100m budget for 2019 Summer window

It was media briefing to make other clubs lower asking prices, or at least stop them asking for stupid ones.

Then we gave Rashford a contract for £300k p/w and no one believed us.
 
Bubz27 said:
It was media briefing to make other clubs lower asking prices, or at least stop them asking for stupid ones.

Then we gave Rashford a contract for £300k p/w and no one believed us.
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300k a week?

I thought it was 300k a second.
 
Bubz27 said:
It's sarcasm because the media always put an extra 50% on everything we pay.



That's the spirit.
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If the media is so bad, why don’t we (the red cafe) start a company called “honest media” and just get all the clicks and ad revenue ourselves for our honesty? We would be #1 cause our reputation would be undeniably amazing
 
Ed spreads news around of our interest in this and that player and suddenly, after a few days that the fans are all excited, we're no longer interested any more.

Are these the tactics being used ?
 
christinaa said:
Ed spreads news around of our interest in this and that player and suddenly, after a few days that the fans are all excited, we're no longer interested any more.

Are these the tactics being used ?
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Personally I don't believe anything Woody says and if he said it was raining outside, I would look out the window to check.
 
Johan07 said:
The only thing true about what you just wrote is that our wage bill has increased massively over the last 2 years.

As has the club's turnover due to the new TV deal, wages as a % of turnover is still roughly where it has always been (and probably always will be - between 45% and 50%)

Which means major backing from the owners. Its a far better sign of this than gross transfer spend or fecking "net spend" which should be banned from this forum because of its irrelevance.

Why on earth is staff wages (an operating cost) better than transfer spend as an indicator of owner backing? Surely the only spend which is 'owner-backed' is capital investment out of their own pockets?

Otherwise what you just stated is simply not correct:

First:
United does not have a "huge debt" anymore. The yearly interest costs for the club is around 20m yearly.
Its nothing and its on the level that its actually financially sound to carry that level of debt for a company of Uniteds size. It gives the club tax benefits and other financial possibilities as well. It would be financially stupid to finance this by equity instead.

Utd do have a 'huge' debt. Also, why should we pay any interest? It was a leveraged buyout, we gain nothing by having the Glazers running the club, so even if the interest was $1, it would be $1 too much!

Secondly:
There is no evidence that the Glazers "wants their cut", if you by that mean dividends. The club has given dividends only the last three or four years and it has never been over 20-25m yearly. Thats also nothing for a company valued at 4,1 bn USD. Its actually quite horrible for the investors including the Glazers.
It also pretty much coincides with the time that United has been listed on the NYSE. There are other owners that need to be satisfied as well and without being ITK about Cayman Island company law combined with NYSE regulations might very well require some form of dividends if the company makes profit.

Paying a dividend is literally the act of shareholders taking a cut. I wish I was in the 'quite horrible' position of being paid £25m annually for doing exactly nothing.

Thirdly:
I dont know how people dont understand by now that the Glazers dont own the club to bleed it via dividends.
If they are they are doing a terrible job of it. They should keep the wage bill down and maximize the dividends then. But they dont.
And its not because they are good people or great owners, its because the profit for them is in the increase of the asset value of United.
United is worth 3bn more now since they bought the club. Give it 5 more years it might be worth 2 bn more if managed correctly. Thats where the money is for them, not by "bleeding" the club of a petty 20m in dividends every year. It would take 50 years just to make one billion by taking out that amount in dividends.
Thats not even in the picture in comparison.

I don't think people are claiming the Glazers master plan is to make £1BN in dividends though are they? I think your argument actually proves why the Glazers don't invest - what's the point in spending money on footballers when the value of the club is in the commercial side of the business, not in actually being any good at playing football? Why spend £500m on players when in the words of our CEO the impact of playing performance on commercial revenue (and therefore value) is negligible?

End rant.
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BOLD
 
Lentwood said:
Utd do have a 'huge' debt. Also, why should we pay any interest? It was a leveraged buyout, we gain nothing by having the Glazers running the club, so even if the interest was $1, it would be $1 too much!
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Who are we?
And please take a serious moment to consider this question, because the fact that there are no we is whats wrong with all of your posts.
You act like there is an alternative reality where Manchester United actually is a fanowned club and the Glazers are just parasites that has attached themselves to the club.
Well, thats not the case and we are so past that ever being the case.
United is the Glazers asset now, like it or not. I did not like the takeover either, but that was 15 years ago now and the club is doing remarkably fine financially. Does it really matter if this is because of the Glazers, Gill, Woodward or Sir Alex?
And the simple reason to why we should pay interest is that the alternative is worse and would leave less money to the club for transfer fees and wages. You understand this basic concept yes?
Its simple: its cheaper for the Glazers (and thus the club) to partly finance operations by debt instead of equity.
All companies do that.
Do you want to force them to finance by equity instead?
It will be more expensive for them and thus less money for the club, if you grasp the basic fact that the Glazers control United fullstop and that there is no la-la land where United economy is not integrated with the Glazers own.
If they were to finance with equity they would take more dividends instead, but they would lose money on doing it that way and it would NOT come out of their own pockets.
Whatever is better for the "group" as a whole is better for United.
You can have a serious discussion about the ownership of United without these weird unicorn assumptions that you like to make.
 
Johan07 said:
Who are we?
And please take a serious moment to consider this question, because the fact that there are no we is whats wrong with all of your posts.
You act like there is an alternative reality where Manchester United actually is a fanowned club and the Glazers are just parasites that has attached themselves to the club.
Well, thats not the case and we are so past that ever being the case.
United is the Glazers asset now, like it or not. I did not like the takeover either, but that was 15 years ago now and the club is doing remarkably fine financially. Does it really matter if this is because of the Glazers, Gill, Woodward or Sir Alex?
And the simple reason to why we should pay interest is that the alternative is worse and would leave less money to the club for transfer fees and wages. You understand this basic concept yes?
Its simple: its cheaper for the Glazers (and thus the club) to partly finance operations by debt instead of equity.
All companies do that.
Do you want to force them to finance by equity instead?
It will be more expensive for them and thus less money for the club, if you grasp the basic fact that the Glazers control United fullstop and that there is no la-la land where United economy is not integrated with the Glazers own.
If they were to finance with equity they would take more dividends instead, but they would lose money on doing it that way and it would NOT come out of their own pockets.
Whatever is better for the "group" as a whole is better for United.
You can have a serious discussion about the ownership of United without these weird unicorn assumptions that you like to make.
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Quite sick of people who assume to know finance.

Yes, IF the club had been fan owned, the annual shareholders' meeting would've probably voted for retaining more profits within the company to finance transfers more aggressively.
 
I just know what David Gill wrote when he was in charge - there was never a set budget. It's not like the club decides we have £85.4 million available for spending- it doesnt work that way. The club could probably have a net spend of £300 million if the right players became available for a low price.

Does anyone here seriously think (not that it would happen) if 3 fairly young stars like say - Neymar, Sancho and de Ligt became available for £150 m - the Glazers or Woodward would tell OGS - sorry, we cant afford them. This is a business - if they deem its a good investment, they would make Money available.
 
Jacob said:
Quite sick of people who assume to know finance.

Yes, IF the club had been fan owned, the annual shareholders' meeting would've probably voted for retaining more profits within the company to finance transfers more aggressively.
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Retaining what? Under the Glazers ownership United have given dividends three our four times. Never more than 25m at the time yearly. The Glazers is not bleeding the club in dividends, that is just ridiculous.
That United even give dividends is probably because of that United is listed on NYSE and that the club has a corporate responsibility to all shareholders, not just the Glazers.
United is valued at 4,1bn USD, a yearly dividend of 20-25m is like: nothing. It is practically nothing.
United gave way much more dividends compared to valuation and turnover when we were a plc in the UK.
I am quite sick of people not knowing anything factually at all acting like they do btw.
 
lysglimt said:
I just know what David Gill wrote when he was in charge - there was never a set budget. It's not like the club decides we have £85.4 million available for spending- it doesnt work that way. The club could probably have a net spend of £300 million if the right players became available for a low price.

Does anyone here seriously think (not that it would happen) if 3 fairly young stars like say - Neymar, Sancho and de Ligt became available for £150 m - the Glazers or Woodward would tell OGS - sorry, we cant afford them. This is a business - if they deem its a good investment, they would make Money available.
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Well yeah if opportunities arise for potential investments they’ll make it happen.

But in general there will be a broad financial guidance plan in place; we’ll have a budget outlined and available (not set in stone) and targets outlined.

Obviously that plan doesn’t always work whether that be down to player availability/valuations, and the market changing over the course of the window.
 
lysglimt said:
I just know what David Gill wrote when he was in charge - there was never a set budget. It's not like the club decides we have £85.4 million available for spending- it doesnt work that way. The club could probably have a net spend of £300 million if the right players became available for a low price.

Does anyone here seriously think (not that it would happen) if 3 fairly young stars like say - Neymar, Sancho and de Ligt became available for £150 m - the Glazers or Woodward would tell OGS - sorry, we cant afford them. This is a business - if they deem its a good investment, they would make Money available.
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The transfer fees would never be a problem for a Sancho or De Ligt or a similar talent like Havertz. Their wages might if we bought them all at once.
Dont think Neymar would be an issue transfer fee either, but his wage demands would make that a no-go if we did not get rid of a couple of high earners.
 
christinaa said:
Ed spreads news around of our interest in this and that player and suddenly, after a few days that the fans are all excited, we're no longer interested any more.

Are these the tactics being used ?
Click to expand...

I do chuckle at the idea that Woodward rings up some of these journalists, "we're after xxx player you know, confident innit", and then it's suddenly in the papers.

Obviously the massive flaw would be that when we don't buy them, he looks an absolute BS chump. So I can't believe there's any advantage, unless he thinks we're all so dumb we don't realise.
 
Johan07 said:
The transfer fees would never be a problem for a Sancho or De Ligt or a similar talent like Havertz. Their wages might if we bought them all at once.
Dont think Neymar would be an issue transfer fee either, but his wage demands would make that a no-go if we did not get rid of a couple of high earners.
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Yep, definitely true.
A few years ago, probably around the "we can do things other clubs can only dream of" boast, we probably could lash out.
Now, we'd need to some tinkering to only deal with a couple of insane earners. Sanchez needs to go before we could bring a top earner in.
 
Sandikan said:
I do chuckle at the idea that Woodward rings up some of these journalists, "we're after xxx player you know, confident innit", and then it's suddenly in the papers.

Obviously the massive flaw would be that when we don't buy them, he looks an absolute BS chump. So I can't believe there's any advantage, unless he thinks we're all so dumb we don't realise.
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I am sure the club leaks info from time to time to certain news outlets. Dont think its common, but it would be naive to think it never happens.
Funny thing with United is that we are the only club in the top-6 where absolutely everything is attributed to our CEO in the tabloids and on forums like this one: Woodward leaks this. Woodward wants this player and rejects the managers request for a CB. Woodward changes the menu at Carrington. Woodward this and Woodward that; despite the fact that the poor sod has not even done a real interview in like forever. Its a quite interesting phenomenon actually.
 
Johan07 said:
I am sure the club leaks info from time to time to certain news outlets. Dont think its common, but it would be naive to think it never happens.
Funny thing with United is that we are the only club in the top-6 where absolutely everything is attributed to our CEO in the tabloids and on forums like this one: Woodward leaks this. Woodward wants this player and rejects the managers request for a CB. Woodward changes the menu at Carrington. Woodward this and Woodward that; despite the fact that the poor sod has not even done a real interview in like forever. Its a quite interesting phenomenon actually.
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That's true. And it'd be quite a test to ask who the equivalent is at other clubs.

I suppose Arsenal aside, who are the real joke of the top 6, even over us, the rest have had good success quite recently, so we don't question them.
 
Johan07 said:
Retaining what? Under the Glazers ownership United have given dividends three our four times. Never more than 25m at the time yearly. The Glazers is not bleeding the club in dividends, that is just ridiculous.
That United even give dividends is probably because of that United is listed on NYSE and that the club has a corporate responsibility to all shareholders, not just the Glazers.
United is valued at 4,1bn USD, a yearly dividend of 20-25m is like: nothing. It is practically nothing.
United gave way much more dividends compared to valuation and turnover when we were a plc in the UK.
I am quite sick of people not knowing anything factually at all acting like they do btw.
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It was a theoretical statement as a counter-pole to the made up argument about Glazers bleeding the club dry. I.e., what the alternative would've been. I haven't got a clue about United's valuation or dividend, and frankly, I don't give a fvck.

Without knowing their capital structure (I assume its heavily leveraged), I do think an LBO is an irresponsible way of acquiring a business with a long-term perspective in mind. It puts high pressure on creating positive cash flow to finance the interest payments, which is probably why United have become increasingly commercial is the eyes of the public.
 
We have been linked with tons of players but we have signed just 2 and Lukaku could leave. So at the end of the day, the 100m budget could be realistic.

Maguire + Longstaff (hopefully Fernandes) and that would be it.
 
Fer said:
We have been linked with tons of players but we have signed just 2 and Lukaku could leave. So at the end of the day, the 100m budget could be realistic.

Maguire + Longstaff (hopefully Fernandes) and that would be it.
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If we’re offering 70m for Maguire, after signing AWB then it’s not the case.
 
So Woodward was technically tight when he said we can do things no one else can in the market? The only big club to completely ruin every window, at least we've finally addressed the RB issue with AWB though, probably another few years before we sign a winger that plays better on the right than the left.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
Ole said we would replace lukaku if he leaves so... 100m budget not looking very true, unless we replace lukaku with a loan or similar
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Ole can say all he wants but knowing have you thought about this?

If we don't sign anyone and post 8th August Inter up the offer and we sell Lukaku, we wont be able to replace him.

I reckon that is what Ed Woodward is playing at. 0 net spend for this transfer window. 2 players in at £75m and £75m for Lukaku.
 
We spent £70m net last summer too.

All this 200/250m transfer kitty is Press hearsay. It's absolute ballacks basically but our fans fall for it every year.

I think we'll sign Maguire now and that's us done. Might be enough to scrape 4th but it won't be enough for anything better.
 
romufc said:
Ole can say all he wants but knowing have you thought about this?

If we don't sign anyone and post 8th August Inter up the offer and we sell Lukaku, we wont be able to replace him.

I reckon that is what Ed Woodward is playing at. 0 net spend for this transfer window. 2 players in at £75m and £75m for Lukaku.
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If ole says we will replace lukaku if we sell him why would we sell him after our deadline is gone
 
Crashoutcassius said:
If ole says we will replace lukaku if we sell him why would we sell him after our deadline is gone
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Maybe because the transfer window in Europe closes after the English one.
Ole wants Lukaku out, Lukaku wants out.

Is that enough of a reason?
 
Johan07 said:
The transfer fees would never be a problem for a Sancho or De Ligt or a similar talent like Havertz. Their wages might if we bought them all at once.
Dont think Neymar would be an issue transfer fee either, but his wage demands would make that a no-go if we did not get rid of a couple of high earners.
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We bid... officially... for maguire 90m.

De ligt was sold for 65m.

Fans logic... glazer are skint.

For those that things the maguire bid was smokescreen. The bid was made public, leicester would have said something if it wasnt true.
 
Sky1981 said:
We bid... officially... for maguire 90m.

De ligt was sold for 65m.

Fans logic... glazer are skint.

For those that things the maguire bid was smokescreen. The bid was made public, leicester would have said something if it wasnt true.
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Nothing was made "public". And there is nothing like an "official bid" to begin with; clubs have no obligation to give out information about transfer dealings even if it is put in writing.

As to De Ligt, its pretty obvious to me (even if it is speculation) that he had an agreement with Ajax that he could leave for that amount this summer. Which is probably why he did not leave last summer already. Its not the first time Ajax would have done something similar.
 
Sky1981 said:
We bid... officially... for maguire 90m.

De ligt was sold for 65m.

Fans logic... glazer are skint.

For those that things the maguire bid was smokescreen. The bid was made public, leicester would have said something if it wasnt true.
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Can you post a link or provide some kind of backing to that? Leicester are looking for £80m and we bid £90m? dont see the logic.
 
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