1 vote.
Unattractive? Not for those ardent Reds long used to being seen as second class citizens by many of United’s match going Reds. Nearly all of the season ticket holders that frequent RoM do not look down on those of us with short-sighted parents. In fact, they welcome us. Thanks!
To those few season-ticket holders that don’t like United’s foreign legion of fans, and dismiss their views as unworthy, and consider United and Old Trafford theirs alone, I say:
“You’re not at Old Trafford mate. You’re on a blog aimed at the world. Here, you have no extra sway. Pull up a chair, there’s enough for everyone.”
DreadedRed – cheers, I’ll have a look at it. Still doesn’t change the daft comparisons Scott is making about our transfer business. I don’t like the Glazer ownership, but I trust Sir Alex to do his best for the club, after all, he’s been doing just that for nearly 26 years.
Shebangsthedrums – What purpose does that serve? If you think that United wouldn’t won more if not for the shackles of £500m being paid out to service the debt, you’re deluded, thick or ridiculously naive.
I’m certainly none of the the above thankou. All I’m saying is, there are no guarantees that we would have won anymore by spending more and I for one am happy with what we’ve done in that time. If spending big always equates to success, then we’d be trailing Villa and the Scousers now going on your logic.
Sorry, that was obviously addressed to Scott.
Scott the red …. knows a ton about UNITED , a decent amount about football but bugger all about business!
The Glazer business model doesn’t treat the service of debt the same as other operating expenses. So the answer to your question is basicaly, no its not had an negative effect on the football side of the business, which is what the great man your attcking has been sayinf all along.
Keep to football, Scott.
So… Where’s the attack on fans? I’m still waiting to see it
Marq … that’s why STR has become so defensive … its tabloid jounalism at its worst. Fergie hasn’t attacked fans just said that there’s always been a segment of our supporters who don’t like the owners whoever they are but most fans judge what happens on the basis of the football we play!!
Scott, as a daily follower of your blog I ask that you take this article down. Glazer debate aside for a minute, you’ve attacked a man who has brought more to our club than anyone could ever have imagined, and more importantly, who has never shown anything but respect to our fan base. You did this based on an article that hadn’t even been published yet. Now it has been published, and we can see that Ferguson did not in any way attack our supporters, the article should be removed. Ferguson said two years ago that he was against the LUHG campaign. Why this is headline news, I’ve no idea.
The One / DreadedRed, thanks for that…
@clint
Your theory makes little sense. If winning things is so integral to paying the interest then why would they sell the star players? Short term cash injections don’t solve anything. The stars are needed for 2 reasons, to win things and qualify for Europe and because the starts help build a brand and drive commercial revenues.
The reason players might have left if we weren’t winning anything is the same reason they are leaving Arsenal and that’s they can go somewhere and win trophies while also being at a club that financially operates in fairy tale world and can pay stupid wages while challenging to win things.
And do you think the situation would be any different under the PLC. I would say the situation would actually be worse. They would rely on prize money much more as match day and commercial would be bringing much less in so would have less in the wage budget. It’s possible but not certain the transfer budget may be a little higher but no where near the 40mill of the interest payments . Would have made attracting players harder than it is now and made it tough to keep them as well
On the revenues winning the trophies hasn’t really driven them, it’s the clubs history. It’s exactly the reason commercially Liverpool does better than Chelsea as History trumps short term success.
As for your Broke tirade against them lets correct a few issues.
American Sports Business
- They own a AMERICAN FOOTBALL team not baseball
- Owning an NFL franchise is a licence to print money
- The Tampa Bay Buccs were a nothing team who won the Lottery when the Glazers took over. Think Blackburn and Jack Walker.
- They were very hands on with the team unlike at United and overhauled the whole franchise often by throwing money at it.
- They also managed to get the City Council to build them a state of the art stadium for them (Franchises can move city and are worth so much for cities that councils will do anything to either keep or poach a franchise)
- In 2002 the achieved their goal and won the Superbowl.
- Since then it’s been up and down, still doing better than pre Glazer but far from the heights. Building the Super Bowl team took so such as giving up important draft picks for multiple years that that didn’t help, like many sugar daddy owners when a goals achieved they lose drive/focus and fans soon turned when they weren’t winning superbowls every year
Mall Business
- This also wasting Broke in 2000. They were buying more of these and it was a boom business.
- They minimised personal risk by buying most on mortgages. This meant only a fraction needed invested and kept cash free to buy further malls
- Each mall was its own company but part of the umbrella organisation
- Property and Retail both took a hit when the economy started to downturn in the second half of the decade so malls took a double hit.
- Some of their malls then fell into the red, especially when introductory rates on the mortgages ended
- The cost to cover the losses would have seen profits from other malls used to cover them and significantly their investment without any likelyhood of things changing
- So the problem ones were instead defaulted on.minimised lost investment and protected cans from the other malls.
- They could then be written off in the parent companies accounts reducing their tax liability.
- They were hardly broke when they could write off malls like that and still see the parent company turn a profit in the economy.some of the malls are making significant amounts and don’t look like that will change.
General
- They spent years buying shares out of their own pocket
- The value of the first 30% that forced the takeover was 200-400mill depending on how much over the market value they paid each time
- Hardly something you do if you are broke
- Especially when the large shareholders were all regularly annoyed at the waste and inability to exploit the commercial opportunities that lowered divided payments and potentially damaged share value somewhat. There were better investments out there if you needed a return.
Basically your post just highlights the problem with the anti glazer campaign. They are basically like watching Fox News, screw the facts they just get in the way of a good rant that can get the masses into an uproar.
Scott the Red says:
Shebangsthedrums – What purpose does that serve? If you think that United wouldn’t won more if not for the shackles of £500m being paid out to service the debt, you’re deluded, thick or ridiculously naive.
—
Actually Scott you are the one who is deluded if you think the interest payments are actually a major issue. For starters the interest payments have no impact on wages which is the bigger factor in us missing out on players than transfer fees.
The tax rate in places like Spain allowed them to pay more for a long time and the Sugar Daddy clubs can spend more on wages than they make in revenue. United’s wage budget which is based on the clubs pre Glazer policy of wage budget being linked to revenue is limiting but unless you want to rack up debts every year that can’t be controlled what option is there.
Transfer fees don’t seem to be a problem, the money was in the bank losing value. It’s hardly the actions of a family who only care with grabbing United money for their own is it own use, it’s more the actions of people who were willing to give SAF the funds he wanted.
And are you naive enough to believe that under the PLC or any other buyer that there would have been another 500mill because that’s idiotic. The PLC had costs and hadn’t shown any ability to take the commercial side to the next level which was needed and any other owner but a sugar daddy would have wanted a return. Even the Red Knights would have been as most of them couldn’t afford to stump up so much money without a return. The 500mill,is simply misleading and doesn’t paint the full picture which is vital for a proper discussion on the financial impact of the Glazers
If SAF is content, why can’t you lot be? Oh, because someone took a loan to buy something. Have none of you ever taken a loan? Have any of you never accrued debt? I took a ton of loans to go to university, am I being a disgusting leech for using that knowledge to try to advance myself? They bought an asset, a company, using a loan and are making the brand stronger daily. This is absolute madness.
“But if we hadn’t won trophies…” — for fuck’s sake! We DID win trophies. We WILL continue to win them. And if we have signed Kagawa, Baines, Lucas, and RvP then go on to win the treble — what will you all say then?! God I hope we do so I can laugh at all of you fickle folk.
I support MUFC. None of this internet banter will change a god damn thing about their business model nor our success on the pitch. Get behind your club. I can’t wait til we win the league and all you pricks have to eat your words. The Glazers will have helped us achieve this success. Grow up people.
United til I die.
(Thank you, STR, for this blog. While I do not always agree with you, I am so happy we have a place to call home.)
@STR there are many factors that could influence winning more (or indeed less) over the past 7 seasons. Our financing arrangements are not one of them. It’s not stopped us from great coaching, great youth development, great commercial development and having a great manager, operating free from owner meddling. You know, the manager? The one you lit the fuse on, then sat back watching it all go off and tolerated him being called a c*** several times to boot, without either stepping in or defending him.
Rival supporters will be rubbing their hands together in glee reading some of this stuff.
Anyway, I think I can say on behalf of ‘….most real fans….’, in Fergie we continue to trust. I cant wait for the season tickets to drop through the door and getting back to OT to show my MASSIVE appreciation for him.
There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest we’d have done any better (or worse) with a better looking balance sheet.
DreadedRed, it’s not the number of words that matters and your point certainly came across much clearer than mine. Cheers!!
Wakey
Nothing you say makes any sense. Your stats and figures are misleading and always try to paint a picture that everything is ok when virtually all the press’ financial experts know otherwise. Your words are poison. Furthermore, you jump at any opportunity to try to bad mouth Fans groups at any opportunity as if they are the enemy. The only people I can think of who have MUST as an enemy are those fucking blood sucking leeches that you and a few others are here to defend, all day, all night. You only started posting about actual football matters after being accused of never posting about football matters. The way you lay into various posters on this and other threads also disgusts me. There’s a long time reader, 1st time poster on this thread that has watched the Club he loves for decades who obviously felt compelled to say something. His opinion is valid and welcome, yet you have a go at him, predictably.
I can’t even be bothered counter arguing with you because I see through you and it is becoming evident that others are starting to as well. Your words are poison and it’s heart breaking to see others respecting your ‘expertise’ because you are pulling the wool over their eyes.
Red Scot comes on for the first time in ages and you jump at the opportunity to lay into him.
You try to portray anti glazers as a minority and MUST as bad. Most hate the Glazers and all hate the debt.
MUST represent (currently) the biggest threat to you (the Glazers and their representatives) so it is natural that you use lies and ignore important facts in my above posts. ie I show that MP’s of all political persuasions are Patrons of MUST then you patronisingly try to explain that they’re just an old fashioned trade union type organisation, behind the times. When in truth they have their finger on the pulse and represent our future because if the club we love more than you ever falls, it is us not you that will be there to catch it and MUST, being 170,000 plus normal United fans that don’t care for your beloved leeches, are the Glue that binds us together. Experienced Reds remember how not enough fans showed interest in shares in the past and the hope is that if the opportunity ever arises again, it will not be missed.
And what you say about it being difficult for people to refuse being a Patron – what even the CITY DIRECTOR?
lol
Not Director (that would be something!) but a City Fan and MP.
915red
Back off. Fair criticism of our Gaffer does not make a supporter a cunt.
socialism – a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
shit fan splatter
Looks like 915red got his just desserts, good!
Get off your high horse.
Fans can give fergie slack but he cant give em slack back? Seems like ridiculous double standards.
Chin up and accept it.
DreadedRed I see you’ve mastered the copy/paste function on your computer….thank you SO much for educating me. wanker.
A good read:
http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/8191164/manchester-united-glazers-saddled-club-massive-debt-yet-alex-ferguson-continues-support-gabriele-marcotti
Dear wanker
Thanks for your thanks at 18:00.
How did you know that I have mastered the copy/paste function?
Are you perhaps an analyst? Or just anal?
Why do you sign your name ‘wanker’ when your username is 915red?
Wakey – At no point have I argued United would have spent £500m on players, I’m confused as to where you’ve got that from…? The fact is, if not for the Glazers, as “the most valuable sports franchise in the world”, we would have had more money to spend on players that what we have spent.
For you to argue that £500m going out of our club to service the Glazers’ debt is not a “major issue” is very worrying indeed.
Blood_red – Crikey. Did you feel respected when he told fans who weren’t happy with the Glazers to “fuck off and support Chelsea”? I didn’t.
shebangsthedrums – So you honestly think that if the greatest manager in the history of world football had spent another £100m/£200m on players since 2005 he wouldn’t have won any more than he has done? Really? Wow. You clearly don’t rate him too highly then. Look at what Mancini managed with that kindof money. I guess you’ll be hoping he replaces Fergie ASAP.
Scott – why even compare Utd with City. Unless we get a rich benefactor for whom money is no issue, then we can’t compete and quite frankly I wouldn’t want us to. As I’ve already stated, I don’t like the Glazer ownership, but who’s to say any other owner would invest more money. Even without debt, what if they just pocket more profit for themselves, there’s no guarantee more money would be invested back in the club. I remember Martin Edwards wasn’t always willing to splash the cash, hence we missed out on Shearer, going on your logic again, just think how much more our great manager could have won with him. We also missed out on Ronaldhino when as a PLC, because the shareholders don’t want a dent in heir profits. As I said, I’m very happy with the success I’ve seen. It’d be nice to have a good owner and no debt, the FA and Premier league shouldn’t have let the Glazers buy the club with debt, but that’s where we are. The City business model isn’t sustainable, they will never be able to keep up with he wage demands they have now set for themselves so will always be reliant on their owner, who will no doubt one day leave. Ultimately, what do you expect him to say about HIS employers, we won’t find out what Sir Alex really thinks until either he retires or there’s a change of ownership. Until then, I’ll take what he says with a pinch of salt and all the jumped up over priced money grabbing whores of footballers can go to the bitters or the chavs.
shebangsthedrums – Where did I compare United with City? I didn’t. You ridiculously suggested that if Fergie had more money to spend over the past 7 years that he wouldn’t have necessarily won more. Either you’re talking nonsense to try and defend the indefensible OR you obviously don’t rate Fergie very highly. Which is it?
I personally think if Ferguson had even £100m over 7 years we would have won considerably more. Baffled as to how you could question that tbh.
I wont ramble on this topic for long as I’ve already written about this issue in great detail in the past.
Scott_The_Red was kind enough to give me the opportunity of contributing an article on this topic on this fantastic United blog. I also had the opportunity to discuss and debate this topic quite ferociously with many of the contributors and posters on here.
There are one or two things that I will say (and If my posts during that time are checked I said it then also) it is boiling down to the same issues.
1) I said the debt wasn’t the end of the world if United are able to keep the success going – Sir Alex has managed to do that till now, but the red-herring or risk was that what if the success dries up for a few years due to some reason? Our commercial income can keep us going for a while, but this is the first year we have gone out in the group stages…what if we fail to qualify for the champions league for a couple of years…? A lot of the older supporters will remember the bad times and admit that in football anything can happen…
Just look at the sort of effect our going out early in the group stages has had on our financial position this year— This is the real risk – what if scenarios where the success cant be sustained and United have no God Given right to win every year…
2)The PIK’s – My own analysis concurs mostly with what Andersred has so eloquently put down with regards to the PIK debt. I had mentioned how poisonous those were and the complete secrecy surrounding how those were liquidated is lets put it this way ‘very intriguing’ . A lot of this IPO could be down to deleveraging the Group Consolidated debt and not necessarily the debt on the Standalone Entity that is Manchester United’s books.
3) I fully agree with Scott’s/(later Willie’s) and Costas views that a lot of the current opinions would be hugely different if we had followed down Arsenal’s path over the last five years and which we are in danger of doing now. Forget the last five years, Hell If Rooney would not been persuaded to stay back last year and had left to join City (c’mon we all know thats where he was headed) all of us would be singing a different tune. I had pointed out these scenarios, but it was dismissed as rumor-mongering, scare-mongering, etc etc at that point but its all coming full circle now.
Again, it is not a criticism of the Glazers per se, just a critical appraisal of their financial policies and strategies and the ‘risks’ and strains it puts the club under – They have been very good by not interfering in the playing side of things (but then again with Sir Alex around, they didn’t need to) and they have definitely moved the commercial side of the business much better but the costs and risks imposed on the club are far greater
Anyways, Thats all I’m going to say on this subject – to each their own..!
I’ll just add that we must keep total faith on Sir Alex…God knows where we would have been had it not been for him. So guys calling for him to quit or abusing him can go and take a jump…
At the same time, Sir Alex is also human and has his imperfections – so making him unquestionable/above any sort of criticism is the other extreme….
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/business/s/1584087_manchester-united-to-accelerate-plans-to-float-on-new-york-stock-exchange
They’re good businessmen, not desperate at all.
Scott – you compared what Mancini had done with money, that’s the comparison you make. What do you want? United to spend more money than we have so we can win every trophy out there every year, would it mean anything then? Competition is good, it makes your achievement valuable and all I’m saying is I’m happy with what Utd have achieved and the way we’ve done it. Always with a mixture of young talent, some bought some grown, some mid range price players, ie Carrick, Evra, Vidic and the odd star man.
shebangsthedrums – Would it mean anything? Erm, yes. Did it mean anything in 1999 when we were spending more money than any of our rivals? How long have you been following United for? Watching United win the Treble, I wasn’t beating myself up over the fact we had spent a lot of money to do it. Were you? What an utterly ridiculous statement. If we’ve made the money, why shouldn’t we spend it? You’re happier with us spending £500m on debt and watching City win the league than you would be us spending an extra £100m/£200m on players and us winnig the league? Eh? Are you a blue on a wind up or what?
We’ll call it a day here. You’re on a different planet mate.
I am not a proper Mancunian — hell I’m not even British — but I will say that a huge reason I support United (and respect clubs like Barcelona) is that I believe in the philosophy of creating success, not buying it (ala our youth system/investment). I think that is what @shebangsthedrums was hinting at.
That said, I have no problem with the club spending money in the market. However, I believe in spending money you earn and not money that is injected by a cow (perhaps a fine line because it could be argued any club deemed worthy of investment by said cow has “earned” it’s success by means of reputation and sound foundation). Therefore, I understand and share the frustration of fans who see that money being funnelled out to service a debt. All I can say is, let’s thing long-term on this…
The Glazers have turned the brand into something extraordinary — even the Glazers’ fiercest opponents should be level-headed enough to recognize this. This ensures its long-term growth and stability. Stability we’ll be glad for when FFP comes in.
I’ve made my opinions of this whole matter known in previous posts, but I just wanted to hop in and hopefully clarify a point @shebangs was making (a bit recklessly). We’re all on the same side, gents.
Scott – I was following Utd long before the treble season if it matters, and what a fantastic season it was. But if we did that every year, it would become meaningless. Thankfully it doesn’t happen every year that’s why 99 was so special. I’ve never stated anywhere Utd shouldn’t spend what money they make, but that doesn’t equate to us spending like city either. We will leave it here Scott, but it’s been nice to interact with the person who gives us this great blog.
mansuy – spot on, as I stated before, Utd have always had a good mix of youth, experience, grown talent and bought talent.
shebangsthedrums – I didn’t say we should spend like City. I simply said you obviously don’t rate Ferguson very highly if you don’t think he could have won more trophies if he had spent more money over the past 7 years, given what Mancini has done over 2 years with money. I find it insane that any United fan would think winning trophies could ever become “meaningless”. Good job we won fuck all last year and City won the league to keeps fans like you happy eh? Let’s hope we don’t win a meaningless title next year. 20 league titles? BORING.
@Scott The Red
Except you are buying the lie that without the Glazers the 500mill of Interest would have been available for transfers.
Even if we make the assumption that the PLC could have increase revenues and reduced waste anywhere close to Glazers it’s not like the PLC didn’t have costs. The cost of running a business as a PLC is higher and dividends have to be paid out on profits. The difference between the cost of the Glazers and cost of the PLC will be no where close to the £40mill a year that many assume it is, how much is hard to know because we simply don’t have any accounts for a PLC operating at anything close to the revenue levels of the Glazers.
And yes it would have been good if we had got a few more players BUT as I said that hasn’t been down to transfer fees. The Money WAS there and was clearly being held in reserve for transfers (how else do you explain them sitting on 150mill of cash when Interest rates are so poor that it’s below the rate of inflation so was losing money). Some big bids have been put in and that’s only the handful we know about, no doubt there were others.
Agains as as I pointed out the sticking point has been
1) Players having a preference for another club
2) Wages
With 1 if a player have a preference for another club and that club comes in for them there isn’t much that can be done. We had that situation with the PLC with Shearer.
And on wages the interest doesn’t impact this one bit, the Glazers aggressive drive to increase commercial revenues have actually allowed us to compete more effectively than we would have without as wages are linked to revenue not profit. As I said elsewhere we could reduce non-wage club costs by 100mill and it wouldn’t help wages one bit, that would require a policy change but as both the PLC and the Glazers knew this is dangerous when a club has to be self sufficient like most do rather than being sugar daddy funded.
This is why I get so wound up on this subject though because too many people fall into the trap of simplifying matters and ignore context which in turn lead others to do so.
Wakey
Had the Glazer’s been able to buy United without making the Club pay off the loan, the money would have been expended elsewhere or retained. Some of the money would likely have been spent on improving our chances of winning trophies. As a Club’s finishing position in the League is very closely linked to the salaries earned by the squad, it stands to reason that we would have been more successful had the money not been spent servicing debt incurred by the owners.
The money could have been invested, earning the Club interest. In fact, had the ½ billion pounds merely been left in an interest bearing account, the Club’s turnover would have increased by interest attracted. Your “50% of turnover allocated to wages” would also have increased.
I doubt that Scott the Red cares what surname our owners go by. His discontent is aimed at the Glazers, for it is they who lumbered us with the debt. Suggesting that other owners would have also indebted the Club does not vindicate our owners. Had their surname been Smith, StR would care just as much. Similarly, comparing the current ownership model with the previous PLC does not alter the fact that had the new owners serviced the debt themselves, we wouldn’t have had to.
Wakey – I don’t know how many times I have to say I don’t think £500m would have gone on transfers. I think I’ve corrected you on that twice now. It’s irritating that you keep ignoring that point. What I am saying, without question, is that without the debt of the Glazers we would have had more money to spend. I have repeatedly said that I know all £500m wouldn’t have gone on transfers.
Are you saying that as a plc you think United would have had more money to spend on transfers than we have under the Glazers? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, brilliant. If the answer is no, provide proof. “The difference between the cost of the Glazers and cost of the PLC will be no where close to the £40mill a year that many assume it is.” – based on what? Saying something doesn’t make it true. Do you have anything to support any of the claims you make? I’d love to read newspaper articles providing this information.
@Scott the Red — If the Glazers didn’t buy United, who do you think would currently be in control of it? I’d find it extremely hard to believe that nobody could have tried to take control of it since it was quite clearly vulnerable to a takeover attempt in the early 00s. Particularly if United saw the same revenue growth, and same growth of brand recognition internationally, I’d find it quite hard to believe it wouldn’t have been bought outright by some other group.
@Scott The Red
I have provided these figures before but here they are again.
There were 262million regular shares as shown http://production.investis.com/manutd/findata/reports/annrep04/shareholderinfo.pdf
The financial figures in 2004 were as follows.
- Turnover 169m
- Profit 58m
- Ordinary Dividend paid 2.65p
- Special Dividend for 2003 performance 1.5p
http://production.investis.com/manutd/findata/reports/annrep04/annrep04.pdf
So that means that They paid out 6.9mill in ORDINARY dividends for that year. They then paid out a further 3.9mill in special dividends. So that’s a total of 10.8mill a year in dividends.
The share price and the special dividend was increasing year on year as financial performance increased.
Now for the first 9months alone revenue stands at 245mill up by 14mill from the same 9 months a year before. The revenue for the year before ended up at 331.4mil and even with the worse competition performance this year should be around the same (less prize money earned BUT also less bonuses also)
So as you can see revenues risen by around 50% so if we had remained a PLC and had increased revenue at the same rate but dividends had stayed the same we would be looking at 21.6mill a year in dividends.
And that’s not even touching on the profit figures. Wages have remained at the same % of revenue BUT other running costs have been slashed significantly as a % of revenue. If the PLC had made the same cuts that would have added further millions onto the yearly dividends. (costs including players wages accounted for 81% of revenue in 2004 but only 65% in 2011. And we know in both cases that United policy means players wages account for just under the first 50% of these figures)
Now some will say what about the profit figure at United under the Glazers. This has been up and down mainly due to various accounting practices to write off value. These are paper deductions such as Goodwill (A company is only really worth the value of its assets but when purchasing a company you will overpay. This over payment can be written off over a period of years in the account. This is called goodwill) which actually reduce the clubs Tax liability.
In addition the interest itself is also good for tax. While dividends are paid after tax so don’t reduce the taxable profits the interest is taken before tax so does. All this means that it keeps cash in the club that under the PLC would have gone on tax. I can’t find the post but Andy Green posted last year that these accounting practices have saved the club over 70mill during the Glazers ownership (so about 10mill a year)
And finally it costs to be a PLC, you have admin costs, listing fees and other assorted costs that come with being a PLC.
Now do you see why I have said the that the costs of the Glazers ownership is in reality much less than the 500mill. Every ownership type has costs and in most cases the costs for that same club in the same situation would be in the same ball park (even most sugar daddy clubs as they are usually taking something in return. Again I will point out Everytime Abramovich opens his cheque book to bail out Chelsea he does so in exchange for more preferential shares worth the value of his additional investment)
Wakey – You didn’t answer my question. Are you saying that the Glazers have made no difference to the money we have been able to spend?
@Dreaded Red
Yes without the leveraged buyout the 40mill would have been used elsewhere but it’s fairly safe to say it wouldn’t have ever made itself into retained profits so wouldn’t have been available to the club to use.
Anyone using their own money wants, no scratch that needs to see a return so unless they think there is a short term flipping possibility they will be after dividends (or they just want a play thing to throw money at). This is where the 40mill would have ended up, dividends to the owners.
As for the investing the 500mill, even if the owners decided they didnt want a return you will be lucky to find a bank paying a decent rate of interest these days even in the business banking sector. To invest it and get a return they would have had to look at more risky investment, investments which take the cash out of the club anyway and may make accessing it harder.
And actually what other owners would result in does vindicate the Glazers a bit. Part of the anti glazer argument does boil down to their ownership method being bad for the club but if ultimately the situation would be roughly the same via other ownership/funding methods does that really make it all bad. Infact in some ways the Glazers is the least sneaky as its in your face rather than being hidden. Look at how much the Villa fans were praising Randy Lerner and the Red Knights even held him up as the perfect owner BUT look at the losses they are making and how much he actually takes himself
@Scott
Pretty much. Certainly there is no evidence that it’s actually hindered spending based on the buys we have made and the bids that have been submitted and often accepted, the evidence suggests wages are the issue which I suspect would be lower if we had stayed a PLC as they hadn’t really shown much ability to really go after the commercial revenue streams
It’s hard to be completely sure because there are so many factors, we would need access to parallel universe to be sure as we would need to know how aggressive the PLC could/would get on the commercial side but as my figures above show even in the PLC’s best case we would likely be looking at the PLC’s costs being under 10mill a year cheaper than then Glazers and every pound of commercial revenue they missed out on would move it closer to the glazers being the cheaper option
@Wakey
I must commend you mate on actually taking the time out and trying to understand facts and figures before forming your opinions.
However I will add some points for your consideration for what they are worth.
1) Your noting that other running costs have come down significantly as a % of revenue – I dont know how much credit you can give to the Glazers for that. For instance if you simply raise ticket prices, your revenue goes up, but you arent incurring any extra running cost on those seats are you…? So automatically your running costs a % of revenue will go down. Of course there is the increase in commercial income to consider, but I’d like to believe that United had sufficient brand appeal even before the Glazers arrived to have achieved some of the commercial gains on their own.
2) Interest is tax deductible — very true mate. But it also has transaction costs and bankruptcy risks attached to it. For instance all the fees and moneys that we have paid to investment bankers for underwriting the bond issues, roadshows, etc (amounted to almost 30-35 million in that year I remember) as well as the cost of swaps and derivatives that we needed to take to account for the volatile currency fluctuations on the interest and bond payments….all these are extra costs which would not have been if the debt had not been there
Besides, even depreciation / player amortization is also a tax-deductible expense, if you buy a player for 40 million, you will save 20 million on taxes over the life of the contract meaning the effective cost of the player purchase is just 20m. I’d rather buy players and save tax on depreciation rather than pay interest to banks to save on taxes….wouldn’t you?
3) All the listing fees and admin costs, etc etc – true, they are a PLC burden, but thats exactly what we are paying now as well by enaging i-bankers for roadshows and with the IPO plans, we’ll soon be paying all the listing fees and admin costs as you say anyhow just to get rid of some of the unnecessary debt…! Thats if this IPO ever gets off the ground.
4) Dividends paid by a PLC – This is most definitely true and your points regarding dividend are valid. However, you do realize that dividend is not a compulsion. You would only have to pay in case we were successful and had extra cash and not as a matter of compulsion as we do on the interest. You need not pay dividends necessarily. There are many companies in the world that have never paid dividend and are still some of the most successful and well-run companies in the world. It is not necessary that United would have had to pay dividend at increasing rates to keep shareholders happy, because shareholders can be compensated by capital appreciation also, which would have come about if United had spent on players and been successful on the pitch. Also dividends could still have been paid in the good years if we had excess cash available and no pressing needs to buy on the pitch.
Isn’t the IPO which the Glazers are now bringing saying exactly the same thing – No dividends to be paid!!??
And besides, its not as if the Glazers have not been paying themselves dividends….they conveniently take out money in the form of management fees and interest free loans and in fact some of the loans to the Glazers have been converted/written off. I wouldn’t ordinarily begrudge them these payments as they are owners and have a right to return on their investment, but I bring it up just to show that we are paying dividends even now though maybe not as much as PLC.
Finally, the risk that has been loaded onto the club. We must maintain the level of success every year in order to have the ability to service the loans. What if we cant sustain this super-normal rate of success we have had, (which we wont if we continue to under-invest and young players keep walking away from us on account of money and contract problems)
I will say that Leverage can be a good thing if used in the right prportion, but excessive leverage can cripple even the most well-run and successful of companies and history has proved it on many an occassion.If the Glazers would have just invested a few hundred millions of their own money instaed of borrowing the entire amount in debt and PIK’s, maybe it would have been alright….who knows…
Again just to make myself clear,
I much prefer a single ownership structure as a public company has its own botherations with regard to being open and transparent regarding deals, etc which sometimes hinders privacy and speed of action, but not at the cost that has been imposed on the club.
“We now call on the Glazers to come back with a full flotation of Manchester United with a single class of full voting shares,” MUST chief executive Duncan Drasdo said yesterday.
“Should they choose to do this, with no strings attached, we would support such a flotation wholeheartedly and encourage the global fan base of Manchester United to seize such an historic opportunity to secure a meaningful fan ownership stake where the priorities of the club are the same as the fans – not absentee owners.”
good!
@Red Devil
1) Actually costs do increase with ticket price rises. Demand is price sensitive in all markets. If tickets are below the market rate like they were under the PLC then they sell themselves but increase that and you need to increase spending in the sales and marketing teams to sell them. While there is still a waiting list selling the available tickets to these people is a lot harder when it’s the more expensive seats left over and most the waiting list are only really interested in the cheaper sections.
And they do deserve credit for bringing running costs down as its something even many of the Anti Glazers even acknowledge. The shareholders of the PLC would regularly bitch about the waste in the club and it even made up a large number of the Irish Pairs 99 questions letter. Despite being a larger, more global business under the Glazers the running costs increase.
If rather than using a % of revenue we work out the running costs MINUS the players wages it gives a better idea. We know players wages work on a below 50% so for simplicity if we use that amount (as we have the actual figure for Last year which was 46% but not for 2004) we get the following
2004 -53.5mill
2011 – 55mill
For a company that’s expanded as much as united have including setting up and running commercial offices in London and Asia the a rise of just 1.5mill represents massive savings having been made in the operation.
2) Scott’s Cost of the Glazers actually includes those however. They aren’t ontop of his 500mill.
As for player amortisation again as I have said to others it’s a big assumption that we would have spent more on players under another owner. After all there is no evidence that the Glazers have stopped us buying anyone. After all look at some of the offers we hade accepted
Silva 24mill (although Valencia backed out after accepting, just as they did around that time with Real over Villa)
Benzema 35mill
Villa 35mill
Sneidjer 40mill
Nasri 24mill
Hazard 34mill
Then the players we did buy who weren’t cheap, infact we often paid over the odds for the players we did buy to beat others to them. And we are currently still in for Moura and RvP (and maybe even Baines)
Most of them either preferred other clubs or it was a wage issue.
It should also be noted that the cash in bank was between 120-150mill for much of the Glazers ownership. You know as well as I do that you don’t sit on that much in the bank as an investment in this climate when interest rates are so low, they would have done what they ended up doing once it became clear SAF wasn’t going to spend it and pay down the debt with it as rather than losing value that saves 8.5% on every bond bought back. The money was in the bank mainly to be spent on transfers, adding up-to another 40mill a season wouldn’t have helped much when there was over 120mill already
3) Again though Scott’s figures include the fees relating to the Glazers dealings so they aren’t relevant to the discussion unless we stop talking about 500mill and instead break it down into its parts. And yes the same costs would generally come back with the IPO but then it doesn’t allow for dividends for the foreseeable future so that certainly offsets the IPO costs.
4) Yes dividends don’t need to be paid but United hadn’t once passed on paying the Dividends and it was being paid at an increasing rate every year so evidence suggests that would have continued. And Uniteds shareholders were always fairly focused on the dividends, Rio’s 10 years anniversary is a good example as his signing saw the shareholders express serious concern about impact on their dividend. While United was a solid stock I’m not sure it was ever the best stock for simple capital appreciation so I don’t see them not ensuring that profit was enough to keep paying an ever increasing dividend in line with the revenue increase to keep them happy.
On the management fees the PLC were also paying these, the board can’t be
Paid for being board members BUT they were able to receive payment for other services/expertise they supplied to the club. So it’s not like the Glazers management fees don’t have an associated cost in the PLC structure.
As for on field success If anything the Glazers have made competition wins less essential as other areas have taken up the slack. Our end of year results will show a revenue that’s around 2011′s despite doing much worse on the field.
Obviously under a PLC they could offset that by not paying dividends but it would still ultimately have the same issue at the end of the day.
Oh and what’s often forgotten is the Glazers did spent their own money. They purchased the first 30% with their own money and some of the takeover amount was out of their own pocket (yes relatively a small amount but still not pocket change). It’s not like their Mall businesses where each mall has such a tiny amount of their own money tied up in it, we are talking hundred of millions of their own cash invested in the club since they bought their first shares so it’s not risk free for them.
So much meaningless speculation and conjecture that my head is spinning…
Scott – So sre you saying that you’d be happy to win the title every year? What about competition? If we won the title every year, then it would cease to be a competition, hence rendering it meaningless. it would be Boring to win it every year. We can’t claim to have a great league if it’s not competeitve. I never want United to lose, but when we do, it makes me more eager and appreciative that we win next time around. Am i the only one who was disappointed at losing the league (especially to City), but also felt proud that we competed after all the injury problems that we had and I am now even more so looking forward to the new season so we can hopefully win it back. I think it would be better now that they’ve had a taste of success only for us to snatch the title back.
Most supporters would struggle to identify 5 United games in their life time, where we weren’t playing to win. That’s just the games, the competitions we also aim for a clean sweep in. The League is the ultimate prize, counting more than any season’s game. It is our main aim, around which all others pale. Winning the Premiership.
I’d be happy to win the title every year.
United usually win the Title, and it’s played a clear role in my happiness over the years.
@Wakey
1) Your point about ticket marketing costs is just petty and you know that too. The increased cost of marketing and brochures and campaigning to get a those few extra season tickets sold is a tiny fraction of the increase in prices.
(I am taking 80% of season ticket holders renew themselves and extra marketing is required for the 20% only – otherwise it would fly in the face of two of your arguments,
namely,
a) that the tickets are fairly priced – fair price in economics is where demand equals supply and if a major portion of the tickets are going unsold then its not a fair price but the Glazers are trying to extract a premium. Marketing is only required when you are trying to get a premium over the market rates – A bottle of Coke wouldn’t cost half as much if we didn’t have the ridiculous ad-spend on marketing trying to justify brand premium prices)
b) That the cost of marketing is a large % of the price rise – if that were the case, it would be stupid trying to raise prices in the first place as it would not make economic sense and would just be like trying to squeeze the lemon for the last ounce.
Although as I said in my post already, they have tightened up the belts, we have to give them some credit for that -but when you hear news like food expenses on staff cut at Carrington, it doesnt paint a healthy picture does it.
2) The argument here is not whether Scotts figure includes those items – its whether those costs would be as high in a PLC without the debts – and the answer is no. This will become abundantly clear when the IPO comes about. All the costs associated with a PLC will soon be back on our books because of this IPO…so what are United left with at the end of the day – all those costs associated with the PLC that you talk about as well as the costs of the debt servicing and the burden.
THINK man, if the costs of debt servicing weren’t so much greater than the costs of a PLC, then why the hell go for this IPO and try to deleverage in the first place – just keep rolling over the debt.
Besides, we have moved from a 27% tax regime to a 35% tax regime in the US precisely for the IPO listing. The Glazers are so desperate to get rid of the debt, they are willing to pay a 8% higher tax…just think about it…why would they do it unless the costs of the debt burden are too high ..?
3) Have the Glazers stopped buying United players – YES…You say those players opted to go elsewhere – In many cases they did so because of pure financial reasons. You quote a figure of 40m being accepted for Sneijder..? where do you get such figures as confirmed from?
Besides, its not just transfer fees, salaries come into it as well and United are just not willing to match the wage demands of the players. Eg- Nasri last year…
Remember players nowadays are mercenaries and will play wherever they get the better money – its not like they are joining some team for the love of the team. Those players could easily have joined us if we were willing to pay them the wages. Even Rooney only stayed back because we acceded to his demands, else he would have been off and you would have said, its nothing to do with the Glazers, he chose to go to another club…question is WHY? think man….
Forget the big name players – we cant even keep hold of players like Pogba because of wage reasons – a player whom Sir Alex and Paddy Crerand have quoted as definite first team player and better than Vieira.
4) The point on dividends – again I will repeat United would NOT HAVE to pay dividends necessarily -whatever we had paid in the past is immaterial – if the United board does not recommend a dividend in some years or if we did badly in a couple of years, then there was no necessity to pay dividends. The shareholders would have sold off the shares to someone who did not have dividend expectations, plain and simple – shares change hands all the time. If the management at the club felt that cash needed to be retained in the business for buying assets/players, they would not have recommended a dividend, or paid a low dividend – the shareholders cant force the board to pay dividends – They can change the board however, but I doubt they would have gone to that extreme as it would have led to a fall in the share prices, diminishing the value of their investments.
Besides, The Glazers IPO is looking for precisely these kind of people isn’t it (ones who are ok with no dividend)? In fact they dont even have the carrot of Control/ownership to offer on their IPO as well their shares are likely to be highly overpriced, both as compared to the PLC….if you say that dividend payment by United PLC was such a necessity – by your logic, we should never be able to deleverage and will remain indebted forever…!
5) You point out that the Glazers have removed our dependence on success by increasing commercial income – fair enough, they have. There is no doubting this fact. However, the point being that interest is a legal obligation. Earlier if United were unsuccessful, they would just be unable to pay dividends in a particular year which weren’t mandatory in either case. Now, the banks would just come knocking on the door and ask for the sales of players and assets which have been used to secure the bonds and interest payments…