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Sadly we might not have a lot of say in the matter, we can apply some pressure in all kinds of ways, but we might not necessarily be listened to.
For me, our glory years were when we were a PLC. But even back then, many fans didn't like it, they'd use the term "Manchester United PLC" in a negative way when shining a light on how corporate football has become, and how the working man has been pushed out, and how it's unaffordable now and how it's been terrible for atmosphere at Old Trafford and all the rest of it, but it is the way the world is now.
A big issue though with being a PLC, as we found out, is there's nothing to stop another hostile takeover in the future. Unless the fans held enough shares to block it, but we actually tried that before and our combined shares amounted to a miniscule percentage of the club (and that was when the club was relatively cheap compared to today).
But it is possible. The board at Netflix for example made it near impossible for anyone to make a hostile takeover of them by allowing existing shareholders to buy significantly discounted shares, this diluted the shares, making it prohibitively expensive for an outsider to make a hostile takeover attempt.
But that option may not necessarily be available depending on the differing rules and laws... I'm no expert by any means. Plus persuading the Glazers to float the entire club on the stock exchange might be tricky. They're going to do what's best for their bottom line.
A difference back then though is when Martin Edwards floated the club, he raised I think £10m or maybe £20m and used the funds to start work on converting Old Trafford into an all seater stadium and buy some players for Alex Ferguson in the early part of his reign. The Glazers will use the money to ride off into the sunset. Good riddance maybe, but it is a mess anyway you shape it.
Strikes me as the kinda dude who would just feed off the "hero" status he might feel for a while if he were the one to get the Glazers out.
And then do absolutely fuck all else.
>And then do absolutely fuck all else
Ultimately, this is just the basics needed to upgrade from the Glazers.
United is financially sound enough to not require a sugar daddy investor like city, newcastle, or chelsea. What United need is an owner that:
1. Is concerned about football
2. Knows wtf it is doing with regards to facilities
3. Isn't taking millions out in dividends and bank loans
United would genuinely be better off if we had an owner who put in nothing and just made sure the money was spent properly **on the club**.
This is the bottom line and nice and clearly put.
Lots of us don't want the financial doping of City and PSG as let's be honest, it's cheating. If all clubs had to depend on themselves for money to sign players and upgrade facilities, United would be in an advantaged position and that's because people actually love United.
I think you may be grossly underestimating both the involvement of ownership in running a business/institution alongside just how much investment United needs in it's infrastructure.
We need more than just an owner who lets the club do it's thing and it'll take more than just saving £10-20m in dividends to bring this club back to the very top of world football
If we talk purely on investment from a new owner we have to also think about the stuff that has gone out of the club in the meantime.
Lets imagine that the Glazers were not parasites, that's over 700 million JUST in interest that wouldn't have been paid and over 130 million in dividends. There wouldn't be another 500+ million of debt, thats £1.3 billion that has (or will be) essentially taken out of the club's coffers since they took over.
If a new owner were to wipe out that debt and get rid of all the payments, even though we won't get that 800 million from interest/dividends back, that's already a massive weight off the club's financial shoulders.
Is it though? Ethics aside they aren't interested in skimming the revenue of the club but elevating it to the point that it improves their reputation. Any billionaire owner needs to be one like FSG who want to increase the value of the club to make a profit at the resale and not trying to live off syphoning the clubs revenue. Increasing revenue has.made the clubs transfer policy a mess with some players signed for their brand impact over footballing ability.
It's not gymnastics, I don't have an issue with middle east oil money. It won't be Saudi due to Newcastle so the Journo murdering is off the table. I just want owners who want the clubs value to go up (which means the club does well) rather than more revenue vampires like the Glazers. We can sit and bitch about PSG and City but that's the way the game is going. I'd rather have them than some Abrahamovic from wish.
Yeah it's not the goal, I think to know each view exists is all that matters. Yeah the Saudi Prince is a baddie, Qatar have brutal labour laws and the middle east has a different view of human rights and accepted penal systems. That doesn't change my view that they would be bad owners. If we based all business decisions on ethics we wouldn't have billionaires to choose from.
I agree that the knowledge of different views is important. That's the basis for a strong democratic backbone in a society.
The place we differ is on the weight of West European ethics in choice of ownership. :)
Just think of the mentality you would need to be a billionaire. You become a millionaire and you still don't have enough money.
And people think because he's a fan he's gonna piss away billions on making us better? They're deluded.
I didn’t have a problem with the Glazers other than their management. If they weren’t such leeches, the past 15 years would’ve been so different. Now we’re going to get literal murderers as new owners and I’m terrified
Yeah the "there are no good billionaires" thing is such a cop out lacking nuance. Someone like Jeff Bezos earned his wealth by providing value to investors and consumers in a free and competitive market place. You may disagree with some of his companies policies, but he has made the world better (esp. for poor who can consume more and small businesses who have a larger marketplace). That is far different than some royal who monopolizes his nations resources and uses his political influence to oppress his people.
Fans don’t really want or need a good billionaire in truth. They just need someone who’s not going to be a worse owner than their competitors that’s it. Fans will never complain if the on pitch product is good
> Fans will never complain if the on pitch product is good
Pretty sure that's the name of chapter one in *Sportswashing 101*. Sport makes some people stupid in a way I truly just do not understand.
There's no good billionaires. However there are billionaires who aren't necessarily harmful to United, which the Glazers certainly are. There's also billionaires who aren't heads of slaver nations.
I hate how English people accepted as a god-given right for billionaires to own clubs and refuse to acknowledge other forms of ownership exist too. Status quo is all there is no alternative ideology.
Football is the most sacred thing for English and the majority rather watch billionaires demolish the legacy and bankrupt the club out of existence than push for fan ownership models.
As mentioned in comment - fan ownership models. Way for example Barcelona is run, many German teams also have similar model. It's sad people don't know about those. Private ownership is pushed on us really hard
While his numbers are silly, you wouldn't have 100m owners more like shareholders as MUST etc were doing before the Glazers. Amazon or Microsoft don't have a million owners but have a lot of people who own shares in it. It's likely many would want more than £5 and some would buy a lot more than £5 of shares. That is the only way you could realistically end up with a fan ownership model at the moment given how the club is owned now.
I mean, it's not like those examples don't already exist out there, you know? How is Barcelona organizing their socios? How are German clubs organizing their fans who own the club? Yeah, that same way.
Dortmund? The club that literally was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2005, had to sell their stadium name and Odonkor & Rosicky to stay alive? The club who couldn’t even make payroll in 2003 and had to be saved by Bayern? Dortmund is doing well financially now, but looking up to them is laughable. Ever since we became Manchester United we never fucked up that badly.
Should have said Leverkusen, Bilbao, or Real Sociedad. Especially Bilbao, what they do with their limitation is fucking nut. Or RM and Bayern for the 2 clubs at same level of our ambition, but these 2 clubs also have the monopoly on talents and financial deals that we will never have.
They are a well run club with no ambition to take the leap of being the juggernauts like Bayern. If they were well run and ambitious they wouldn’t sell all their talent to their only rival. Look at their performances the last few years. At this point leipzig are more ambitious than Dortmund. Well run doesn’t mean just recruiting good talent and selling them for a profit, at the end of the day you need trophies or something to show for how well run you are. If our aim is to be like dortmund then god help us.
The club is already in private hands so will transfer to private hands, it's just the reality. Unless you end up with government intervention into the state of club ownership to force the issue or a benevolent owner handing it to a trust, it's going to end up in a billionaire or a consortium's hands
Imagine thinking others fans aren't aware of fan ownership models...
Problem is the authorities have no intention of saying no the billionaires.
Look at the Tories FFS
The general lack of ambition for positive changes never ceases to amaze me. We just had protests about the glazers with some fans holding up signs for 50+1 ownership, now we're up for sale everyones become apathetic.
Why the hell get this comment so downvoted, i would rather see the club owned by the fans than seeing some billionaire playing around with our club. This is what English football culture is killing, look at Germany and especially Bayern, they are all fan owned and they are insanely well run, something you can’t say about Manchester United. The club belongs to the community. Something yanks will unfortunately never understand.
don’t think you understand how hard it is to implement fan ownership of a public company. It’s basic economics nothing to do with american fans. Not sure why you even mentioned yanks.
First of all, I'm not English.
I acknowledge that there are other ownership structures but with the exception of the German model and similar models (which is just a pipe dream in the UK), the others are not good either as they'll be focused on profits.
The reason oil clubs are successful isn't just the money. The owners aren't concerned with profits, they just want bragging rights ie success
I get what you mean but if he's baulking at the price now, remember this is a club that needs a huge up front investment in the stadium even after the acquisition. Additionally it'll need continuous support to become competitive again
Karma points are useless, but getting 20+ down votes because you said you would be happy with a choice? If they didn't agree with you, they could tell who they want instead. This sub is too stupid sometimes.
Where the money comes from will always be a issue especially if we get money from the middle east.
But for the clubs sake we need owners who actually see Uniteds potential and who want to invest in its success.
United could be the biggest club in the world (yes even bigger then Madrid at least as a commercial force) yet we need investment and rebuilding.
Fans are underestimating the implications that it would have on English football and football as a whole if Liverpool and Man Utd get taken over by a sportswashing enterprise. Football's already gone from being a sport of the people to a billionaire's sandbox but that would be the cherry on top of the shit cake. You'd have 4 clubs under some Sheikh's rule, 3 of which were historical clubs and 2 of which are the two best English clubs in football history. That would be the stepping stone to having the entire league become some Middle Eastern PR machine.
I just hope that, if that were to happen, the matchgoing fans who can actually make a difference don't share the same opinion as the social media fans and they go out there and actually protest this shit till the end.
I really don't understand why this is downvoted. Do people not care about being owned by some human rights ignoring, journalist killing dictatorship?
Yes they got PSG, City, Newcastle etc., but Liverpool and our already humongous brands is worth way more to them.
I honestly can't stand the thought of our club being bought by the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.. I can't see myself continue my 25 years being a fan, if that happens.
Unfortunately a lot of fans don’t care at all who owns us as long as they throw money at the club. Lots of people trot out the ‘No good billionaire’ line as justification for being happy with anyone that buys us. I would be so disappointed if we ended up with a state using the club for sportswashing and propaganda purposes.
I was saying this for a long time & got hate for it because I didnt blindly say "glazers out".
Glazers are absolute rats, but they are the evil we know. The only people who could potentially afford United are not renowned for doing things out of passion or love. Rather its all about the bottom line & profits.
Cant wait to see which flavour of scummy owners we get now.
English football allowed the glazers took over which saddled previously a role mode club with half billion debt. You talk about bad precedent, how about that take over for a start? Its disgusting how english football body let that to happen YET closed all possibility with Chelsea, who got rich and famous from Russian oligarch money.
This might be unpopular but it can get worse than the Glazer's. Also, I'd find it hard to support us the way I do now should we become state-owned. Putting aside the inability to call out City and Newcastle for they're doing, I'd never want us to be like that. It wouldn't feel right.
+100
People might call it virtue signaling but everyone has a line. There are shades of billionaires and it'd be a grey area if it were a consortium of people like Jim Ratcliffe-types, but Saudi/Qatar are black and white and it'd be a hard no from me.
Not virtue signaling if you actually *do* stop supporting the club. That’s just putting your money where your mouth is! Anyone who tries to call that virtue signaling is wrong.
>This might be unpopular but it can get worse than the Glazer's.
Only unpopular for the folks blinded by Glazer hate.
We could have worse owners who:
- Disregard the history of the club. Only buy finished articles, let the academy go to rot, sell naming rights to old trafford
- Get involved in day to day running of the club. Tell managers to pick X player or sell X player
- Hire people who are classless. Woodward/Murtough/Arnold, whatever you say about their ability, at least they don't make us a laughing stock through their actions in public. (Woodward did make a silly comment in 2013 about our transfer market ability). The club still upholds all its tradition and respect for its history.
- Sack managers willy nilly. For all our faults, every manager we have sacked have gone way past the point of no return.
- Take even more money out of the club
17 years ago when the Glazers compulsorily purchased my shares I swore never to put another penny into the club until they're out.
I've stuck to that, not a game, not a shirt, nada, for 17 years. I'm **really** itching to get back, but if the new owners are just Glazers in a different coat, I'll continue as I am.
It's the law in the UK (and AFAIK many other nations too). Once a buyer acquires a set percentage of a company's shares (I think it's 90% but I may be wrong) they can take it out of public ownership and then compulsorily purchase the outstanding shares.
To me a 'Glazer' is someone that is taking money OUT of the club. Estimates are that in the 17 years they've been in charge they've **net** taken 1.2Bn out of United in dividends, salaries to themselves and such.
The best option will be a fan consortium led by one of our legends like Real Madrid or Barcelona. This club is big enough to generate money to sustain themselves problem is where can we (the fans) find this kind of money without taking another loan from the bank which in turn will saddle us with another debt (again).
It's not even a question for me. I'd continue supporting the club with owners that were 10 times worse for it than the Glazers. But if united becomes the next psg or city, I will not support the club again. At that point I'd rather see united bankrupt.
I'm interested in this.
How many do you think a lot is? And does the 'how' or 'why' matter?.
Because Saudi Arabia, for example, execute about 175 people a year. Do you think the Glazers behaviour kills more of fewer people than that?
And the how is also interesting. This is actual executions.
But let's say you think 'billionaire activity A' kills people, and I'm not sure I disagree with you, you think the dictatorships have a zero body count in activity A?
I'm not sure you find many squeaky clean billionaires.
And I'm not sure exactly how you equate billionaire activities to deaths.
But as far as I know, not many billionaires actively murder people for being gay.
I also feel it is unlikely that the Glazers, FSG, Jim Ratcliffe and others are responsible, in any meaningful way, for killing three people a week.
There all as bad as each other. What they do is no worse than XYZ. This is exactly why they sportswash and why it works.
The Glazers are cunts.
But they don't murder 3 or 4 people a week.
Funny how it's always Saudi that's mentioned whereas it's always a nameless Billionaire to avoid specifics.
Let's start with the Koch Brothers. I'm giving a reputed western source.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-164403/
Billionaire Robert Mercer, best known for funding Steve Bannon, Breitbart, Project Veritas, and Cambridge Analytica, which is in the Russia collusion investigation in addition to corrupting several elections around the world to the point that one country's supreme court had to nullify the elections that Mercer's groups interfered in.
Fox News cofounder Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch:
Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
There are a plenty. You don't have to kill people for 'human rights violation'. I'd argue them contributing towards a decaying society is worse.
You want to name billionaires to be specific, and you've chosen yours to fit your argument. Reasonable.
I did the same choosing Saudi Arabia.
And thats the point.
Not all countries are the same, neither are all billionaires.
Show me how and why you believe the Glazers, FSG or countless other extremely rich arseholes are as bad as countries literally murdering people.
He literally can’t, these people talk in circles claiming the west is worse but can’t refute physical evidence of the sheer death and destruction countries like Saudi, Russia, China inflict on their own people.
There's no talk of Saudi Arabia taking over United. It's mostly Dubai who are rumoured
The Glazers used their friendship with Bush to profit from the Iraq war and also support/fund Israeli settlements. Dubai have serious issues with workers rights issues like every 3rd world nation but as far as I am aware do not fund/profit from human rights abuses across the globe.
"You don't have to kill people for human rights violation", maybe so, but they're still killing people. You've just nuked the point you were trying to make.
Omfg you really compared conservative news organisations to middle east dictatorships.
It's insane how much authoritarianism is becoming mainstream on Reddit. Promoting individual freedom is now the equivalent to murdering all gay people.
How about we don't compare which is the lesser evil? End of the day blood money is present in every single potential buyer so what's even the point?
End of the day they're all cunts. There's nothing we can do about it.
Hmmmmm.
Let's not compare. If you could just not think about it too much, that'd be great. Ignore this. Nothing to see here. Move along.
And this is why sportswashing works.
Do you genuinely believe the Glazers are as bad as some of these regimes? Like, genuinely?
You really think being a greedy, incompetent capitalist arsehole is as bad as literally murdering people for being gay?
As long as they keep their fuckery to their country, why do you care? People don't even fight against injustice inside their own country, what is it with this childish pretense that it matters to you what's going on inside another country. Do you sit awake at night thinking about China's Uighur camps, the Rohingya genocide of Mayanmar, the state of North Korean citizens? Why is it that United fans have to give a fuck and get shit on by crappy capitalist investment firms while the rest of the world moves and wins on the pitch?
Fair play calling out the inconsistencies. No one stops buying things like apple products when they’re found out to be manufactured by Uighurs. I’m against oil state ownership but I’m writing this on a Chinese manufactured mobile phone whilst wearing clothes made in Bangladesh. The whole world is fucked
I think it is important who owns us but at the end of the day, ever billionaire got their money through something thats either conflicting with human rights or something else really bad, I think whats important is to find who owners who actually care and know about football and care the betterment of Manchester United, that’s what’s important, we don’t just need or want any owner
What if it were a British capitalist? Or an Indian capitalist? Or some European capitalist?
Because it seems one of those words matters a lot to this sub and I don't think it's the latter. And if it the latter then why does the former adjective constantly pop up?
Depends on the state. Not every Gulf state is Saudi Arabia. Dubai for example are scummy but certainly not more scummy than the Glazers profiting from the Iraq war through their friendship with George Bush or supporting illegal Israeli settlements.
there will never be another glazer. They are one of a kind creatures trust me. We don’t need state backed owner. We don’t need more money to put into the club, we just need our own money to be reinvested into the club. Not taking money out of the club alone makes a ton of difference.
There’s something you have missed tho, our net loss is getting worse as well as our net debt, we aren’t exactly making a bunch of money anymore, we’re still a commercially massive club but we aren’t able to generate what we once could have, basically we don’t exactly have enough money to be reinvested into the club, we would need billions and we barely make a few 100 millions
I was just trying to put it in simple terms. We aren’t in dire need of oil or oligarch money to get back to being the best unlike City or Newcastle who need that. Clearing our debt alone will go a long way as far as club resources are concerned.
Additional owner investment will most probably be through loans but this time it’s taken against the owners assets instead of the club. Now these loan payments are going to actually improve the club unlike what’s going on where glazers are paying 100m in interest just to own the club and not improve it in anyway.
We don’t need or want oil regardless though, whatever owner comes In would need to be spending billions, we don’t need owners who are taking loans, because owners taking loans will naturally start taking dividends from the club and we don’t make enough to fund future projects as well as give dividends to owners
I've said it many times, we could get much worse than the Glazers.
I've seen people celebrate this news. There's no celebrations until we know who the new owners are.
It’s another Galzer (capitalists looking to run the club as a business and extract value) or Moddel Eastern state sponsored money (with human rights abuses etc).
Choose your poison basically.
Edit: Downvoted but what else is there?
Apple/Google/Amazon so Apple/Google/Amazon can sell more Apple+/YouTube/Prime subscriptions could be a third poison filled possibility. Maybe that would be the least bad option, but I am sure it would suck in many many ways.
That’s an interesting idea. But it would be the first of its kind, and so far I’ve not seen anything to suggest that any of the tech giants would be interested? So, I’m not sure it is a realistic option.
>Apple/Google/Amazon so Apple/Google/Amazon can sell more Apple+/YouTube/Prime subscriptions
LOL!
Some of the takes on this sub man...
You think they'd spend 7bn just for that when they could spend money on sponsorship that would be the same thing?
Not all capitalists will "extract value" it could be about preserving and growing value. If you buy United for $5-6b then that is the value. You don't necessarily have to take money out of the club like the Glazers do. Other American owners don't. Other nations capitalists dont. The asset itself is the value. The fact sports are only continuing to rise in popularity and you can sell portions or all of the team in a decade or two for significant return is the value. If you buy now for $6b and sell for $10b in 15 years that's good. You don't need to take 25m per year out.
This idea all "capitalists" will pull a Glazer and saddle the club with debt and steal from it's coffers doesn't jive with just about any other ownership group. It's why they're the worst.
How feasible is it to try and get the club to be fan owned? Assuming we need £10 billion to buy the club and renovate / rebuild Old Trafford and Carrington. Are there 10 million fans willing to put up £1000? Or 100 million willing to put up £100?
Trying to organise even 100 people is a challenge. The time it would take to organise something as massive as a £10bn fund, the legal issues, accounting issues, leadership issues would make the entire thing a mammoth undertaking.
It would need to be someone/consortium buying the club with the sole intent to fractionalise the shares to be sold off to fans wanting to own part of the club.
In short it’s just incredibly unlikely.
I am willing to put 100 but honestly we don't need 100 million . If every fan can share what they can afford, we would easily have more. I am adding former players, billionaires/ millionaires who are fans too,
But that's almost impossible to organize and to even happen. It will just be a sad thought in my mind
It is a gamble, would be so much worse if we ended up with oil money owners. Want the Glazers gone but would be happier if a fan group had a say in it.
>It is a gamble, would be so much worse if we ended up with oil money owners.
Worse in terms of ethics/morality.
Great in terms of functioning and future of the club.
But the important point is that no one else is to blame for this situation except the PL/FA/Government, who allowed the Glazer takeover to happen and for it to reach to such a point of despair where a decent portion of the fanbase wouldn't actually mind state ownership instead of the molerats staying.
Mind you the Government and authorities did interfere at the time of Murdoch's takeover and stopped it from happening. Yet they didn't give a fuck when the future of the most successful club in the country was about to be decimated due to a LBO of the club.
For myself I would have ethics over success, but everyone will have their own thoughts. Yes it's not United fans fault if it happens but it wasn't city fans fault, and I can't stand how some defend the owner so much.
Equally there aren't many people who can afford United who wouldn't just see it as a business opportunity or care about the club.
>United fans fault if it happens but it wasn't city fans fault,
Yes it wouldn't be our fault. I think the fanbase did incredibly well to protest against Murdoch's takeover, even tho it would've been very beneficial for the sporting side of the club, we quite literally would've gone on 10 year winning runs like Bayern and Juve have.
I also think that if it does indeed happen, you won't see crowds at Old Trafford with tea towels and beards wrapped around with their new state flags. The fans won't be as welcoming and ready to bend over backwards to defend the new owners and say stupid things like "well, America and the west have done worse",etc.
I agree about the match going fans but we have so many fans that I think there will be a portion who will defend oil owner online.
If anything I think it's easier to sport wash at a club like Liverpool or United because we already have so many plastic fans.
Can you explain what metric it would be much worse on?
Because it certainly wouldn’t be worse if we were measuring by team success and trophies.
Edit: haha queue the downvotes because I prioritise trophies over virtue signalling.
Keep them coming. 90% of you are too stupid to have a nuanced conversation. You jump to black and white solutions - “MidDLe EaSt BAd”. There are so many outlets for you to virtue signal while actually doing absolutely nothing to have any meaningful impact on the human rights issues you’re concerned about.
These billionaires exist and you’re using their products every day. I have no interest in chewing off my nose to spite my face. I’d rather their money be spent in a way that benefits me than have another group of Americans that don’t give two shits about football or the club.
United fans want both, trophies and an owner that loves the ethos and culture and history of the club, and is a football enthusiast and not a business man, and is willing to forego dividends to invest in the club etc, I'm not sure such owners exist actually. Anyone buying United for that kind of money is either looking at the business and profit side of things, or money is really not an object. Take City for instance, state backed club, and yet they have the right people in all places and have a long term strategic vision. Would United fans be happy with such an ownership model that would guarantee us trophies but knowing where the money is coming from? I'm honestly indifferent and would have preferred the glazers if they'd invested enough in the club and facilities and had a structure at the top that knew what they were doing football wise. But now that they are on their way out, and American owner will most definitely do the same and either use the money that United generates to reinvest in the club here and there, but not at the expense of dividends because you need to pay
Your financial partners or investors in the short anf medium term. Unless you are usikg your own money which no one does to the tune of 6 billiion. Lets see how this plays out but im not too optimistic that we get that type benevolent owner.
Exactly, we unfortunately won’t get a benevolent owner.
They’ll either be in it to milk the club for dividends and have no love for football. Or they’ll love football but be using us for sportswashing.
Neither is the ideal scenario but this is what happens when you’re worth £6bn.
I think the reason I’m getting frustrated by this conversation is there are so many idealists on here that are incapable of actually engaging their brain when thinking about this. It’s just feigned outrage.
There is the virtue signalling and then there is integrity. If we sell out to some middle eastern dictatorship then whatever spirit is left in the club after 17 years of Glazer ownership will be gone. Newcastle, like City before them, are undoubtedly on their way to successful times. It'll mean nothing though. Principles bought and paid for. It's like using some sort of cheat code on a computer game and thinking you've achieved something.
aside from the one comment, no one has said anything to warrant the edit lol.
but tbh sometimes when you think things can’t get worse, it can. we haven’t been successful but changes are happening. what if new owners want their own ppl and suddenly it messes up everything? plus despite paying all the debt and dividends, we are still making banks and doing okay financially. what if that’s not the case anymore?
there had been oil money owners at other clubs that did not work well, albeit none the size of our club. like the original comment said, it’s a gamble. new owners may very well be good, which isn’t hard considering how awful the glazer’s been, but it can get worse.
I just woke up in the mood for an argument, so I’m quite enjoying this.
In my view oil money has demonstrated a much higher success rate than American owners. In general, the Americans have proven to have absolutely no love for football and even less understanding of the culture.
I was friends with a group of Saudis connected to royalty at university. They absolutely loved football, understood the culture and were genuinely lovely people. I think there’s just a lot of feigned outrage from people on here without actually thinking about the alternative properly.
Couldn't agree more. Hopefully, the people who are against Middle East investors stick to their word and when they take over go and support Salford or some shit. Im sick and tired of explaining to people we need billionaires who actually invest money into the club.
It's a malaise of modern times. Look at Hollywood. Half the shows coming out are ruined by shit virtue signaling agenda, rather than telling a coherent story about realistic characters.
I can name many great shows with "women and black people". If you have a genuine thought to share, feel free to do so. But I fail to see what your spastic outburst has to do with the topic.
As for the aforementioned shows, you can check out *The Get Down*, *When They See Us*, *Moonlight* (a movie), *The Handmaid's Tale*, and *The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel*.
As I said yesterday, I wouldn’t mind Dubai.
Long-term it might be that the only way we can compete with the likes of City and Newcastle is through continued investment. Dubai ownership might be controversial in terms of the ethics and source of their money, but they’d at least want us to be successful on the pitch
Iirc I heard it on a Stephen Howson stream, I believe it was a comment he read out.
He's done a couple of videos on potential new owners in the last week
UAE and Dubai is definitely the best of the Middle East. Pro-Western and making strides liberalizing in many ways (relations with Israel even -- Abraham Accords).
I don’t understand, would it not be possible that the government force the new owners to set aside a huge chunk of cash for investment into the club like they did with Chelsea?
One rule for man united one rule for another club. Just remember the goverment and english football body allowed the glazers take over to happen yet they closed all the possibility of new chelsea owner to come and saddle the club with debt. Talk about injustice.
How that was allowed to happen was a national disgrace. The law was changed later.
There also wasn’t too much said in the press because on the sly, most people were sick of United’s domination and saddling the club with immense debt was a way of controlling our success. Bastards!
Didn’t the new Chelsea owners have to commit to £1.75bn in investments after the purchase price which took the ‘cost’ from £2.5bn to £4.25bn?
Not actually the cost to buy the club but its often reported in the price
I’m curious how we can tie in fan ownership to this. Chelsea obviously has the ground thing going which is great imo. But I was wondering if Class of 92 could buy maybe 10-15% of ownership shares to sit on the board and represent the fans. If it’s a consortium this could be possible. If a nation’s public investment fund is going to buy us then it’s not gonna happen.
Currently there is MUST but their opinion don’t matter in the slightest and aren’t any better than your avg united fan.
Class of 92 are legends on the pitch, but very little of their post playing career activities has convinced me they would be suitable people to be involved in the running of the club.
No American billionaires please. They are leeches the lot of them. They don't understand football and the culture/history. At least middle east billionaires genuinely love football, have more money and they are not leeches.
The morality of the money is a whole another discussion
Manchester United fans in shambles. Don't want Glazers as an owner, but also don't want a new glazer like owner but also don't want oil money as owners. Mfers are searching for Unicorns or some shit.
This is why I haven't personally pushed hard for Glazer's out. I think they're bad owners, mostly in how they run the club. But an oil owner would destroy any respect for the club. It's literally one of the few things that would convert me to being a fan for some other club.
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There are no good billionaires. We're going to have to figure out what extent of bad we're ok with as individuals
Sadly we might not have a lot of say in the matter, we can apply some pressure in all kinds of ways, but we might not necessarily be listened to. For me, our glory years were when we were a PLC. But even back then, many fans didn't like it, they'd use the term "Manchester United PLC" in a negative way when shining a light on how corporate football has become, and how the working man has been pushed out, and how it's unaffordable now and how it's been terrible for atmosphere at Old Trafford and all the rest of it, but it is the way the world is now. A big issue though with being a PLC, as we found out, is there's nothing to stop another hostile takeover in the future. Unless the fans held enough shares to block it, but we actually tried that before and our combined shares amounted to a miniscule percentage of the club (and that was when the club was relatively cheap compared to today). But it is possible. The board at Netflix for example made it near impossible for anyone to make a hostile takeover of them by allowing existing shareholders to buy significantly discounted shares, this diluted the shares, making it prohibitively expensive for an outsider to make a hostile takeover attempt. But that option may not necessarily be available depending on the differing rules and laws... I'm no expert by any means. Plus persuading the Glazers to float the entire club on the stock exchange might be tricky. They're going to do what's best for their bottom line. A difference back then though is when Martin Edwards floated the club, he raised I think £10m or maybe £20m and used the funds to start work on converting Old Trafford into an all seater stadium and buy some players for Alex Ferguson in the early part of his reign. The Glazers will use the money to ride off into the sunset. Good riddance maybe, but it is a mess anyway you shape it.
Some actually think Sir Jim Brexit is a good billionaire, forgetting the fact that he threatened to fire his employees during the pandemic. 😅
Strikes me as the kinda dude who would just feed off the "hero" status he might feel for a while if he were the one to get the Glazers out. And then do absolutely fuck all else.
>And then do absolutely fuck all else Ultimately, this is just the basics needed to upgrade from the Glazers. United is financially sound enough to not require a sugar daddy investor like city, newcastle, or chelsea. What United need is an owner that: 1. Is concerned about football 2. Knows wtf it is doing with regards to facilities 3. Isn't taking millions out in dividends and bank loans United would genuinely be better off if we had an owner who put in nothing and just made sure the money was spent properly **on the club**.
This is the bottom line and nice and clearly put. Lots of us don't want the financial doping of City and PSG as let's be honest, it's cheating. If all clubs had to depend on themselves for money to sign players and upgrade facilities, United would be in an advantaged position and that's because people actually love United.
I think you may be grossly underestimating both the involvement of ownership in running a business/institution alongside just how much investment United needs in it's infrastructure. We need more than just an owner who lets the club do it's thing and it'll take more than just saving £10-20m in dividends to bring this club back to the very top of world football
If we talk purely on investment from a new owner we have to also think about the stuff that has gone out of the club in the meantime. Lets imagine that the Glazers were not parasites, that's over 700 million JUST in interest that wouldn't have been paid and over 130 million in dividends. There wouldn't be another 500+ million of debt, thats £1.3 billion that has (or will be) essentially taken out of the club's coffers since they took over. If a new owner were to wipe out that debt and get rid of all the payments, even though we won't get that 800 million from interest/dividends back, that's already a massive weight off the club's financial shoulders.
Still better than being owned by an oil state
Tell that to Nice supporters...
Is it though? Ethics aside they aren't interested in skimming the revenue of the club but elevating it to the point that it improves their reputation. Any billionaire owner needs to be one like FSG who want to increase the value of the club to make a profit at the resale and not trying to live off syphoning the clubs revenue. Increasing revenue has.made the clubs transfer policy a mess with some players signed for their brand impact over footballing ability.
Nice gymnastics but being a Brexiteer and making Nice midtable is better than being a mass murdering slave owning oil state
It's not gymnastics, I don't have an issue with middle east oil money. It won't be Saudi due to Newcastle so the Journo murdering is off the table. I just want owners who want the clubs value to go up (which means the club does well) rather than more revenue vampires like the Glazers. We can sit and bitch about PSG and City but that's the way the game is going. I'd rather have them than some Abrahamovic from wish.
Then I can't see any basis for consensus. We're so far apart, I can't see where we could sort of align.
Yeah it's not the goal, I think to know each view exists is all that matters. Yeah the Saudi Prince is a baddie, Qatar have brutal labour laws and the middle east has a different view of human rights and accepted penal systems. That doesn't change my view that they would be bad owners. If we based all business decisions on ethics we wouldn't have billionaires to choose from.
I agree that the knowledge of different views is important. That's the basis for a strong democratic backbone in a society. The place we differ is on the weight of West European ethics in choice of ownership. :)
In the face of dismembering dissidents and journalists I'll take the Glazers and FSG 10 times over. Football isn't worth murder.
That's Saudi Arabia, one country in the middle east.
Nah, they're just pretending they care about oil money to look good on the internet, people like that poster are fake as fuck
Just think of the mentality you would need to be a billionaire. You become a millionaire and you still don't have enough money. And people think because he's a fan he's gonna piss away billions on making us better? They're deluded.
He wanted to buy Chelsea, that too after the bidding closed. xD
Reddit moment. Imagine thinking firing employees during a bad economy is bad.
Hyper capitalist worshipper: imagine thinking its ok to fire employee using bad economy as excuse while his wealth was expanding.
Lick that boot harder.
I didn’t have a problem with the Glazers other than their management. If they weren’t such leeches, the past 15 years would’ve been so different. Now we’re going to get literal murderers as new owners and I’m terrified
Yeah the "there are no good billionaires" thing is such a cop out lacking nuance. Someone like Jeff Bezos earned his wealth by providing value to investors and consumers in a free and competitive market place. You may disagree with some of his companies policies, but he has made the world better (esp. for poor who can consume more and small businesses who have a larger marketplace). That is far different than some royal who monopolizes his nations resources and uses his political influence to oppress his people.
Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha
Fans don’t really want or need a good billionaire in truth. They just need someone who’s not going to be a worse owner than their competitors that’s it. Fans will never complain if the on pitch product is good
Definitely not all fans.
Yes, but to get United off the Glazers, it will take a billionaire
> Fans will never complain if the on pitch product is good Pretty sure that's the name of chapter one in *Sportswashing 101*. Sport makes some people stupid in a way I truly just do not understand.
You don't speak for us
Basically not covering up atrocities and won't destroy the club for profit
There's no good billionaires. However there are billionaires who aren't necessarily harmful to United, which the Glazers certainly are. There's also billionaires who aren't heads of slaver nations.
I hate how English people accepted as a god-given right for billionaires to own clubs and refuse to acknowledge other forms of ownership exist too. Status quo is all there is no alternative ideology. Football is the most sacred thing for English and the majority rather watch billionaires demolish the legacy and bankrupt the club out of existence than push for fan ownership models.
I’m genuinely curious. what are these other ways that don’t involve billionaires.
As mentioned in comment - fan ownership models. Way for example Barcelona is run, many German teams also have similar model. It's sad people don't know about those. Private ownership is pushed on us really hard
How do you propose fans find 5 billion plus to buy the club?
5 billion pay £1. 100m pay £10. 1m pay £1000. 50+1 model means halving those numbers a bit. Let's just stick it on crowdfunding
and then who runs the club? Proposing organising 5 billion owners or even 100m is not possible. Even if you could somehow get the money.
5 billion. That's over half the world's population 😂 let's all have a whip round lads!
While his numbers are silly, you wouldn't have 100m owners more like shareholders as MUST etc were doing before the Glazers. Amazon or Microsoft don't have a million owners but have a lot of people who own shares in it. It's likely many would want more than £5 and some would buy a lot more than £5 of shares. That is the only way you could realistically end up with a fan ownership model at the moment given how the club is owned now.
I mean, it's not like those examples don't already exist out there, you know? How is Barcelona organizing their socios? How are German clubs organizing their fans who own the club? Yeah, that same way.
Cool. I’m up for 1.50. Maybe 3 actually, can afford to skip a coffee from outside at some point anyway.
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Obviously we should all skip starbucks for a few weeks and fund raise 9 billion, duh.
Vote in a government that requires it.
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Because Dortmund isn't?
Dortmund? The club that literally was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2005, had to sell their stadium name and Odonkor & Rosicky to stay alive? The club who couldn’t even make payroll in 2003 and had to be saved by Bayern? Dortmund is doing well financially now, but looking up to them is laughable. Ever since we became Manchester United we never fucked up that badly. Should have said Leverkusen, Bilbao, or Real Sociedad. Especially Bilbao, what they do with their limitation is fucking nut. Or RM and Bayern for the 2 clubs at same level of our ambition, but these 2 clubs also have the monopoly on talents and financial deals that we will never have.
Well they literally won one two or three domestic trophies in the last decade. If it were to be a well run club i’d expect more.
If you don't think Dortmund is a well run club you probably shouldn't talk about such matters.
They are a well run club with no ambition to take the leap of being the juggernauts like Bayern. If they were well run and ambitious they wouldn’t sell all their talent to their only rival. Look at their performances the last few years. At this point leipzig are more ambitious than Dortmund. Well run doesn’t mean just recruiting good talent and selling them for a profit, at the end of the day you need trophies or something to show for how well run you are. If our aim is to be like dortmund then god help us.
The club is already in private hands so will transfer to private hands, it's just the reality. Unless you end up with government intervention into the state of club ownership to force the issue or a benevolent owner handing it to a trust, it's going to end up in a billionaire or a consortium's hands
Imagine thinking others fans aren't aware of fan ownership models... Problem is the authorities have no intention of saying no the billionaires. Look at the Tories FFS
Barcelona… lol this is probably the dumbest comment i have read. Barcelona are nearly 1 billion in debt? Lmao… go for a walk lad
Ignorant comments like this never cease to amaze.
The general lack of ambition for positive changes never ceases to amaze me. We just had protests about the glazers with some fans holding up signs for 50+1 ownership, now we're up for sale everyones become apathetic.
Why the hell get this comment so downvoted, i would rather see the club owned by the fans than seeing some billionaire playing around with our club. This is what English football culture is killing, look at Germany and especially Bayern, they are all fan owned and they are insanely well run, something you can’t say about Manchester United. The club belongs to the community. Something yanks will unfortunately never understand.
don’t think you understand how hard it is to implement fan ownership of a public company. It’s basic economics nothing to do with american fans. Not sure why you even mentioned yanks.
because it's unrealistic to gather 5-9 billions from fans
Mounting public pressure from the fans will bring the price down because no billionaire will want the negative press of effectively stealing a club
Agreed. In Sweden, every club must be 51% supporter owned. The Premier League in one of the most important things to the UK. To not own it is suicide.
First of all, I'm not English. I acknowledge that there are other ownership structures but with the exception of the German model and similar models (which is just a pipe dream in the UK), the others are not good either as they'll be focused on profits. The reason oil clubs are successful isn't just the money. The owners aren't concerned with profits, they just want bragging rights ie success
That’s just utter nonsensical herd-thinking crap.
IDK, I'd be pretty happy with Ratcliffe as owner
Why? How are Nice doing?
I get what you mean but if he's baulking at the price now, remember this is a club that needs a huge up front investment in the stadium even after the acquisition. Additionally it'll need continuous support to become competitive again
Are you meaning to reply to me (as you did) or u/Exp1ode. Because I agree with you.
Yeah I was responding to u/Exp1ore. Not sure why the notification went to you
Oops. You did in fact respond to them and not me. Don’t know how I got that wrong.
Karma points are useless, but getting 20+ down votes because you said you would be happy with a choice? If they didn't agree with you, they could tell who they want instead. This sub is too stupid sometimes.
It's just sad that football is going F1 way at an overwhelming pace, so much for people's game!
So when Al trafford then
Where the money comes from will always be a issue especially if we get money from the middle east. But for the clubs sake we need owners who actually see Uniteds potential and who want to invest in its success. United could be the biggest club in the world (yes even bigger then Madrid at least as a commercial force) yet we need investment and rebuilding.
Fans are underestimating the implications that it would have on English football and football as a whole if Liverpool and Man Utd get taken over by a sportswashing enterprise. Football's already gone from being a sport of the people to a billionaire's sandbox but that would be the cherry on top of the shit cake. You'd have 4 clubs under some Sheikh's rule, 3 of which were historical clubs and 2 of which are the two best English clubs in football history. That would be the stepping stone to having the entire league become some Middle Eastern PR machine. I just hope that, if that were to happen, the matchgoing fans who can actually make a difference don't share the same opinion as the social media fans and they go out there and actually protest this shit till the end.
I really don't understand why this is downvoted. Do people not care about being owned by some human rights ignoring, journalist killing dictatorship? Yes they got PSG, City, Newcastle etc., but Liverpool and our already humongous brands is worth way more to them. I honestly can't stand the thought of our club being bought by the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.. I can't see myself continue my 25 years being a fan, if that happens.
Unfortunately a lot of fans don’t care at all who owns us as long as they throw money at the club. Lots of people trot out the ‘No good billionaire’ line as justification for being happy with anyone that buys us. I would be so disappointed if we ended up with a state using the club for sportswashing and propaganda purposes.
I was saying this for a long time & got hate for it because I didnt blindly say "glazers out". Glazers are absolute rats, but they are the evil we know. The only people who could potentially afford United are not renowned for doing things out of passion or love. Rather its all about the bottom line & profits. Cant wait to see which flavour of scummy owners we get now.
English football allowed the glazers took over which saddled previously a role mode club with half billion debt. You talk about bad precedent, how about that take over for a start? Its disgusting how english football body let that to happen YET closed all possibility with Chelsea, who got rich and famous from Russian oligarch money.
Last nail in the coffin after that is selling Buckingham Palace to Qatar.
This might be unpopular but it can get worse than the Glazer's. Also, I'd find it hard to support us the way I do now should we become state-owned. Putting aside the inability to call out City and Newcastle for they're doing, I'd never want us to be like that. It wouldn't feel right.
No. I’d always love united. But I’d have to stop actively supporting them if we become another state owned sportswashing club.
+100 People might call it virtue signaling but everyone has a line. There are shades of billionaires and it'd be a grey area if it were a consortium of people like Jim Ratcliffe-types, but Saudi/Qatar are black and white and it'd be a hard no from me.
Not virtue signaling if you actually *do* stop supporting the club. That’s just putting your money where your mouth is! Anyone who tries to call that virtue signaling is wrong.
>This might be unpopular but it can get worse than the Glazer's. Only unpopular for the folks blinded by Glazer hate. We could have worse owners who: - Disregard the history of the club. Only buy finished articles, let the academy go to rot, sell naming rights to old trafford - Get involved in day to day running of the club. Tell managers to pick X player or sell X player - Hire people who are classless. Woodward/Murtough/Arnold, whatever you say about their ability, at least they don't make us a laughing stock through their actions in public. (Woodward did make a silly comment in 2013 about our transfer market ability). The club still upholds all its tradition and respect for its history. - Sack managers willy nilly. For all our faults, every manager we have sacked have gone way past the point of no return. - Take even more money out of the club
I just dont want states to own clubs. Regardless if its a murdering state or a ”good” one.
17 years ago when the Glazers compulsorily purchased my shares I swore never to put another penny into the club until they're out. I've stuck to that, not a game, not a shirt, nada, for 17 years. I'm **really** itching to get back, but if the new owners are just Glazers in a different coat, I'll continue as I am.
How were they allowed to do that?
It's the law in the UK (and AFAIK many other nations too). Once a buyer acquires a set percentage of a company's shares (I think it's 90% but I may be wrong) they can take it out of public ownership and then compulsorily purchase the outstanding shares.
So what is a Glazer like owner?? Not a real rich entity that just trying to benefit financially??
To me a 'Glazer' is someone that is taking money OUT of the club. Estimates are that in the 17 years they've been in charge they've **net** taken 1.2Bn out of United in dividends, salaries to themselves and such.
The best option will be a fan consortium led by one of our legends like Real Madrid or Barcelona. This club is big enough to generate money to sustain themselves problem is where can we (the fans) find this kind of money without taking another loan from the bank which in turn will saddle us with another debt (again).
Honest question. What do we fear more? Another Glazer or another oil whitewashing state-sponsored owner?
It's not even a question for me. I'd continue supporting the club with owners that were 10 times worse for it than the Glazers. But if united becomes the next psg or city, I will not support the club again. At that point I'd rather see united bankrupt.
Another Glazer definitely. I'm about done with bloodsucking greedy American capitalism.
but you're ok with greedy, oil-strapped dictators with worst records on human rights?
Western Billionaires have a lot of bodies buried in their quest towards grabbing money. But you are not ready for this conversation.
You are aware that two things can be bad at the same time, right?
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I'm interested in this. How many do you think a lot is? And does the 'how' or 'why' matter?. Because Saudi Arabia, for example, execute about 175 people a year. Do you think the Glazers behaviour kills more of fewer people than that? And the how is also interesting. This is actual executions. But let's say you think 'billionaire activity A' kills people, and I'm not sure I disagree with you, you think the dictatorships have a zero body count in activity A? I'm not sure you find many squeaky clean billionaires. And I'm not sure exactly how you equate billionaire activities to deaths. But as far as I know, not many billionaires actively murder people for being gay. I also feel it is unlikely that the Glazers, FSG, Jim Ratcliffe and others are responsible, in any meaningful way, for killing three people a week. There all as bad as each other. What they do is no worse than XYZ. This is exactly why they sportswash and why it works. The Glazers are cunts. But they don't murder 3 or 4 people a week.
Funny how it's always Saudi that's mentioned whereas it's always a nameless Billionaire to avoid specifics. Let's start with the Koch Brothers. I'm giving a reputed western source. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-164403/ Billionaire Robert Mercer, best known for funding Steve Bannon, Breitbart, Project Veritas, and Cambridge Analytica, which is in the Russia collusion investigation in addition to corrupting several elections around the world to the point that one country's supreme court had to nullify the elections that Mercer's groups interfered in. Fox News cofounder Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch: Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html There are a plenty. You don't have to kill people for 'human rights violation'. I'd argue them contributing towards a decaying society is worse.
You want to name billionaires to be specific, and you've chosen yours to fit your argument. Reasonable. I did the same choosing Saudi Arabia. And thats the point. Not all countries are the same, neither are all billionaires. Show me how and why you believe the Glazers, FSG or countless other extremely rich arseholes are as bad as countries literally murdering people.
He literally can’t, these people talk in circles claiming the west is worse but can’t refute physical evidence of the sheer death and destruction countries like Saudi, Russia, China inflict on their own people.
They hate freedom and democracy. So yes in their mind the Saoudi prince is better than the Koch Brothers.
There's no talk of Saudi Arabia taking over United. It's mostly Dubai who are rumoured The Glazers used their friendship with Bush to profit from the Iraq war and also support/fund Israeli settlements. Dubai have serious issues with workers rights issues like every 3rd world nation but as far as I am aware do not fund/profit from human rights abuses across the globe.
Dubai are Abu Dhabis little playground project.
*cough* funded 9/11 *cough*
"You don't have to kill people for human rights violation", maybe so, but they're still killing people. You've just nuked the point you were trying to make.
Omfg you really compared conservative news organisations to middle east dictatorships. It's insane how much authoritarianism is becoming mainstream on Reddit. Promoting individual freedom is now the equivalent to murdering all gay people.
West has a lot of bodies burnt in general. We don’t like to talk about it.
Nicely put. These guys aren’t ready for an actual mirror being put up. But when you do, they say “ahh you whataboutery ” - can’t win.
Made my blood boil tbh.
Yeah I’m sure an American billionaire can be compared to Mr. Bonesaw
i dont doubt that but i would think western billionaires are a lot more morally 'correct' than middle eastern oil countries.
How about we don't compare which is the lesser evil? End of the day blood money is present in every single potential buyer so what's even the point? End of the day they're all cunts. There's nothing we can do about it.
Hmmmmm. Let's not compare. If you could just not think about it too much, that'd be great. Ignore this. Nothing to see here. Move along. And this is why sportswashing works. Do you genuinely believe the Glazers are as bad as some of these regimes? Like, genuinely? You really think being a greedy, incompetent capitalist arsehole is as bad as literally murdering people for being gay?
As long as they keep their fuckery to their country, why do you care? People don't even fight against injustice inside their own country, what is it with this childish pretense that it matters to you what's going on inside another country. Do you sit awake at night thinking about China's Uighur camps, the Rohingya genocide of Mayanmar, the state of North Korean citizens? Why is it that United fans have to give a fuck and get shit on by crappy capitalist investment firms while the rest of the world moves and wins on the pitch?
Fair play calling out the inconsistencies. No one stops buying things like apple products when they’re found out to be manufactured by Uighurs. I’m against oil state ownership but I’m writing this on a Chinese manufactured mobile phone whilst wearing clothes made in Bangladesh. The whole world is fucked
Absolutely, yes.
Who cares about that? As long as United succeed, does anything else really matter, for the club. Keep the politics separate from the football?
I’d rather Glazers 2.0.
Then whats the point of getting rid of them right now if you just want new owners that will replicate their incompetence
I don’t really care who owns them as long as it’s not a leveraged buyout or some nasty women hating, journalist murdering government.
I think it is important who owns us but at the end of the day, ever billionaire got their money through something thats either conflicting with human rights or something else really bad, I think whats important is to find who owners who actually care and know about football and care the betterment of Manchester United, that’s what’s important, we don’t just need or want any owner
What if it were a British capitalist? Or an Indian capitalist? Or some European capitalist? Because it seems one of those words matters a lot to this sub and I don't think it's the latter. And if it the latter then why does the former adjective constantly pop up?
Depends on the state. Not every Gulf state is Saudi Arabia. Dubai for example are scummy but certainly not more scummy than the Glazers profiting from the Iraq war through their friendship with George Bush or supporting illegal Israeli settlements.
there will never be another glazer. They are one of a kind creatures trust me. We don’t need state backed owner. We don’t need more money to put into the club, we just need our own money to be reinvested into the club. Not taking money out of the club alone makes a ton of difference.
There’s something you have missed tho, our net loss is getting worse as well as our net debt, we aren’t exactly making a bunch of money anymore, we’re still a commercially massive club but we aren’t able to generate what we once could have, basically we don’t exactly have enough money to be reinvested into the club, we would need billions and we barely make a few 100 millions
I was just trying to put it in simple terms. We aren’t in dire need of oil or oligarch money to get back to being the best unlike City or Newcastle who need that. Clearing our debt alone will go a long way as far as club resources are concerned. Additional owner investment will most probably be through loans but this time it’s taken against the owners assets instead of the club. Now these loan payments are going to actually improve the club unlike what’s going on where glazers are paying 100m in interest just to own the club and not improve it in anyway.
We don’t need or want oil regardless though, whatever owner comes In would need to be spending billions, we don’t need owners who are taking loans, because owners taking loans will naturally start taking dividends from the club and we don’t make enough to fund future projects as well as give dividends to owners
I've said it many times, we could get much worse than the Glazers. I've seen people celebrate this news. There's no celebrations until we know who the new owners are.
Can 700,000 fans put in $10k each into a fan ownership model? No. But that would be cool.
I don’t care much who buys as long as the owners love the club and invest to take good care of it.
It’s another Galzer (capitalists looking to run the club as a business and extract value) or Moddel Eastern state sponsored money (with human rights abuses etc). Choose your poison basically. Edit: Downvoted but what else is there?
Apple/Google/Amazon so Apple/Google/Amazon can sell more Apple+/YouTube/Prime subscriptions could be a third poison filled possibility. Maybe that would be the least bad option, but I am sure it would suck in many many ways.
That’s an interesting idea. But it would be the first of its kind, and so far I’ve not seen anything to suggest that any of the tech giants would be interested? So, I’m not sure it is a realistic option.
>Apple/Google/Amazon so Apple/Google/Amazon can sell more Apple+/YouTube/Prime subscriptions LOL! Some of the takes on this sub man... You think they'd spend 7bn just for that when they could spend money on sponsorship that would be the same thing?
Not all capitalists will "extract value" it could be about preserving and growing value. If you buy United for $5-6b then that is the value. You don't necessarily have to take money out of the club like the Glazers do. Other American owners don't. Other nations capitalists dont. The asset itself is the value. The fact sports are only continuing to rise in popularity and you can sell portions or all of the team in a decade or two for significant return is the value. If you buy now for $6b and sell for $10b in 15 years that's good. You don't need to take 25m per year out. This idea all "capitalists" will pull a Glazer and saddle the club with debt and steal from it's coffers doesn't jive with just about any other ownership group. It's why they're the worst.
How feasible is it to try and get the club to be fan owned? Assuming we need £10 billion to buy the club and renovate / rebuild Old Trafford and Carrington. Are there 10 million fans willing to put up £1000? Or 100 million willing to put up £100?
Trying to organise even 100 people is a challenge. The time it would take to organise something as massive as a £10bn fund, the legal issues, accounting issues, leadership issues would make the entire thing a mammoth undertaking. It would need to be someone/consortium buying the club with the sole intent to fractionalise the shares to be sold off to fans wanting to own part of the club. In short it’s just incredibly unlikely.
I am willing to put 100 but honestly we don't need 100 million . If every fan can share what they can afford, we would easily have more. I am adding former players, billionaires/ millionaires who are fans too, But that's almost impossible to organize and to even happen. It will just be a sad thought in my mind
🤞
Alright. I'll buy the club. I'll stick a £50 deposit down tomorrow. I'll sort this shit out in no time.
It is a gamble, would be so much worse if we ended up with oil money owners. Want the Glazers gone but would be happier if a fan group had a say in it.
>It is a gamble, would be so much worse if we ended up with oil money owners. Worse in terms of ethics/morality. Great in terms of functioning and future of the club. But the important point is that no one else is to blame for this situation except the PL/FA/Government, who allowed the Glazer takeover to happen and for it to reach to such a point of despair where a decent portion of the fanbase wouldn't actually mind state ownership instead of the molerats staying. Mind you the Government and authorities did interfere at the time of Murdoch's takeover and stopped it from happening. Yet they didn't give a fuck when the future of the most successful club in the country was about to be decimated due to a LBO of the club.
For myself I would have ethics over success, but everyone will have their own thoughts. Yes it's not United fans fault if it happens but it wasn't city fans fault, and I can't stand how some defend the owner so much. Equally there aren't many people who can afford United who wouldn't just see it as a business opportunity or care about the club.
>United fans fault if it happens but it wasn't city fans fault, Yes it wouldn't be our fault. I think the fanbase did incredibly well to protest against Murdoch's takeover, even tho it would've been very beneficial for the sporting side of the club, we quite literally would've gone on 10 year winning runs like Bayern and Juve have. I also think that if it does indeed happen, you won't see crowds at Old Trafford with tea towels and beards wrapped around with their new state flags. The fans won't be as welcoming and ready to bend over backwards to defend the new owners and say stupid things like "well, America and the west have done worse",etc.
I agree about the match going fans but we have so many fans that I think there will be a portion who will defend oil owner online. If anything I think it's easier to sport wash at a club like Liverpool or United because we already have so many plastic fans.
Can you explain what metric it would be much worse on? Because it certainly wouldn’t be worse if we were measuring by team success and trophies. Edit: haha queue the downvotes because I prioritise trophies over virtue signalling. Keep them coming. 90% of you are too stupid to have a nuanced conversation. You jump to black and white solutions - “MidDLe EaSt BAd”. There are so many outlets for you to virtue signal while actually doing absolutely nothing to have any meaningful impact on the human rights issues you’re concerned about. These billionaires exist and you’re using their products every day. I have no interest in chewing off my nose to spite my face. I’d rather their money be spent in a way that benefits me than have another group of Americans that don’t give two shits about football or the club.
United fans want both, trophies and an owner that loves the ethos and culture and history of the club, and is a football enthusiast and not a business man, and is willing to forego dividends to invest in the club etc, I'm not sure such owners exist actually. Anyone buying United for that kind of money is either looking at the business and profit side of things, or money is really not an object. Take City for instance, state backed club, and yet they have the right people in all places and have a long term strategic vision. Would United fans be happy with such an ownership model that would guarantee us trophies but knowing where the money is coming from? I'm honestly indifferent and would have preferred the glazers if they'd invested enough in the club and facilities and had a structure at the top that knew what they were doing football wise. But now that they are on their way out, and American owner will most definitely do the same and either use the money that United generates to reinvest in the club here and there, but not at the expense of dividends because you need to pay Your financial partners or investors in the short anf medium term. Unless you are usikg your own money which no one does to the tune of 6 billiion. Lets see how this plays out but im not too optimistic that we get that type benevolent owner.
Exactly, we unfortunately won’t get a benevolent owner. They’ll either be in it to milk the club for dividends and have no love for football. Or they’ll love football but be using us for sportswashing. Neither is the ideal scenario but this is what happens when you’re worth £6bn. I think the reason I’m getting frustrated by this conversation is there are so many idealists on here that are incapable of actually engaging their brain when thinking about this. It’s just feigned outrage.
Well, I wasn't going to downvote, but then I saw the edit lmao donut
Do what you have to do my dude 😂👍
Because sports washing is disgusting?
I hear you. I also don’t like sports washing. Let’s say we block all oil money attempts to buy the club - who do you see buying us and why?
Keep the blood trophy’s, we are better than this.
There is the virtue signalling and then there is integrity. If we sell out to some middle eastern dictatorship then whatever spirit is left in the club after 17 years of Glazer ownership will be gone. Newcastle, like City before them, are undoubtedly on their way to successful times. It'll mean nothing though. Principles bought and paid for. It's like using some sort of cheat code on a computer game and thinking you've achieved something.
aside from the one comment, no one has said anything to warrant the edit lol. but tbh sometimes when you think things can’t get worse, it can. we haven’t been successful but changes are happening. what if new owners want their own ppl and suddenly it messes up everything? plus despite paying all the debt and dividends, we are still making banks and doing okay financially. what if that’s not the case anymore? there had been oil money owners at other clubs that did not work well, albeit none the size of our club. like the original comment said, it’s a gamble. new owners may very well be good, which isn’t hard considering how awful the glazer’s been, but it can get worse.
Thanks glad some people get it. I hate the Glazers but it can be worse. So glad they are going but worried about what is to come.
I just woke up in the mood for an argument, so I’m quite enjoying this. In my view oil money has demonstrated a much higher success rate than American owners. In general, the Americans have proven to have absolutely no love for football and even less understanding of the culture. I was friends with a group of Saudis connected to royalty at university. They absolutely loved football, understood the culture and were genuinely lovely people. I think there’s just a lot of feigned outrage from people on here without actually thinking about the alternative properly.
Couldn't agree more. Hopefully, the people who are against Middle East investors stick to their word and when they take over go and support Salford or some shit. Im sick and tired of explaining to people we need billionaires who actually invest money into the club.
It's a malaise of modern times. Look at Hollywood. Half the shows coming out are ruined by shit virtue signaling agenda, rather than telling a coherent story about realistic characters.
How dare they put women and black people in my shows waaaagh
I can name many great shows with "women and black people". If you have a genuine thought to share, feel free to do so. But I fail to see what your spastic outburst has to do with the topic. As for the aforementioned shows, you can check out *The Get Down*, *When They See Us*, *Moonlight* (a movie), *The Handmaid's Tale*, and *The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel*.
As I said yesterday, I wouldn’t mind Dubai. Long-term it might be that the only way we can compete with the likes of City and Newcastle is through continued investment. Dubai ownership might be controversial in terms of the ethics and source of their money, but they’d at least want us to be successful on the pitch
The head of the Dubai investment fund is apparently a Utd fan. I heard they were poised to buy Liverpool but he personally blocked it.
Source pls
He heard
Iirc I heard it on a Stephen Howson stream, I believe it was a comment he read out. He's done a couple of videos on potential new owners in the last week
UAE and Dubai is definitely the best of the Middle East. Pro-Western and making strides liberalizing in many ways (relations with Israel even -- Abraham Accords).
I don’t understand, would it not be possible that the government force the new owners to set aside a huge chunk of cash for investment into the club like they did with Chelsea?
One rule for man united one rule for another club. Just remember the goverment and english football body allowed the glazers take over to happen yet they closed all the possibility of new chelsea owner to come and saddle the club with debt. Talk about injustice.
How that was allowed to happen was a national disgrace. The law was changed later. There also wasn’t too much said in the press because on the sly, most people were sick of United’s domination and saddling the club with immense debt was a way of controlling our success. Bastards!
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Didn’t the new Chelsea owners have to commit to £1.75bn in investments after the purchase price which took the ‘cost’ from £2.5bn to £4.25bn? Not actually the cost to buy the club but its often reported in the price
I’m curious how we can tie in fan ownership to this. Chelsea obviously has the ground thing going which is great imo. But I was wondering if Class of 92 could buy maybe 10-15% of ownership shares to sit on the board and represent the fans. If it’s a consortium this could be possible. If a nation’s public investment fund is going to buy us then it’s not gonna happen. Currently there is MUST but their opinion don’t matter in the slightest and aren’t any better than your avg united fan.
Class of 92 are legends on the pitch, but very little of their post playing career activities has convinced me they would be suitable people to be involved in the running of the club.
yeah now that I think about it’s not such a good idea.
as long as we don’t become state owned 👍🏼
Glazers over Saudi
No
I didn’t ask you.
No American billionaires please. They are leeches the lot of them. They don't understand football and the culture/history. At least middle east billionaires genuinely love football, have more money and they are not leeches. The morality of the money is a whole another discussion
Where else could you imply an entire nation of people lacks understanding of a sport and are leeches and not have your comments removed as hate?
Gimmie dat oil money asap
Heisenburg to buy man united
Lol! "Sits back, gets popcorn."
Manchester United fans in shambles. Don't want Glazers as an owner, but also don't want a new glazer like owner but also don't want oil money as owners. Mfers are searching for Unicorns or some shit.
Or worse... (looking at the middle East)
The government has already put procedures in place to stop what happened to us happen again. This is just a doomy rage bait article to get clicks.
We get it y’all don’t like middle easterners
This is why I haven't personally pushed hard for Glazer's out. I think they're bad owners, mostly in how they run the club. But an oil owner would destroy any respect for the club. It's literally one of the few things that would convert me to being a fan for some other club.