That's a pretty reasonable justification for a stakeholder to have but a peculliar one for someone purely a fan to champion.
ALL issues relating to the bond issue and club finances
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I'm not championing it, far from it, in fact it's one of my biggest gripes with how we seem to be run. We were the best team in the world in 2008. Since then I haven't seen any ambition from us to want to be the best in Europe again, none whatsoever. Of course, as I was watched Valencia in the Valencia-Swansea game yesterday, I couldn't help but think that things could be much much worse.
You're a fecking micro-penis. That's good, I'll use that.
Agreed that the goals have changed, which is why my opinion of the current owners will not change. People are using us being debt free as a yard stick for us being able to break transfer records, being able to step up our investment in the stadium etc (ie return to 10-15 years ago). My point is only that this will never happen under the current ownership. Every decision will have a short-medium term cost-benefit analysis, because the owners will only be looking in the short-medium term as to what will maximise a return on their investment.
If I happened to stumble across £5b and bought United obviously I'd be making the entirety of our profit (£100m+) available each Summer if the manager felt it could step us up a level. I'd be redeveloping the stadium, not because I'd see immediate returns; but because it would improve the atmosphere, allow more fans to watch the club and "future-proof" our income/capacity.
The other interesting thing once we are debt free will be the fans' reaction to well over £100m a season leaving the club, when there is no debt to service. I imagine our EBITDA will reach £200m in the coming few years and the debt will be paid off in its entirety. At the moment the justification is that "£xm is leaving the club, but it is going to pay off the debt, which is a positive thing for the club" (even though the debt was heaped on it for no positive reason). The Glazer's will have a tricky line to walk. Taking a £100+m dividend each year may well cause hostilities that eclipse the G&G campaign.
I wonder who will be the lucky recipient?
She won't even notice.
Hasn't Real Madrid ended up overspending such that they are in debt heavily to the banks?
If the business model tends to moderate spending, that may not be a bad thing.
Has Barcelona managed to avoid the populist drive to spend beyond one's means and if so how?
Leeds put football first, and where are they now?
If the business model tends to moderate spending, that may not be a bad thing.
Has Barcelona managed to avoid the populist drive to spend beyond one's means and if so how?
Leeds put football first, and where are they now?
They aren't.
This reads well, but I'm not sure how much it reflects reality. Using this year as an example, the reason we didn't break our transfer record was not some form of cost-benefit analysis - it was simply that Barca didn't want to sell and Fabregas didn't want to come. Other transfers foundered on one clubs unwillingness to sell and another club's willingness to sell only at an inflated price - again nothing to do with short or medium term analysis.
The South stand tier is, almost certainly, a victim of cost-benefit analysis (or indeed whatever form of analysis you would like to undertake). It's a losing proposition financially and, as we've seen at Camp Nou, having an average of 25,000 empty seats per game does nothing to help the atmosphere. [Edit: And that's before we get to the impact on the pitch.]
The Glazers committed £520 million of their own resources to the purchase of United (£270m initially, another £250m when the PIKs were paid down). In terms of extracting cash from United, so far they've had the £10m in loans (converted to a dividend last year) and whatever part of the £20m or so in intra-group consulting fees that they accrued (probably not that much given the strings tied to such payments by the various debt covenants). So, best (or worst) case, they've managed to get a £30m return over eight years on a total of £520m invested. Whether you think eight years is short, medium or long term, that's still not much evidence of a focus on return. They have, however, taken the club public again which, over time, will enable them to recoup some or all of their initial investment through share sales - something that doesn't involve extracting large amounts of cash from United.
The £100m dividend is a piece of scare-mongering that even andersred would be proud of (remember the £90m dividend he predicted in 2010). While United will undoubtedly start paying dividends at some point, it's most likely that they'll revert to the model the old plc followed and pay out something in the region of 35% of after-tax profits - this year, without debt and paying normal taxes, that would have been around £14m. If the Glazers managed to recoup most (or all) of their investment through share sales, their share of the dividend would represent a very good return on investment (and they would still hold a controlling 75-80% of United shares).
We don't know a lot about their motivation, but the Glazers do seem to genuinely enjoy owning sports teams. They get a lot of grief from fans here and in Tampa - if they just wanted short or medium term profits they could have sold the Bucs years ago, taken an $800m profit and avoided the aggravation. They didn't, so there's clearly something more in it for them than simply making the most money possible.
You've just brushed over a whole lot of money there. 30 Million over 8 years on 520 Million? First, 520 Million was not over 8 years, it was 270 Million before 8 years and 250 Million before a couple of years. What happens to the cost of interest and the other legal and financial cost involving float? Are you saying we should only count the cost paid to Glazers? feck no, you should count the cost of the interest paid and the cost for one time float, because they were costs that were direct result of the Glazer takeover.
I dont really want to start talking about net spend as I dont think it proves much, however Bayern have not spent anything like £40m net per year recently - we spent more than them this summer for a start. I cant be arsed to work out the exact numbers but feel free to do an analysis of their spending vs ours over recent years, make sure you include wages though as it is meaningless without that.
Anyway we have had this conversation before and I dont agree with your view as I dont think there is much change in our transfer policy - apart from a couple of exceptions, we have never been completing with the biggest spenders in world football and there is no reason for us to start doing so now.
I find your comments about being 'merely successful' a bit ridiculous to be honest.
You say that Madrid dont settle for being 'just successful' - well as far as I can see, despite blowing obsene amounts on players every year, they have not been very successful at all recently, certainly far less than us - so what does that tell you?
As far as I am concerned, we spend plenty on our squad - in fact our squad is massive, arguably we currently have the strongest squad in terms of depth in world football. However, I can agree that we might be better off going for a bit more quality over quantity - i.e. buying one or two world class players rather than 5 players in the tier below - so it is not really the amount that we are spending but rather where it is spent.
The first bold part is either naive or disingenuous. The fact is we wouldn't have even considered Fabregas if something didn't suggest he was somewhat available. Now either we believe the club are run by ignoramuses or we go on the premise that our somewhat farcical bids were like a fire extinguisher to an embering flame. I put Fabregas in the same category as Bale this Summer - a World Class player that is available but negotiations start at a certain level. I don't believe we'd have ever had the audacity to start negotiations for Rooney, Veron or Ferdinand at half their market value, quite simply because we'd have never have signed them.
Your reference to how much money the Glazer's have committed is also bizarre. You are acting like they have mortgaged a house and have used their personal income to slowly pay down this mortgage (a common comparison). What they have actually done is pay a comparatively small deposit and use the receipts of their "property" to pay down the mortgage. Receipts that any fan would say should/would have gone to far more productive endeavors.
In terms of the South stand again why do you have to choose between empty seats and financial gain? Empty seats is merely a problem with pricing, as I'm sure we can agree that tens of thousands of people would see United every week for £10.
The Glazer's motivation is very clear. They enjoy making bucket loads of money. Your reference to them seeming to enjoy owning sports teams is misguided; they enjoy turning a £200m leveraged investment into a £2+b dynasty. The grief is insignificant when looking at the gargantuan dollar signs that dwarf it.
I am not trying to scaremonger when I talk about dividends and if it comes across that way please forgive me. Swiss ramble illustrates my point factually (albeit a year ago):
If you feel the green and red will be replaced by the light blue and yellow in time then I disagree. In my opinion this is a massive, massive shame.
Bayern 2011-2012 spent £100m without recouping practically anything. It was clear to me that at this point they made a decision that merely being usually the best domestically wasn't enough for essentially a charity whose cause was Footballing success. 2-3 years ago I was quite scathing of Bayern as they were living in a bubble of under-performance and limited success (for their size/income). I said they hadn't won the CL in over a decade and despite having double the income of their nearest rivals were "only" winning the league every other season. Since then they have changed their philosophy and are now run as they should be in my opinion (the aforementioned "charity"), and have reaped the rewards and will continue to do so.
Madrid (like oil clubs tbh) are an enigma in the fact that they seem to sign names, rather than players. I would never champion this approach, but I at least admire the fact that the money is being spent on endeavouring to improve. Perez, however insane he may appear is just like Abramovich in that he is spending money with the goal to succeed. Would you or I, as Madrid fans, prefer Perez bought Bale or paid an £85m interest bill?
In terms of our squad again I feel we have become far too focused on "value". I feel the United of old would stump up a transfer record for the likes of Fabregas and gotten the man we want. Ferdinand, Rooney, Veron, RVN, Yorke, Cole, Keane... None represented value, far from it, the day they were unveiled. The majority proved their value in hindsight.
I would say it is a combination of where we spend our money and the amount being spent. For a club that has a profit before tax/interest of around £500m over the last 5 years, to spend around £65m (c.£13m per annum) net of this on transfers is quite laughable.
What do wages fall under in that chart?
Wages have remained unchanged. They have always been c. 50% of turnover (49.5% this year - one of the lowest in the League).
No, I mean, do they not fall under anything in that chart? Are they already counted into expenditures before the "funds" are tallied up?
Also our wages/turnover is 51% this year which is higher than it was ever allowed to be when we were a PLC. 50% w/t has always been seen as a sustainable figure so I don't see the problem? We're still the 3rd highest wages in the league, ahead of everyone but the sugar daddy run City and Chelsea and a good 12% ahead of forth placed Arsenal.
The chart relates to how we have spent our EBITDA. Our turnover this year was £363.2m, whilst staff costs were £180.5m (although this refers to all staff - 792 people). I imagine a decent chunk of this relates to none playing staff, so I imagine playing staff costs are around 40%? of turnover.
You are mixing up a few different issues now - quite obviously no fan thinks it is better to spend money on interest than players so that is a pointless question. Hypothetically, if we were run not for profit - I would not spend that much extra on the squad as I dont think we need it - I would instead cut ticket prices.
The original discussion here is that you think we dont invest enough money into the playing squad and I dont agree.
On a side point, I do not believe that the size of our offer had much to do with not getting Fabregas, it was all to do with whether the player wanted to go and in the end he didnt (same as Rooney). However, this episode does show that the club are not afraid to go for the odd world class players when they are required.
You have ignored my point about having a huge squad, much bigger than all our competitors - people get seduced by the odd big name but we have spent plenty on assembling this squad as well.
And again for the millionth time Im going to repeat that your net spend figures prove very little at all. When you start presenting numbers that include wages and show it over several years (rather than picking out 1 or 2 exceptional years just to back up a point) then it might be a worthwhile discussion.
In the meantime, I am happy with how much is spent on the squad - I most certainly dont want to see us going the way of Madrid or City with huge amounts wasted on average players. However, as mentioned I would like to see us focus a bit more on quality over quantity and I think we will see this happen over the next couple of years.
Bizarre to say net spend over the course of the Glazer ownership isn't a good figure to measure squad investment on. It's the only one that counts
And we spend the lowest percentage of wages/turnover in the league.
Bale and other top talents would be at United if we were in a similar ownership situation as Real, Barca or Bayern.
And we spend the lowest percentage of wages/turnover in the league.
Bale and other top talents would be at United if we were in a similar ownership situation as Real, Barca or Bayern.
Our transfer record still stands at nearly what it was a decade ago. And before that we were breaking it every other year. Find me another club like that! The Glazer ownership has inhibited us. I find arguing otherwise idiotic. The only thing that can be argued in their favor is the wages to turnover ratio, but even than, the wages spent are more because of the size of the squad. Instead of spending more money on a single player, we have started to hedge our investments into multiple players, thus negating the loss we potentially stand to make if a signing doesn't match the expectations.
RVP only happened because of his contract situation and relatively low competition for his signature. His wages are obviously quite high admittedly.
Juventus and City bid for him. We know that the latter offered him a massive deal. It may not actually alter your point but let's not rewrite history here.
I might be completely wrong and only time will tell but I really do think we are waiting for the FFP rules to come in full whack and put us as one of the top clubs in terms of transfer money legally available to us in each window. (As in one of the clubs with the best clear profit margins through our high turnover).
I believe that starting negotiations for Fabregas at £25m highlights exactly what I am referring to in terms of our unwillingness to compete at the highest level. As I said before, we obviously got some encouragement from someone in terms of bidding for Fabregas, but as soon as we put in a starting bid that was less than half his market value it was dead in the water. I believe this episode illustrates the complete opposite - that we are afraid to seriously go for the odd World Class player when they are required - opening the bids at £45m and finishing at around £55-60m would have shown we were serious. An accusation that was leveled at Arsenal until they signed one of the best players in the World 3 weeks ago.
I haven't ignored your point regarding our squad. A big squad doesn't show anything other than quantity, it is mutually exclusive to the point about serious investment. Plus do we really have a bigger squad than anyone else? Their is a 25 squad limit and I believe almost every top team fills this comfortably (with Chelsea sending Lukaku, Moses, Romeu, Courtois, Marin, Piazon, McEachran etc on loan).
As I stated previously - wages have remained unchanged in relation to previous years (possibly a few % decrease as other staff costs have drastically increased). The spend on players is the thing that has drastically plummeted, where we used to spend the majority of our yearly income on purchasing (c.75%), nowadays it is a small minority (I make our spend around £135m in 9 seasons since the take over vs around £650m EBITDA - c.20%). This means that whilst our profit levels have quadrupled, our transfer spend has remained static (c. £120m over 9 seasons prior to Glazer's vs c. £135m in 9 seasons after).
They only need to break even and given how easy it is to grab a new sponsor here and there, I don't think these huge spending sprees from the sugar daddy clubs will go away any time soon.
No it isnt at all - it is a very outdated way to measure investment in the squad.
The amount spent on transfer fees is small compared to the amounts spent on wages - it was different in the past, but nowadays squads are much bigger and wages have gone up massively while transfer fees have not moved that much in comparison. Plus with players moving for less than market value due to contract situation, the whole picture is distorted.
There is actually not that much correlation between net spend and success on the field - however, there is a stronger correlation between wage levels and success so that really is the more vital figure. The get a full picture you need to take net spend plus wage spend.
Recent wage bill numbers (these are annual figures, just compare to how much clubs spend on transfer fees annually):
Man City £202m
Chelsea £173m
Man Utd £162m
Arsenal £143m
Liverpool £119m
Spurs £90m
I dont agree with you on Fabregas at all as I dont believe that the level of our bids has much to do with not getting the player. That was just negotiation and making our interest public, after that it is upto the player to push for the move and it all fell down on the fact that a new manager came in and they convinced him to stay with a fresh start (it is exactly the same thing Chelsea tried with us and Rooney). If he wanted to go then we would seriously discuss the fee with Barca but we never reached that point.
and yes I do think we have a deeper squad than anyone else - just look at the players who arent even making it onto our bench at the moment, nevermind the ones on loan. Obviously a big squad costs a lot to put together, spending £10m on 4 players costs the same as spending £40m on one. People sit up and take notice when you do the later, but in the end the outlay is the same (or potentially even more depending on wages).
As I said, I would actually like to see us cut down the size of the squad and focus a bit more on quality. I think the club do actually want to make a 'marquee' signing but this summer was difficult because Moyes and Woodward were new in the job. Lets see what happens next summer.
Agree with most of what you say Rood, certainly about the wages thing. Net spend is a seductive stat but the correlation with success is much higher with wages.
Glad to see some people get it! Sick of hearing about net bloody spend - I'll have to keep repeating myself until the message gets through
Did you ever read that book by Simon Kuper? He talks about it quite a bit.
No I havent - which book is it exactly? I think I may have been sent sections of it by a mate
Why England Lose.
As has been intimated, I am not of the opinion that any upturn in finances will see us dramatically increase spending. Over recent years, we seem to have moved towards striving to be the best, to striving to be 'good enough', and can be seen both on and off the pitch. This is just my opinion here, but I also believe that Sir Alex is not exempt from this philosophy.
In recent years, many fans have been coming out with rhetoric like 'well we have just won the league' etc in response to other fans criticising aspects of the team. Any football or United fan who wished to be honest with themselves could see that there were aspects of the team (midfield) holding us back from being a truly great team. That said, under the Glazers, the philosophy of the club has been that there has been no 'need' to be a truly great team, we all know we could be better, but we are 'good enough'. City winning the League a couple of seasons ago stirred us to go an pick up a World Class player finally. Now we got the League back, we have probably reverted back to comfortability. Why go and get a real top class midfielder for lots of money when we could just keep things ticking over and compete?
As for my earlier criticism of Fergie, I think the team have taken on this same philosophy of late. In recent years, we play to the best of our ability if we need to. In years gone by, we would see cannon-fodder come to Old Trafford and be put to the sword. Lately, we have gotten a 1 or 2 goal lead, and then passed the ball around lethargically until the final whistle. Again, no apparent desire for excellence, 'good enough', is the aim. On the pitch we have appeared to adopt an attitude of 'why should we win 4-0 when we still get 3 points for a 1-0'? This attitude appears to be what has been governing us on and off the field for a few years now. The club is seemingly very much business first. As long as we are there or thereabouts, we'll not spend. If City, Chelsea and Arsenal are too good this season - then I imagine we'll respond.
In recent years, many fans have been coming out with rhetoric like 'well we have just won the league' etc in response to other fans criticising aspects of the team. Any football or United fan who wished to be honest with themselves could see that there were aspects of the team (midfield) holding us back from being a truly great team. That said, under the Glazers, the philosophy of the club has been that there has been no 'need' to be a truly great team, we all know we could be better, but we are 'good enough'. City winning the League a couple of seasons ago stirred us to go an pick up a World Class player finally. Now we got the League back, we have probably reverted back to comfortability. Why go and get a real top class midfielder for lots of money when we could just keep things ticking over and compete?
As for my earlier criticism of Fergie, I think the team have taken on this same philosophy of late. In recent years, we play to the best of our ability if we need to. In years gone by, we would see cannon-fodder come to Old Trafford and be put to the sword. Lately, we have gotten a 1 or 2 goal lead, and then passed the ball around lethargically until the final whistle. Again, no apparent desire for excellence, 'good enough', is the aim. On the pitch we have appeared to adopt an attitude of 'why should we win 4-0 when we still get 3 points for a 1-0'? This attitude appears to be what has been governing us on and off the field for a few years now. The club is seemingly very much business first. As long as we are there or thereabouts, we'll not spend. If City, Chelsea and Arsenal are too good this season - then I imagine we'll respond.
Not sure how relevant it is, but the Glazers' other team - the Bucs - are in a terrible position with their most valuable player who has basically become a massive liability and entered a drug-relief program. That was a young QB they were building the team around. So that team absolutely desperately needs investment too.
The Glazers are trying to squeeze extra money out of the Bucs by selling drugs to their star players? That's a new low for them, surely. From leprachauns to drug dealers, via greedy, capitalist motherfeckers who know nothing about football. OOoh they are beastly, BEASTLY people I tells you.
Agree fully with the philosophy of being "good enough" to fill the stadium and sign sponsors as opposed to the philosophy that Real, Barca, Bayern embody.
I wouldn't want us to ever embody the philosophy of Real Madrid.
Philosophy of Barca, Bayern and Madrid? Do you even know what they are? You absolute plonker. Go talk to some of the Germans on the caf about Bayern.
As for Barca and Madrid, I have nothing to say but
That's not actually true. Freeman takes medication for ADHD (attention deficit) - Ritalin or Adderall, both stimulants - he's tested regularly (46 times in the last 18 months) as a result. A switch from Adderall to Ritalin triggered a spike which automatically put him on the NFL level one list. There's no suggestion that he has a drug problem. Problem is that he's feuding with the coach (Schiano) who is most probably the source of the misinformation that made it to the media. That's not to say that all is rosy in Bucsland - the clumsy attempt to smear Freeman makes that clear.
[Edit: Forgot to add that the Bucs are where they are supposed to be vis a vis the salary cap - so even if they "absolutely, desperately need investment" it isn't an option.]
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