Finances are so dire, really troubling times ahead given the current wage bill and lack of talent.
Club ownership | Senior management team talk
- Thread starter golden_blunder
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May well have been made up rubbish.
I will say though that it’s those 2 brothers that are the ones to convince, which is gonna be hard. Which other business would be giving them dividends in the millions
That's about it. Except net spend will remain high while the transfer debt of £300+m unwinds over the next few years.
Yup this was always the case, some of us pointed out during the sale process that it really wasn't Ratcliffe vs. Jassim, but Joel & Avram vs. the other 4, and that's what was holding things up for so long.
Why do you they will still have a high net spend? I think they are more likely to reign it in.
The transfer debt is net spend yet to be paid- the difference between future installment we have to pay on players we bought and future payments other clubs have to pay us for players we sold. That amount jumped in Q1 2025 after the 200+ INEOS spend. So it's not all on Arnold. Its just a reflection of our poor player trading (spending big on new players while generating feck all in sales).
I get that but thats historic net spend. I mean I don't think we'll spend much more than we recieve (ignoring payment terms) on new signings this summer.
Poor article IMO. You can't just look at EBITDA on its own and hand-wave away the impact of high transfer fees (amortization) and the existing debt (interest).
Quality decision not to bring someone in this window. Who would have thought one of our 4 forwards can get injured?
Right, so for future players bought and sold, the cash flow account would show 0 for new net spend going forward for as long as you persisted with that policy.
But you still have to make further cash payments for players bought before the policy change and other clubs have to make cash payments for players sold before the policy change, so cash flow would show
a net spend of say 80m for each of the next 4 years (in reality the run off is different) regardless of the new policy
So total net spend is (80+0) for years 1 to 4. The only way to bring total net spend down to zero is to only sell players for 80m going forward.
I know all that, but I'm talking simplistic summer 2025 net spend (not cash flow) which I thought you meant with your original comment.
Do you think we'll have a typical £100-150m net summer player trading? I can't see it.
Youd have to say this is the worst run of events the club has seen in the last 40 years.
So many questionable decisions. The way we cast aside Rashford and Anthony made me think people were being brought in to replace them. Thats negligence.
Ashworth was negligence.
Amorim was negligence.
So many bad decisions.
So many questionable decisions. The way we cast aside Rashford and Anthony made me think people were being brought in to replace them. Thats negligence.
Ashworth was negligence.
Amorim was negligence.
So many bad decisions.
Ok Sorry. The more I think about it the more I think they have to back the guy. And hopefully they are planning to do so. As much as we might not like it, cuts and ST price hikes would provide the cash flow for that size of spending even without euro ball for a year. The right departures would also help, not so much in a net spend since, but in terms of the salary space their exits leaves behind.
It has become clear that the Qatari bid, if it was legitimate, was the last chance this club had of becoming competitive again in the near future. Now I don't see how we get out of this mess.
The people who were saying Antony and Rashford weren't playing so them leaving without a replacement was no big deal.
I said injuries would happen and well...Yeah.
What’s that saying
“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”
Ratcliffe / Ineos are basically the Glazers Darth Vador, but yeah people think they’re United’s savour.
“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”
Ratcliffe / Ineos are basically the Glazers Darth Vador, but yeah people think they’re United’s savour.
No, there was an 18 month window where only Ratcliffe could buy shares from the Glazers. After that, it becomes open to anyone again. At that point Ratcliffe has the right to match any other bid and his will be the one accepted, but if he decides not to match it then he has no choice but to sell his shares for the same amount the Glazers are getting.
There is a lot of myths floating around about finances. I wouldn't listen to anything journalists write about money. They studied English not Accountancy.
As someone that works in Finance and understands it. We are still the 4th richest club in the world, and could easily go to 2nd with some on field success, ie going deep in the CL.
The trouble is the silly contracts some of the players are on making them unsellable. The finances will ease as more and more of them leave and their contracts expire.
There is plenty of wiggle room to bring in players. They just wont be all on 200-300k a week and cost £80m. Which is ok, because it isn't necessary. The club needs lots of solid players in the £20-40m bracket on say £75k to £100k a week. A couple of superstars will not fix this mess, it needs a complete overhaul.
The amount owed to other clubs for transfer fees is not all due in 1 year. Spending £150m net next summer could be a single hit as little as £30m if the payments are made over 5 years.
Its not great to have to service debt. But at the same time, it isn't crippling the club. Instead its the decades long bad recruitment and wage control.
£100m net spend every season is easily achievable with our revenue. Even with poor performance on the pitch only Real Madrid, City and PSG bring in more cash than us.
We get out of it by doing what INEOS are doing. Trim the fat out of operations, ie make the workforce leaner, and get rid of high earning, underperforming players. Unfortunately that is going to take 2 years to take effect. The underlying football club is very strong and easily the 2nd strongest financially in the premier league.
They arnt dire. It just needs some housekeeping to move out the deadwood.
Exactly.
As someone that works in Finance and understands it. We are still the 4th richest club in the world, and could easily go to 2nd with some on field success, ie going deep in the CL.
The trouble is the silly contracts some of the players are on making them unsellable. The finances will ease as more and more of them leave and their contracts expire.
There is plenty of wiggle room to bring in players. They just wont be all on 200-300k a week and cost £80m. Which is ok, because it isn't necessary. The club needs lots of solid players in the £20-40m bracket on say £75k to £100k a week. A couple of superstars will not fix this mess, it needs a complete overhaul.
The amount owed to other clubs for transfer fees is not all due in 1 year. Spending £150m net next summer could be a single hit as little as £30m if the payments are made over 5 years.
Its not great to have to service debt. But at the same time, it isn't crippling the club. Instead its the decades long bad recruitment and wage control.
£100m net spend every season is easily achievable with our revenue. Even with poor performance on the pitch only Real Madrid, City and PSG bring in more cash than us.
We get out of it by doing what INEOS are doing. Trim the fat out of operations, ie make the workforce leaner, and get rid of high earning, underperforming players. Unfortunately that is going to take 2 years to take effect. The underlying football club is very strong and easily the 2nd strongest financially in the premier league.
They arnt dire. It just needs some housekeeping to move out the deadwood.
Exactly.
And nor is he doing that, AFAICS?
I disagree any of it constitutes 'negligence'.
Most signings, including executive roles and managers, are fraught with risk. They're a punt. A gamble. Sometimes they work and other times not.
It's too early to say Amorim is 'negligence' when he took us over during a period of intense change. Keeping EtH on, maybe.
As for Ineos' 'penny-pinching', well... We are seeing what responsible management actually looks like, that's all. Sugar-fed for over a decade, on bullsiht, now it's time to reap the harvest.
It's a bit like Kier Starmer's Labour, expected to right the decade of wrong in five minutes around a hostile press and expectant, somewhat entitled, populace.
Grim times, but, well, there it is.
Yep, probably time to just face up to the fact that they’re potentially worse than the Glazers.
Results on the pitch are certainly worse than it ever was under the Glazers.
They fecked up the transfer window in the summer with average to mediocre signings. Granted they got the deals done with little drama and that’s about the extent of the positives.
Not sacking ETH was criminal.
The cuts at the club with very little remorse shown.
Allowing Antony and Rashford to leave WITHOUT replacing them. Even if it was just a loan signing.
We were always one/two injuries away from being in deep shit in terms of our attacking players. Now that’s happened.
INEOS have been a complete and utter disaster. And the very scary thing is this will get worse.
We’ll probably win at best 2-3 games for the rest of the season and finish 16th.
That poor momentum carrying over and then if they don’t sign the 3-4 very good players needed in the summer, relegation is a genuine possibility next season, something Paul Scholes pointed out this week.
We’re lucky the promoted three are so bad, they’re unlikely to be next year.
That's a bit dramatic, given they were highly paid, hugely underperforming players, with Rashford having attitude and disciplinary issues on top.
Poor decisions do not automatically equate to negligence. It just appears, unfortunately that hopes Ineos would run the club more competently appear misguided.
We've lost £313m over the last 3 years with net player costs around £100-150m per year. We're also staring at a long spell of no Champions league (maybe Europe at all), and lower league finish income.
So I disagree, something will have to give outside of wages.
I disagree.
Ineos have essentially done what's expected.
Hired a fresh new coach, got in the best in class, sensible transfers, made the hard calls where finances are concerned, dropping the wasters, identified issues with stadia, refused to be ripped-off in negotiations.
Yet, it's still not good enough. The reason is quite simple: The Glazers.
You cannot get around how bad they've been for well over a decade within one season. Ineos have been mediocre but all I expected them to be.
There's a long road back and we better used to walking it.
This. The Galzers had no choice but to make some sort of cash injection. Shame there were only two alternatora.
If we are not in Europe next season we are in a big big problem which fixing may take the best part of the next decade.
I now understand that a 30 year wait for the title could be something i would take right now.
Revenue****
If there was ever an interested party with deep, deep oil pockets, then surely they are looking as us and thinking now’s the time to make a decent offer to the Glazers - or give a few weeks until we are firmly in the shit.
The Glazer know that relegation could see them losing the lot, similarly SJR will be getting worried. Then again, how much of a bargain would MUFC be if we are relegated?
The Glazer know that relegation could see them losing the lot, similarly SJR will be getting worried. Then again, how much of a bargain would MUFC be if we are relegated?
I’m not quite sure what people expect? We have been one of the worst run football institutes in the world for almost 20 years.
Yes Ineos have made some bad decisions (retaining ETH), plus some unpopular ones (staff cuts etc), but they need to shake things up massively as the current model is unsustainable by some distance. Poor performance in the pitch masked by a couple of cups, huge financial losses which are bringing us close to PSR trouble.
Everyone has moaned about Rashford and how they would “drive him to Barca” themselves … yet now bemoan us being light because of injuries … I didn’t see many moan “get Rashford out and replace him”?
Yes Ineos have made some bad decisions (retaining ETH), plus some unpopular ones (staff cuts etc), but they need to shake things up massively as the current model is unsustainable by some distance. Poor performance in the pitch masked by a couple of cups, huge financial losses which are bringing us close to PSR trouble.
Everyone has moaned about Rashford and how they would “drive him to Barca” themselves … yet now bemoan us being light because of injuries … I didn’t see many moan “get Rashford out and replace him”?
A bit hyperbolic and disingenuous.
Sportswashing isn't the only sure fire method of remaining consistent within English football. Look at Liverpool.
Of course, it's the quickest bet which is why many fans endorse it. Human rights? Who cares if we win. Amirite? I have my rights, if others don't, that's their problem, aye.
city have done well to hire Barcelona's tried and tested method. However, psg, under the same Qatari regime so desired by a few on here, have consistently failed to win the one trophy which matters. Even The Glazers have won it.
Had Qatar won the bid (it's telling they failed with a state bid), they'd have cleared up debt, sure, but they'd be doing the same thing Ineos are now, only with more money. Imagine the United Tax, alone.
The team running away with the league and their closest challengers aren't owned by states.
I thought you were talking about Ineos- the Glazers' greed and ineptitude goes without saying.
Ineos have sadly underwhelmed though. It's still early days and some positives, but the keeping of ETH and hiring of Amorim midseason and the Ashworth fiasco reek of incompetence.
I’ve been defensive of them because I think they’re getting a lot of unnecessary criticism for cleaning up Glazer mess
But the decision to not get a forward in January was diabolical. Absolutely ridiculous. Could easily cost us CL football for next season
But the decision to not get a forward in January was diabolical. Absolutely ridiculous. Could easily cost us CL football for next season
Rush a signing to achieve what though? 11th instead of 13th?
We shouldn't be making decisions based on the very here and now given the season is pretty much over anyway. Forget this season. And as pointed out we needed to sell to buy this Jan.
I'm fairly happy the club seems to be making decisons based on the summer and next season.
Agree with everything except the summer window. Think the 4 signings were all very good, even Zirkzee might just be right player wrong club.
I'm frankly having trouble making sense of the club's messaging right now. We are told we need big changes to the team (presumably, since it may be the worst United have ever fielded) and aim to win the PL by 2028. Simultaneously, we have to sack 200 people to avoid going bust, and can't buy anyone without finding buyers for the least desirable part of the squad that makes us the worst team in United history. We're told it's going to be painful for a considerable time, but also that the focus right now is on winning rather than on improving performances. We spend millions hiring a DoF and further millions almost immediately sacking him, in part because he wanted to outsource analytics rather than build it in-house. Then we put recruitment in the hand of a former technical director from the only other big club who is known to have not relied much on analytics in recruitment.
It's not easy to see how all of this is supposed to add up.
It's not easy to see how all of this is supposed to add up.
Really? If they were so good, how come we are a considerably worse team than the season before, despite the fact they're all of them playing regularly? To me it seems obvious that Nicky Butt was spot on when he spoke about this before the season - these are not players who are good enough to elevate us. They basically just fill what would otherwise be gaping holes in the squad.
How can someone possibly be a good signing even using that logic?
if he doesn't fit in our club.....he's not a good signing. "quality player for someone else, which means some other team can't have him! 1-0."Didnt I say keeping the warchest is ok, but why let players go if they are not replaced? Whats controversial?
I don’t think he’s a bad player, he’s the right age, he’s the right price. At another time he’d fit into our system.How can someone possibly be a good signing even using that logic?