Glazers may still be reviled but the tills are ringing at Old Trafford | Owen Gibson | Football | The Guardian
As thousands of Manchester United fans throng the Underground to Wembley on Saturday for the club's third Champions League final in four years, they will pass a handful of peeling stickers bearing the legend "Love United, Hate Glazer" on some Jubilee Line escalators. For most, last year's talk of mass boycotts and fan takeovers is a distant memory that, sated with this season's success, they might associate with the green-and-gold scarf at the bottom of the wardrobe. For a large minority, the anger still burns fiercely.
It is but one of many paradoxes at the heart of the story of the club owned by the Glazers. The American owners are still reviled by many fans but they have overseen a period that has been the most successful, and most fractious, in the club's history. More than £350m has flowed out in interest and fees, yet the club has become a global moneymaking machine that throws up £60m a year in free cashflow.
Fans have watched as the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez leave yet Sir Alex Ferguson has somehow managed to marshal the resources at his disposal into a team capable of challenging the best in Europe. And, now that the owners have moved the high-interest PIK debts out of the public eye (probably by refinancing them away from the glare of the media and supporters) and cleared the one-off costs associated with the bond issue, they are prepared to break the bank for star names that they doubtless calculate will further dampen criticism.
By the end of the summer the club will be sitting on a cash pile estimated at upwards of £160m and it is clear that – post Wayne Rooney's £200,000-a-week deal – there is room in the budget for big-name players, with wages and transfer fees no object as long as they fit the template of having age on their side. New £17m goalkeeper David de Gea is unlikely to be the last big money arrival this summer.
In another stark contrast, the club have faced a series of PR problems at home, from allegations of heavy-handed stewarding to consistent claims they refuse to listen to fans, while spending millions on research and marketing to drive commercial revenues and successfully grow their fanbase abroad. In one of the most exclusive corners of the capital, a team of 70 sales and marketing staff have overseen commercial growth that will rise steeply again from £27m in the current financial year. When the Glazers took over, commercial revenue stood at £9m.
That figure is doubled by advertising featuring the United brand, plus the money spent by the shirt sponsor Aon and Nike. Both of those deals are up in 2014 and there is confidence the £20m a year brought in by the latter can be significantly improved upon.
That visibility around the world, plus the opportunity of deals with telecom, internet and broadcast companies, is the reason the owners are confident United have found a virtuous circle that will enable them to pull away from the pack. The big question for them is whether that growth has peaked. They insist it has not.
With growth in matchday revenues largely flat, partly as a result of pressure from fans that has stopped ticket prices rising above inflation, the Glazers are increasingly reliant on their global commercial drive. and the continued rise in Premier League TV income. With the next overseas deal likely to overtake domestic revenues for the first time, top clubs remain hopeful that the existing £3.5bn over the three years to 2013 will be beaten even if the deals with home broadcasters remain flat or dip slightly.
Longer term, United executives hope the financial fair-play model introduced by Uefa next season will help control wage inflation and play into the hands of a clubs able to generate significant cashflow.
Barely a week goes by without a new sale being rung up by the growing commercial operation that operates out of the heart of upmarket offices 206 miles away from Old Trafford. On Wednesday it was a deal with Honda to sell Manchester United branded scooters in Thailand.
The future vision is for a gaggle of pre-match reporters on the pitch at Old Trafford, delivering bespoke content in different languages that will then be distributed via "triple-play deals" with mobile phone, internet and TV companies and into which can be inserted locally targeted digital ads on advertising hoardings. The Glazers have sensibly left the Manchester "football" operation, overseen by David Gill and Ferguson, to largely run itself.Therefore the mythology and romance that fuels the marketing operation has endured even as it is ruthlessly sliced, diced and exploited around the world.
Insiders insist much of this strategic vision is down to the Glazers, who are far more hands on in the business side of the club than they are given credit for and are enthusiastic and passionate owners. Given their secretive business practices and refusal to speak to the media, we'll never know.
The biggest gamble taken by the Glazers was to bet that Ferguson – who, grateful for the lack of interference in his affairs, has repeatedly backed them – would be able to keep the team winning on a more limited budget. He has delivered in spades. Though they would argue otherwise, the owners' feat of financial engineering probably could not have been achieved under any other manager. One thing the owners have in common with every fan is a desire for him to delay retirement for as long as possible.
Those who vociferously protested against the Glazer model in the stirring demonstrations that marked last season, also believe they have played their part. "The protests have done their job. They have reminded them they can only push things financially so far and have also stopped them taking £100m out of the club," said the blogger Andy Green, who has meticulously chronicled the Glazers financial model. "It's quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking we've failed. But looked at the other way, ticket prices have been frozen for three years and they haven't taken this money out that they clearly designed the whole bond issue to do. We should remember that."
give it up ffs you lot havnt the first clue which youve displayed time after time in that thread of yours over there, when you want to start getting the slightest hint of realism stop baseing your random numbers on debts that no longer exist and ignore the big red top back page headlines more people might start taking you seriously, thank you ever so much for your genuine heart felt concern but we'll be just fine.