Are the Glazers preparing for a sale? | Saudis deny the news

[JJ12]

Would love new owners willing to invest a lot in new signings but these aren't the owners we want or need.

I also get a feeling that the grass isn't greener. The Glazers have sanctioned many big signings where other owners may have further lined their pockets. What owners aren't looking to make money from their investments? What sort of business men would they be.

I think a lot are looking for a perfect situation that doesn't exist.

I'm no advocate for the Glazers by all means just unsure if there's a much better alternative.

 

[RedNed77]

Dream scenarios for me;

PLAN A: Glazers re-float the club on the stock market.

PLAN B:Glazers sell club to Saudis

Saudis do something truly awful, as they are prone to do (or ruling monarchy are overthrown)

Entire world gets pissed off and blacklists them

Foreign assets are seized

Club is put into fan ownership, or relisted on the stock market

 

[Revan]

One Neymar to go and one to be delivered to us in July.

Gasing Jews was pretty evil, but at least we are scoring goals for fun now, and the devil is still in the logo.

 

[SirAF]

Would love new owners willing to invest a lot in new signings but these aren't the owners we want or need.

I also get a feeling that the grass isn't greener. The Glazers have sanctioned many big signings where other owners may have further lined their pockets. What owners aren't looking to make money from their investments? What sort of business men would they be.

I think a lot are looking for a perfect situation that doesn't exist.

I'm no advocate for the Glazers by all means just unsure if there's a much better alternative.

I’m not advocating a Saudi ownership, but they wouldn’t be looking to profit $$ from United - the family is worth more than 800bn! They would be looking at United as a PR tool in the same mould as City’s owners do. As someone said, they would probably follow their suit in upgrading facilities, investing in the community etc.

 

[gormless]

Would love new owners willing to invest a lot in new signings but these aren't the owners we want or need.

I also get a feeling that the grass isn't greener. The Glazers have sanctioned many big signings where other owners may have further lined their pockets. What owners aren't looking to make money from their investments? What sort of business men would they be.

I think a lot are looking for a perfect situation that doesn't exist.

I'm no advocate for the Glazers by all means just unsure if there's a much better alternative.

PSG and City owners are using their clubs as a form of PR rather than to make money. It does happen

 

[Tarrou]

Yeah, but if a Saudi prince buys United it’s not going to be to make money. Boycotting wouldn’t hurt their pockets at all. Also, realistically speaking there’s never going to be enough people willing to boycott for it to make an impression either.

Boycotting and protesting would hurt them PR-wise at least, which is partly why they'd want to buy us. If anything it would be more impactful.

 

[Vault Dweller]

If they bought the club I think I would cease supporting the club tbh.

Watching football these days I’m less arsed about what clubs like PSG, City and Chelsea all do at the moment being a plaything for a super rich owner as I attribute any success they have to not really being that meaningful. Added to the fact that the Saudi leadership really are ruthless and are so shady it’s ridiculous I think that would be it for me.

 

[Giggsyking]

It really isn't the same logic. You love the club, not the owners but some owners make it difficult to support the club, same as you (I assume) love your county but you don't feel the same for the people governing the country.

You've made an example with UK government selling weapons to SA, which is quite diabolical but I doubt the regular people can do much about it. They can organize some protests, go in the streets, but in the end they'll have to drop it all because they'll have to go back to their lives, work and get paid to support their families.

Whilst if your club is bought by a murderous prince there's plenty of ways you can protest without having to risk your own experience and wellbeing. Stop going to games, stop buying merch, stop paying for TV subscription etc.

When your government is murderous, invade another country and causes the death of thousands, you "the regular people" cant do anything about it even though the killing is being made in the name of your country. You can protest, you can do anything possible legally to show your government your disapproval. On the other hand you can do the same to club owners you dont like. You protest, you carry green and gold scarfs. But there is a big difference, we football club fans cant choose our owners, while people chooses their government.

 

[Sigma]

Would hate to see us owned by the Saudis. Barbaric regime.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

Also a slightly non football related thing -

When is the Oil aspect of our needs & environment going to run down or not be needed anymore —atleast not tlt he same level.

At that point will clubs like PSG & City struggle?

 

[Giggsyking]

It’s like the easiest fecking test of moral judgement you could draw up and people still can’t pass it. Absolutely mind-blowing.

It is not a moral test, and you are not a judge, the real moral test is in life not on a fecking online forum.

 

[Judas]

When your government is murderous, invade another country and causes the death of thousands, you "the regular people" cant do anything about it even though the killing is being made in the name of your country. You can protest, you can do anything possible legally to show your government your disapproval. On the other hand you can do the same to club owners you dont like. You protest, you carry green and gold scarfs. But there is a big difference, we football club fans cant choose our owners, while people chooses their government.

You say a lot but really to simplify it, you just want us to buy more superstars don’t you, and think with their money we will.

 

[RoyH1]

Would hate to see us owned by the Saudis. Barbaric regime.

This. It would make me feel very conflicted about supporting my team. Too much so.

Luckily, it seems there is no truth to the rumors of purchase.

 

[Zlatattack]

aaw. I was looking to spending money like it's fifa on cheat mode.

 

[Ban]

If football has accepted Man City's and PSG's owners, then I don't see the problem here.. at least we'll be competing again.. City seem to regularly spank us now-a-days. And we've just witnessed PSG school us too. isn't it about time Man Utd were actually Man Utd again?

Yeah that sure would make us Man United again...

 

[JohnnyLaw]

It is not a moral test, and you are not a judge, the real moral test is in life not on a fecking online forum.

I can’t convict you of anything but your stupid if you believe what you say here has no affect on peoples view on you. It’s a simple fecking choice, we’re already the richest club in the world. Do we want to be even more dominant finacially than we already are by doing the bidding of a clearly horrid regime or not. It’s a ridiculously easy choice to just say I hope I never would have to choose to be part of something like that.
You’re ready to give up your values so your team can win a few more trophies?

 

[Giggsyking]

You say a lot but really to simplify it, you just want us to buy more superstars don’t you, and think with their money we will.

When this started, two months ago, there were many here who said that they would stop following united and I find it strange, why would someone do that? you are a united foorball fan, and you have no obligation to the owners, this is the thing that got my nerves.
I wouldnt be happy if MBS is the owner, but nor am I with the glazers. But I as a football fan dont care very much who owns the club.
I find many people here selective with their morals, they cant stand the idea of the football club being owned by a murderous regime, yet they live and pay taxes to governments that kill in the name of their land and with their money.

 

[Judas]

If football has accepted Man City's and PSG's owners, then I don't see the problem here.. at least we'll be competing again.. City seem to regularly spank us now-a-days. And we've just witnessed PSG school us too. isn't it about time Man Utd were actually Man Utd again?

Selling out is literally the opposite way of doing that though.

I can't believe how many people on here simply don't get it.

 

[edgar allan]

It is not a moral test, and you are not a judge, the real moral test is in life not on a fecking online forum.

The real moral test, is would you want your owners to be complicit with genocide?

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Hopefully it ends up coming to nothing. Football would be dead to me if that lot took over.

Not like I could even think about supporting anyone else either. I'd just lose interest entirely.

 

[bosnian_red]

Honestly, I watch football for football and dont concern myself in the slightest with any of the shit that goes on at boardroom level. Whoever owns the club, as long as they invest money into the club that the size of our club demands, then I'll continue to not give a feck. It has nothing to do with values and what not. I didnt become a Manchester United supporter because of who the owner was, who the manager was, not even fully who the players were. Just like I can occasionally strongly dislike United managers and want them gone while still supporting the club like with Mourinho, the same is in the owner position, just with the difference that the only thing they should get involved in is buying players.

So if they keep up their end, then they can stay hidden in the background of the club and whatever shit they do outside of United can be judged in whatever field they do it in. The vast majority of billionaire owners around the world are shady as feck. You arent likely to get an owner who ticks all the boxes. You just separate the job from the person with everything and that's how you look at it as 2 separate entities altogether. In the same way that Giggs is one of our biggest all time legends, he's also a complete scum bag of a human being who had an affair with his brothers wife for 8 years. Still love him as a player because I dont give a feck about what he does outside of the pitch.

 

[breakout67]

But we have spent a lot of money - more than nearly every over club on the planet. You could argue that the Glazers employ Ed and that’s poor judgement, but why would the Saudis have a better idea about who the right football men are to take our club forward? What history do they have of turning footballs clubs around? We are spending obscene amounts already just spending it badly.

I couldn't just argue it, it's undeniable fact. Glazers higher Ed, Ed highers the manager and manages the structure of the club. All you've done is fallen for the Woodward smokescreen of hiring a manager, giving too much responsibility because we have a lack of expertise, then letting the manager take the fall for him.

LVG said that Manchester United is a business not a football club, Mourinho said that Manchester United doesn't give enough help to the manager. We have spent poorly, and that is because the manager decides transfer targets which is an obsolete model from decades ago. Specialists decide transfer targets and work with the manager to choose which one to buy, specialists almost always outperform managers in player recruitment.

 

[rotherham_red]

It's a forum you know, a place where people tend to discuss things and considering our game is this evening, we had plenty of time to discuss stuff.

But there was the square root of FA to this though, just like last time. Anyone with an ounce of credibility had said nothing about it, and yet, people saw fit to discuss it for 15 fecking pages

 

[pascell]

the end of discussion

Saudi Media minister
All the news of Prince Muhammed bin Selman willing to buy man utd is false. The meetings was between the Saudi investment fund and Man utd football club to discuss a partnership project and the investment fund committee discussed it as a project like any other project and they did not come to an agreement.

I think I read on SSN before that they're actually trying to sponsor the PL itself, surely it'd be a conflict of interest if they owned United and sponsored the PL?

 

[cyberman]

I don't think we'll hear any confirmation over this until (if) its ready to be completed.

 

[adnando]

Honestly, I watch football for football and dont concern myself in the slightest with any of the shit that goes on at boardroom level. Whoever owns the club, as long as they invest money into the club that the size of our club demands, then I'll continue to not give a feck. It has nothing to do with values and what not. I didnt become a Manchester United supporter because of who the owner was, who the manager was, not even fully who the players were. Just like I can occasionally strongly dislike United managers and want them gone while still supporting the club like with Mourinho, the same is in the owner position, just with the difference that the only thing they should get involved in is buying players.

So if they keep up their end, then they can stay hidden in the background of the club and whatever shit they do outside of United can be judged in whatever field they do it in. The vast majority of billionaire owners around the world are shady as feck. You arent likely to get an owner who ticks all the boxes. You just separate the job from the person with everything and that's how you look at it as 2 separate entities altogether. In the same way that Giggs is one of our biggest all time legends, he's also a complete scum bag of a human being who had an affair with his brothers wife for 8 years. Still love him as a player because I dont give a feck about what he does outside of the pitch.

I can't really fathom that anyone can be so blatantly ignorant. A lot of supporters, myself included, felt that the club lost a lot of it's core values under Mou and that made them feel more apathetic about the results and leading to loosing some of the feelings towards the club. Mou was one thing, but a Saudi takeover would mean that we would be a totally new club without any values at all.

You talk about reasons for why you started supporting the club and it sounds like you only care about the glory and not giving a feck about the actual history and values of the club. Why did you become a supporter if you didn't care about the manager or players?

United as a club would become what City and PSG is now, a club with a strong divide in it's history where you have one club before the takeover and one after, with two completely different values. United would become a PR front for a regime and everything won and gained would be stained by the huge dark clouds surrounding the Saudi regime, and not really meaning anything.

My two cents about it, shocking to see how many people blinded by the idea of going fully teenager in FM mode.

 

[Revan]

Honestly, I watch football for football and dont concern myself in the slightest with any of the shit that goes on at boardroom level. Whoever owns the club, as long as they invest money into the club that the size of our club demands, then I'll continue to not give a feck. It has nothing to do with values and what not. I didnt become a Manchester United supporter because of who the owner was, who the manager was, not even fully who the players were. Just like I can occasionally strongly dislike United managers and want them gone while still supporting the club like with Mourinho, the same is in the owner position, just with the difference that the only thing they should get involved in is buying players.

So if they keep up their end, then they can stay hidden in the background of the club and whatever shit they do outside of United can be judged in whatever field they do it in. The vast majority of billionaire owners around the world are shady as feck. You arent likely to get an owner who ticks all the boxes. You just separate the job from the person with everything and that's how you look at it as 2 separate entities altogether. In the same way that Giggs is one of our biggest all time legends, he's also a complete scum bag of a human being who had an affair with his brothers wife for 8 years. Still love him as a player because I dont give a feck about what he does outside of the pitch.

I don't buy this 'if you are not Gandhi, you may as well be Hitler' mental gymnastics done from you and the others in this thread.

Yep, some billionaires are bad for putting Internet Explorer in Windows, some for not paying some of their workers more than minimal wage, and some for probably having links to Russian mafia. A farcry from being responsible for a genocide in an another country, chopping heads of homosexuals, keeping in jail women who protested for the right to drive even after the right was granted, sentencing to death people who leave their religion, ordering the massacring of a journalist, and if you look at the entire family, being responsible (for a large part) about Al Qaeda and ISIS.

 

[The Firestarter]

I don't buy this 'if you are not Gandhi, you may as well be Hitler' mental gymnastics done from you and the others in this thread.

Yep, some billionaires are bad for putting Internet Explorer in Windows, some for not paying some of their workers more than minimal wage, and some for probably having links to Russian mafia. A farcry from being responsible for a genocide in an another country, chopping heads of homosexuals, keeping in jail women who protested for the right to drive even after the right was granted, sentencing to death people who leave their religion, ordering the massacring of a journalist, and if you look at the entire family, being responsible (for a large part) about Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Indeed.

 

[glazed]

Yep, some billionaires are bad for putting Internet Explorer in Windows, some for not paying some of their workers more than minimal wage, and some for probably having links to Russian mafia. A farcry from being responsible for a genocide in an another country, chopping heads of homosexuals, keeping in jail women who protested for the right to drive even after the right was granted, sentencing to death people who leave their religion, ordering the massacring of a journalist, and if you look at the entire family, being responsible (for a large part) about Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Well put. There isn't a worse regime on the planet, with the possible exception of North Korea.

 

[Moriarty]

United as a club would become what City and PSG is now, a club with a strong divide in it's history where you have one club before the takeover and one after, with two completely different values. United would become a PR front for a regime and everything won and gained would be stained by the huge dark clouds surrounding the Saudi regime, and not really meaning anything.

In a nutshell. Best comment on this by a long way.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

Personally I don't see them buying us anyway, there is too much animosity towards them right now

 

[lsd]

Also a slightly non football related thing -

When is the Oil aspect of our needs & environment going to run down or not be needed anymore —atleast not tlt he same level.

At that point will clubs like PSG & City struggle?

I think it's 60 years tops and that's the lot . I'm already thinking of an electric car. There is a charging point close to me if it is working obviously

 

[Maticmaker]

PSG and City owners are using their clubs as a form of PR rather than to make money. It does happen

Sometime back I was told (by a City fan) that the original reason the Sheikh bought City was to do with his previous investment in land in the east Manchester area that he thought would be the site for one of the Super Casino's the last Labour Government was planning to build. It emerged that one such Casino was to be located in Manchester, but then Blackpool Borough Council complained and caused a fuss in the Labour party and eventually the Government abandoned the whole project. The Leader of Manchester City Council (a true blue) apparently suggested to the Sheikh that he might invest in City, since he had land to spare which no one wanted to buy, around the Commonwealth Stadium or as it became known "the Council house', and the 'project was underway, and the rest they say is history!

The same City fan told me one reason the Sheikh didn't buy the stadium (just the naming rights) was because if Manchester City Council was to receive any returns on selling the Stadium they would have to pay back to Central Government the money they received to help to build the stadium originally... this is all probably a load of codswallop, but its good story and does perhaps illustrate the law of 'unintended consequences' something the United might be wary of if its new owners had anything only making money out of the club as their priority, the Glazers maybe money grabbing so and so's etc, but at least we know what their motives are, could we say the same for the Saudis?

 

[Moriarty]

Personally I don't see them buying us anyway, there is too much animosity towards them right now

All the more reason for them to do so mate. Sportwashing United would be -in their eyes- a great way to negate much of their bad press.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Ideally, I would not like my club to be owned by a terror exporter like the Saud family, but if it happens, then it happens. I don't necessarily see it as affecting my love for the club.
From my point of view, the Saudis have invested (publicly or secretly) in so many businesses all around the world. So it is likely that I am using/spending on stuff that is helping the family make money in one way or another.

Anyways, I hope they never buy our club though

 

[Ban]

Honestly, I watch football for football and dont concern myself in the slightest with any of the shit that goes on at boardroom level. Whoever owns the club, as long as they invest money into the club that the size of our club demands, then I'll continue to not give a feck. It has nothing to do with values and what not. I didnt become a Manchester United supporter because of who the owner was, who the manager was, not even fully who the players were. Just like I can occasionally strongly dislike United managers and want them gone while still supporting the club like with Mourinho, the same is in the owner position, just with the difference that the only thing they should get involved in is buying players.

So if they keep up their end, then they can stay hidden in the background of the club and whatever shit they do outside of United can be judged in whatever field they do it in. The vast majority of billionaire owners around the world are shady as feck. You arent likely to get an owner who ticks all the boxes. You just separate the job from the person with everything and that's how you look at it as 2 separate entities altogether. In the same way that Giggs is one of our biggest all time legends, he's also a complete scum bag of a human being who had an affair with his brothers wife for 8 years. Still love him as a player because I dont give a feck about what he does outside of the pitch.

So let's say someone like Radovan Karadžić becomes an owner of your favorite club, you wouldnt care.

I'm apathetic to Dinamo right now because all the Zdravko Mamić stuff in and around the club, let alone truly horrific regime taking over United.

But each to his own.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Also a slightly non football related thing -

When is the Oil aspect of our needs & environment going to run down or not be needed anymore —atleast not tlt he same level.

At that point will clubs like PSG & City struggle?

The Saudis are heavily investing in tech companies in Silicon Valley. They have a huge investment with Softbank, which along with their smart CEO is taking the business world by storm. The Saudis are investing in all kinds of businesses.
They have put out a vision to be oil-independent in next decade.

 

[Cloud7]

I find many people here selective with their morals, they cant stand the idea of the football club being owned by a murderous regime, yet they live and pay taxes to governments that kill in the name of their land and with their money.

My country

A) Produces our own oil and gas
B) Haven’t committed any humans rights offenses or murdered foreigners as far as I know.
C) We’re a former colony so our resources were plundered rather than us doing the plundering.

With all of that being said, I laugh at everyone in this thread from my moral high ground.

Ha ha ha ha.

I can’t stand the Saudi regime and I hope they feck off and leave us alone.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

All the more reason for them to do so mate. Sportwashing United would be -in their eyes- a great way to negate much of their bad press.

I'm not sure, you would think the bigger the crimes, the bigger the club would need to be to sportwash. However given everything United does is big news, by virtue of them being our owners, every negative activity they do will then be heightened by all media.

 

[crossy1686]

Would hate to see us owned by the Saudis. Barbaric regime.

I'd rather we went into receivership, disbanded, didn't exist for 10 years, re-banded and started again in the bottom tier than have anything to do with them or be a state run club.