The decline started way before SAF left. We had an old team and needed to rebuild.
Balanced thread regarding the Glazer ownership
- Thread starter The Oracle
- Start date
They’re scum. I’ve been something of an apologist for them because I genuinely believe that any club owner is a leech to some degree and that we have spent a lot of money. But it all comes back to the fact that they haven’t done enough to get the best sporting structure, the best stadium and facilities and ensured that we are consistently competing at the top end of the table.
My verdict on OP
TL;DR
TL;DR
Most of the most damaging decisions comes from SAF. Moyes and ole
If only the glazer are more ruthless and trusting their business instinct of hiring manager based on their credentials instead of listening to SAF.
I wouldnt blame them for trusting SAF though, without hindishgt trusting him is the logical thing to do.
If only the glazer are more ruthless and trusting their business instinct of hiring manager based on their credentials instead of listening to SAF.
I wouldnt blame them for trusting SAF though, without hindishgt trusting him is the logical thing to do.
I felt that it was quite sympathetic to Glazers OP, rather than balanced.
My view:
2005-2011: honestly, if it was not for SAF, and an inherited group of great players, we would have been in trouble. The investment, especially in summers of 2009 and 2010 were shocking, and that was the time to build from the top. Massive money spent on interest payments (circa 70m/year).
When it came to making money, they did excellent though, which allowed them to restructure the debt. We were stagnating financially and our commercial department had 2 people with us being interested in only the two big deals: Nike and Vodafone. Glazers totally restructured that part, which brand an immense amount of revenue which allowed us to be more flexible later. Other clubs then followed what they did, with clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool essentially copying their commercial strategy.
20011-2013: decent backing of SAF, no interference, club on autopilot both commercially and in football level.
2013-2022: terrible. Massive money spent but no idea on how to spend it. Commercially we continue growing but nothing as innovative as when they bought us, and other clubs have totally caught up.
So:
Commercially - they did fantastic, and put us in a good spot for the future. However, we were unable to fully capitalize recently because of our terrible results.
Recruiting: the less we talk, the better. Money spent but it would have been better to donate that money to charity, at least something good would have come out of it. The most expensive assembled squad in the world, but a borderline top 20 squad in quality.
Managers: even worse than recruiting.
Debt: we were in massive trouble till circa 2010 or so, the debt is negligible and does not affect us anymore.
Verdict: feck them!
My view:
2005-2011: honestly, if it was not for SAF, and an inherited group of great players, we would have been in trouble. The investment, especially in summers of 2009 and 2010 were shocking, and that was the time to build from the top. Massive money spent on interest payments (circa 70m/year).
When it came to making money, they did excellent though, which allowed them to restructure the debt. We were stagnating financially and our commercial department had 2 people with us being interested in only the two big deals: Nike and Vodafone. Glazers totally restructured that part, which brand an immense amount of revenue which allowed us to be more flexible later. Other clubs then followed what they did, with clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool essentially copying their commercial strategy.
20011-2013: decent backing of SAF, no interference, club on autopilot both commercially and in football level.
2013-2022: terrible. Massive money spent but no idea on how to spend it. Commercially we continue growing but nothing as innovative as when they bought us, and other clubs have totally caught up.
So:
Commercially - they did fantastic, and put us in a good spot for the future. However, we were unable to fully capitalize recently because of our terrible results.
Recruiting: the less we talk, the better. Money spent but it would have been better to donate that money to charity, at least something good would have come out of it. The most expensive assembled squad in the world, but a borderline top 20 squad in quality.
Managers: even worse than recruiting.
Debt: we were in massive trouble till circa 2010 or so, the debt is negligible and does not affect us anymore.
Verdict: feck them!
I would like to add to this that the notion of use being some commercial juggernaut is false or at least paints a very scewed picture. We were clearly the leading club in Europe with other clubs striving to copy our model. That has changed as we aren't leading here anymore like in every other segment of our business. The wonders the Glazers and Ed have done over there years is in direct correlation to the explosion of money in football and TV surrounding the sport. We shouldn't give credit were there is non due.
Of course but the growth commercially under them has been great, maybe it was easy given SAF’s successes and maybe anyone else could have done it - I’m not ruling that out - but that still occurred and intensified under them.
feck the Glazers
There's some balance for ya
There's some balance for ya
Exactly. They've sunk one of the biggest and most successful clubs on the planet and turned it into a laughing stock and symbol of mismanagement. They've been abysmal.
Weve got players with no fear of authority and no problem talking shit in the media about managers, training, dont like the captain etc because they know they are seen as valuable assets to the owners. A fish rots from the head first, and here we are. Oh they tried to kidnap the club into a superleage aswell, but other than that, geezers
When Real Madrid were winning 4 champions leagues we had the might to be right there with them competing, if we were competent and ambitious for glory, but they made us a laughing stock and still bled the club
When Real Madrid were winning 4 champions leagues we had the might to be right there with them competing, if we were competent and ambitious for glory, but they made us a laughing stock and still bled the club
The cold hard reality is that if you map when those wins occur it shows an obvious pattern of decline.
The cold hard reality is that we sold Ronaldo for 80m and replaced him with Valencia under their ownership. We started looking for 'value on the market' shortly after they took over.
I dread to think where we'd be if SAF walked back then.
That success came on the back of the work put in by previous ownership.
The glazers have done feck all. It was already unravelling by 2010 after selling Ronaldo, and we managed to keep going due to Fergie.
Once he retired, that was it.
Now it's all on show, there's no way to hide it. Gross incompetence from Woodward and pals plus greed from the owners have left us twitching in the dirt.
I was wondering the other day if it's a case of Malcolm Glazer the business genius dying and leaving his idiot kids behind who then feck up everything up.
...slowly.
Anybody got a mate called Vlad? There's a job opportunity opening up ...
These owners spent the most money and paid the highest wage bill since 2010 or 2013 until today.
In terms of spending money, they did alright. Was it their money or money made by the club? It doesn't matter, it's still their money.
What they did wrong is they fecked up the entire club structure and didn't appoint the right football people. I didn't really expect that from such well known business men. But, as I've read recently, they did the same thing with a club from US which says a lot.
If the recent changes at the club somehow work and if they invest in a new stadium, I might warm up to them a bit but that still won't erase what they've done to the club and I still think they should feck off.
But, let's be honest, they ain't going anywhere soon. Having a business so well know is like owning a few Rembrandts, it's safe cash kept in a safe location.
SAF, Gill and Sir Bobby recommended Moyes the Glazers could've said no but as we're all aware they didn't have a plan for post SAF. They wanted another SAF so they could leave the club how it was and it would be business as usual. Woodward hired Ole. Ole was the popular choice amongst fans and pundits. The original plan was for Ole to see out the season then we were going to go for Poch in the summer but Ole convinced Woodward he was the man and he was hired permanently.
Once again these owners didn't spend a single pound of their own money, we could and would of spent exactly the same if we were owned by the fans.
Stop with the bs.
That's how I see it too. Malcolm had form as a corporate raider, long before he set his sights on United or even Tampa Bay. He tried several times to gain ownership of an NFL franchise before he landed Tampa. Of particular interest is his acquisition of Zapata Oil (a name well-known to JFK assassination researchers), a company for which he was manifestly unsuited having no experience at all in the energy industry. Glazer was sued by Zapata shareholder in the early 1990s, amidst allegations that he was diverting company assets into banks to which he owed money for his purchase of the Bucs. There's a long history of litigation involving the Glazers. Would a little research into their activities in the United States back then have raised questions about their fitness to own Manchester United? Maybe.
It's water under the bridge now but here's a link to an interesting article from the Tampa Bay Times from 1996, plus a couple of other pieces that may be of interest.
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1996/07/21/glazer-accused-of-milking-texas-firm-to-finance-bucs/
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1998/11/16/story2.html
https://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/court-of-chancery/1993/12958-3.html
2009 was the start of our decline. We replaced Ronaldo and Tevez with Valencia, Obertan and Owen. We were very lucky that Rooney hit his absolute peak that year which enabled us to be successful for a little while longer.
Objectively they're parasites.
After winning in Moscow we were top dogs, could have built a true dynasty. Glazers and debt stopped us, though Fergie was complicit. He doesnt come of this blameless unfortunately.
I believe in the US you would not be able to buy an NFL franchise with a leveraged deal in the way the Glazers did with Utd.
The flipside of this is is that the club is financially able to survive on its own. Clubs like Chelsea, City, PSG, Barcelona and now Newcastle to name a few have Enormous debt to their owners to the tune of "Couldnt pay it off even if they wanted to". In Barcelonas case they have been ran so poorly I am gobsmacked the board has not been investigated for criminal mismanagement of funds. Bartomeu is hands down the most irresponsible and incompetent President of any football club in history. That Barcelona FC has not gone under is only due to colossal bank loans that no other company would be awarded in their current financial state.
Chelsea were listed with a debt of a cool £179m during the Superliga saga. Thats not so bad is it? Chelsea FC, a club that made its own way, with its own income and a total of £1.9 billion interest free loans from Roman across 19 years, of which £1.5b pounds is current debt. Chelsea has been running with a operating loss 14 of the last 19 years. Chelsea isnt being ran as a football club at all, its being ran as a artificially propped up moneylaundering scheme for a Oligark.
If their owners were to decide that they need to sell assets to get their money back, clubs like Chelsea (irrelevant example as the club is now sold to new owners), City and PSG will all go under unless a new buyer is willing to pay the astronomical sums to buy the club.
Football clubs in a fair play market are defined as making their own success. That is the entire point about the fans turning out en masse to ensure that the Super Liga was scratched due to its nature of ruining the principle of achievement through success over legacy rights. Having owners that will to things like allow the club to invest in a new stadium and infrastructure is certainly completely fine, they are the people that is in charge of running the clubs fiscally responsible and able to survive on its own. A club that cant pay its debt is technically bankrupt. Owners propping up clubs with loans that effectively are gifts is not running anything like a club, its just luck.
Neither City, Chelsea or PSG are ran like football clubs. They are a nice way to showcase their respective state ownerships and reap the global opportunities that come with owning brands with followings in all continents.
No one will dispute that the clubs are having success on the pitch, but that is not the point either. They didnt make their own luck, they only exist because new owners were willing to prop them up with artificial loans and unrealistic fundings that is even hidden from the clubs balance sheets. In Citys case they had to go to great lengths to survive a champions league ban from FFP breaches in 2012 and 2016. No one has any misgivings that they suddenly complied in 2014-2016, nor beyond.
The oil clubs are fake middle-faring clubs that have recruited right when money became impossibly available overnight.
Manchester United is a real football club that has been ran poorly, but importantly can survive its owners, because the club does not have debt to its owners.
The Glazer family as the only club in football, uses the club as a dividends payout machine, handsomly rewarding themselves every year, while offering nothing. They have not invested any of their own money into the club, and that is the difference between MUFC and the Oil clubs.
I will always choose financially dependable and fiscally responsible over clubs that have levels of debt they can not survive, and only exist because their owners wills it so. Fans might care more about the shiny new toys that come in the door regardless of how that purchase was funded, but they can not survive on their own, whereas Manchester United could have the Glazer family say goodbye tomorrow and it would only affect us positively.
Not entirely sure i follow you. But if they sell the club tomororw its likely we still have £500m of debt to service. It would depend on whether a new buyer wanted to clear that debt as well.
The point is that we still have a serviceable debt.
Chelsea have (had until the other day) £1.5b in current debt.
City have significantly more than that. PSG is beyond all scope the most debt ridden club in all of sports. If their owners want out, no owner will want to fund that outstanding balance to take over a club in France. PSG is entirely reliant on that not happening, ever. Or the owners simply forgiving more than £2bn in debt for no reason
The reason they'll always be bad to me is that they don't seem to care about football or the club beyond a share price. They're distant owners and that's why we've had decision making that has been very disjointed. It's hard to suddenly change your mentality from being a purely business focused venture to awarding the same degree of interest to the sporting side. If I bought an American football side I can't just manufacture interest. Now, can you get around that with good decision making and appointing the right people? Probably, but generally the more you're passionate about something the better you become, and the Glazers will never become good sporting owners for this reason.
The stuff about dividends and stuff like that is petty, though. I honestly don't know what fans expect. Do you want a Saudi type owner will all that brings or do you want a businessman? You can't have all the riches the world brings in terms of commercial opportunities and then by the same token expect owners to be disinclined to take profit. Who is this future owner going to be that pays billions for a venture that doesn't not provide ongoing access to capital? Very weird notion, plus 20 million is a pittance. I put that type of stuff in the category of packaging every nonsensical point into a big ball to throw at the owners.
The stuff about dividends and stuff like that is petty, though. I honestly don't know what fans expect. Do you want a Saudi type owner will all that brings or do you want a businessman? You can't have all the riches the world brings in terms of commercial opportunities and then by the same token expect owners to be disinclined to take profit. Who is this future owner going to be that pays billions for a venture that doesn't not provide ongoing access to capital? Very weird notion, plus 20 million is a pittance. I put that type of stuff in the category of packaging every nonsensical point into a big ball to throw at the owners.
That's my understanding too. This from 2019, but I believe that nothing has changed rule-wise since then:
"The NFL's current ownership rules hold that only individuals – not firms or corporate entities – who are capable of paying cash for a stake worth at least 30 percent of a franchise's value can become a principal owner of one of its 32 teams. While the NFL has considered relaxing its rules as franchise values rise to levels that exclude all but the richest investors, sports economists say private equity investments are likely to remain on the sport’s periphery for the time being" (Fox Business Report, November 28th, 2019).
https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/private-equity-nfl-team-ownership
Interesting piece from Fortune magazine from February 2021.
https://fortune.com/2021/02/06/burnley-alk-capital-private-equity-premier-league-leveraged-buyout/
Kind of. The old Chelsea debt was interest free and not to be repaid, as part of the imminent change of owner its gone. No guarantess Utd get that treatment, and what we currently have is certainly not interest free. Glazers could sell shares to reduce debt, they choose not to. I am strugging to see much positive about these debt levels, especially as none of the money was invested in the club (unlike say Spurs), other than in some scenario it could have been worse, but so what.
I disagree, they have already made a huge return on their initial (Very small) capital investment, they sell down shares to line their pockets for hundreds of millions. They dont 'need' to take out managment fees as well as dividends, from shares remember that have much higher voting rights than those available to other shareholder. Leaches.
WTF is this thread!!
Most extremely wealthy shareholders don't "need" dividends. They don't "need" all the profit from selling shares either. That's not the point, it's not for buying milk and bread. It's simply the way it is in business, there isn't this utopian world of perfect owners that will buy us as philanthropists. They're always going to have an agenda, whether that is sports washing, ongoing access to capital or for a future sale. With the Glazers it is a combination of the latter two, and for most purchasers it will be similar.
The only way this changes is if fans club together and buy the club. I don't see the point in lumping together these weak arguments when there are genuine ones such as lack of investment in OT and it's surrounding infrastructure and poor sporting decisions.
The annoying thing about the Glazer debate is the desire by some to re-do and relive arguments over the takeover.
Facts are the debt didn’t lead us to low investments in the team as feared.
It’s also a reality the club has been mismanaged over the last few years and has team have gone backwards on their watch. It needs to be possible to make that point and have this argument without people insisting we pretend it’s 2006 again.
I think the Glazer’s have run the club poorly in the last few years but that has nothing to do with debt. We’ll never have a grown up conversation about why they’ve been so poor so long as we keep being dragged back to the debt
“Here are points I made in 2006” needs to stop being the place we’re dragged back to
Facts are the debt didn’t lead us to low investments in the team as feared.
It’s also a reality the club has been mismanaged over the last few years and has team have gone backwards on their watch. It needs to be possible to make that point and have this argument without people insisting we pretend it’s 2006 again.
I think the Glazer’s have run the club poorly in the last few years but that has nothing to do with debt. We’ll never have a grown up conversation about why they’ve been so poor so long as we keep being dragged back to the debt
“Here are points I made in 2006” needs to stop being the place we’re dragged back to
Almost a decade lads.
Not saying we would have won the title every season.
But we have fallen so much behind.
Even with the structural changes and ten Hag coming, we will need four to five years to catch up.
And now we have Newcastle to contend with too.
That is how much harm the owners have done to our club.
Not saying we would have won the title every season.
But we have fallen so much behind.
Even with the structural changes and ten Hag coming, we will need four to five years to catch up.
And now we have Newcastle to contend with too.
That is how much harm the owners have done to our club.
In 2022 being balanced just means finding excuses for horrible twats to continue being horrible twats
That's the real puzzling bit for me. For example, I bought a house in 2002 at a reasonable price. It needed work and I attended to that over time. It needed a new roof, I put one on it. It needed new windows. I put those in, and so on and so forth. Any property owner, no matter how small, invests time and effort into maintaining what most likely is his largest asset. The Glazers seem content to add a patch here and there, when a major overhaul is needed. When they arrived, Old Trafford was probably the finest ground in the country. Where is it now? What does it need by way of remedial work that could have been avoided with some foresight?
The poor sporting decision is down to the Glazers delegating the task to a man wholly unsuited to the task, but that is nothing new for them (see above post and links). Woodward's loyalty was always to the Glazer family, not to Manchester United, and it was returned in spades. Just because he could finagle a leveraged buyout didn't mean he could oversee a sporting institution with the same alacrity, which seemed to me to be their thinking.
Those who wave away the debt are clueless about how banks operate.
For such huge sums, the compliance documents are very stringent.
Banks don't take risks.
The second problem is the owners have no clue about running a football club. The fact they did not set up the structure now being implemented proves they had no interest in running it as a football club.
It was just an investment for which the club bore the risk, not the owners.
For such huge sums, the compliance documents are very stringent.
Banks don't take risks.
The second problem is the owners have no clue about running a football club. The fact they did not set up the structure now being implemented proves they had no interest in running it as a football club.
It was just an investment for which the club bore the risk, not the owners.
Focus on the debt is misguided. We shouldn’t be smashing transfer records every year, that’s a sign of mismanagement the fact we need to do that regularly. Yet perversely it seems not doing the very thing that proves we’re mismanaged is what so many fans demand
Yes, all the risk and downside always been with the fans/ club. Their stewardship of the football side has been appalling. They may be indifferent but it remains bemusing quite why they allowed Woodward to sail the ship right onto the rocks. Maybe one day we will know what he held over them. Or may be the later Fergie years convinced them they didnt need to do much and once the 'right' manager was found it would all be fine.
I dont think many demand records be broken. A clear coherent strategy and decent football from a competitive team should be the bare minimum for a club of this size.