Having your cake, and…
May 12th, 2005Dear Manchester United fans,
Re: “Man U Not for Sale”
I’m awfully, awfully sorry to point this out - but in fact your club is very much for sale. Has been since 1991, when your club floated on the Stock Exchange. That means anyone can buy shares in your beloved United if they offer the right price, and if somone can afford to buy enough shares to fully takeover the club, well then tough. That’s just how the system works. While your new-found stance against the nebulous forces of capitalism might just evoke some sympathy from this jaded football fan, you were curiously silent when the club’s venture into the stock market gave it the money to invest in a rebuilt stadium, buy better players and make a lucrative move into Far Eastern markets, all of which have contributed to healthy multi-million pound profits year-in year-out and made you the richest club in the world. Funny, that.
May 13th, 2005 at 00:45:02
“If I was to buy your local pub with borrowed money and then increase the prices of beer, where would you tell me to put it?” asks indignant young adult Laura P as she brandished her “United Not For Sale” sign with defiance.
If somebody could point out a square mile of urban space where this hasn’t happened to the majority of pubs within the past fifteen years, I’d love to know…
Or, from a Forest fan to the poor little Man U fans: suck it. Tiger’s back, riding, devouring, etc.
May 13th, 2005 at 01:04:22
Actually, the most hysterical commentary I found today was here, where one fan recited Niemoller’s famous When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out… poem - because of the many similarities between this and Nazi Germany, obviously.
May 13th, 2005 at 10:35:08
Best part for me is the supporters tearing up season tickets, leaving games, and “turning their back” on MU. Way to stay loyal to the club guys. Just because things don’t go you way, you’re off.
May 13th, 2005 at 15:58:12
If he buys City with his change, does that mean Manchester will have been Double-Glazed?
May 13th, 2005 at 21:32:29
You are all so short sighted. This deal could mean the beginning of the end of the current league club structure as we know it - European super league, end of collective TV bargaining etc etc.
May 14th, 2005 at 14:46:47
Because none of that was on the table before Glazer came along? Yeah, TV rights and breakaways are number one on his agenda, but they were number one on the old Man U board of directors’ agenda for a long time too. Never happened. Glazer won’t find it any easier just because he’s come from the NFL. I mean, hell, if Abramovitch hasn’t tried it yet, how the hell can Mr Massively-In-Debt hope to beat him to it?
All that stuff may well come to pass, but Glazer won’t be the catalyst.
May 14th, 2005 at 15:29:54
In addition, it should be noted that Man U fans have for years been stating that their natural destiny is Europe, that they should be able to make as much money as possible from TV rights, and that they couldn’t give two figs for the rest of English football. Yet now…
May 17th, 2005 at 11:46:54
It’s a myth that the money from the floatation helped the club. Within eight years of United going public, all the money that was raised had been paid out in dividends. In that time (1991-1999) United were heavily outspent in the transfer market by Newcastle, Liverpool and Blackburn and were unable to compete with Chelsea on wages, as the PLC board were not keen to spend their profits. United’s success in that time has been achieved in spite of being a PLC, not because of it. They were already the wealthiest and best supported club in the country and would have benefited from the Sky money just the same if they’d been private.
As for the stadium, the gate receipts would have paid off any loan fairly quickly (there aren’t many empty seats) and interest payments on it would have been a lot less than the divident payments that went out.
It won’t be United that suffer when Glazer goes to the European Court to get his TV deal, it’ll be the smaller clubs that lose out. But if you’re going to laugh now, don’t expect any sympathy from us when you go bust as a result of having no TV money (enjoy your trip to Yeovil next season, Tom). As for not renewing season tickets, what’s the alternative? To bend over and take it like (almost) any other club’s fans would, paying £50 a match to fund Glazer’s debt? The only way to stop him putting prices up is to stop going for a while, simple as that.
May 17th, 2005 at 13:12:42
“It’s a myth that the money from the floatation helped the club. Within eight years of United going public, all the money that was raised had been paid out in dividends.”
When Man U were floated in 1991 the club’s value was £47m; in 1998 when BSkyB made a bid for the club, they were valued at over £600m. So the £47m+ that the club had to pay back in dividends looks a fair price to pay for the £550m+ return it made. This is especially true given that interest rates in the 1990s were higher than they are now, and that in 1991, so soon after Hillsborough and before the football boom, no banker in their right mind would have given a football club, even United, a large loan contingent on future gate revenue without a suitably high interest rate to cover the risk. Arsenal, mindful of this, partly financed the new North Bank stand by resorting to a fans’ bond scheme, rather than going cap in hand to the bank.
United didn’t spend as much in the 1990s on players as other clubs, but this was thanks to a fortunately fruitful youth policy and judicious cheap buys like Cantona and Schmeichel; by the end of the 90s, even they had succumbed to making big buys - e.g. Cole and Stam; for most of the 2000s Man U have done nothing but buy in expensive players (remember Veron?). The team they fielded against Chelsea the other week was more expensive than Chelsea’s.
As Tom said above, the threat of breakways and even huger disparities between rich and poor has existed for years; Glazer’s purchase doesn’t really make it any more likely. In fact Glazer’s introduction, as someone who knows nothing about football, less still the internal politics of the Premier League, is more likely to fuck it up than succeed.
May 17th, 2005 at 16:06:30
Some good points there, but that £500m extra was in inflated share value rather than going into the club’s bank acccount. It’s not as if it was used for transfer fees or subsidising ticket prices. Most of the stadium expansion happened during the football boom, so I don’t see how the bit about high interest rates is relevant - with demand outstripping supply so much United would have been able to negotiate something reasonable.
I’m very puzzled by the bit about Glazer’s introduction being likely to “fuck up” the growing disparity between rich and poor clubs. When, rather than if, the smaller clubs vote against him he’ll just go to court to get his way. There are plenty of precedents for this - remember the 12 points Spurs were meant to have been docked a few years ago? They went to court and got it reduced to nothing.
May 18th, 2005 at 15:10:37
Chris’s salient point is that if Glazer treats any attempt to split from the current TV deal with the dexterity and cunning that has meant this bid being a year late and massively overpriced, he’ll probably make a worse job than the old board would have. Magnier and MacManus at least knew their way round the politics of the Premier League, FA and Sky; Glazer will just turn it into a big lawyer fight and not see the end of it for years.
May 18th, 2005 at 15:18:37
Sorry I missed Owen’s reply, anyway Iain more or less reaffirms what I meant. As a point, though, Magnier & MacManus wouldn’t have had direct input into any sort of TV negotiation, but if the reports that Glazer wishes to replace the current board are true, then he’s throwing away one of the club’s decent assets; United lost Peter Kenyon to Chelsea last year, if David Gill goes too then they really will be hamstrung.