Club Sale | It’s done!

[devilish]

FSG were fairly dire during the their first years at Liverpool. Dalglish as manager, Downing, Carroll, Charlie Adam etc.

They obviously learnt from experience.

I would say Ratcliffe's ownership of Nice is a good thing as I'm sure he'd have learnt a few things.


Projecting what has happened at Nice over the last few years onto a potential Ineos ownership of United is short sighted and simplistic imo.

In a previous post I called INEOs as the richer but dumber version of the Glazers. There's a huge disclaimer to that which is that I am only talking in football terms. As a business man Ratcliffe is simply amazing.

Now let's dissect that claim

Richer. That goes without saying but it also have a key advantage over the Glazers. While the latter are forced to rely on the likes of Woodward to juggle the huge debt, INEOS can run clubs as a proper football team. That means that in theory they can hire the best people for it without any concerns on how to keep the whole venture afloat. I call them dumber because they keep on relying on people who have no idea how football works. Take Bob Ratcliffe as an example. He failed as president of Lausanne. Instead of firing him, Ineos made him as a CEO of Nice FC. He then tanked again and he was given the role as head of football operations. The same with Brailsford. The guy might be a legend in cycling but he shouldn't be anywhere near to football clubs. Its like asking Tyson on whether we should replace DDG or not or if ETH is doing a good job. Yet Brailsford was tasked to make an audit on Nice and he was even within INEOs inner circle who visited Manchester United.

Nice is run poorly. They bought players not even the manager knew anything about, they are at 10th place and their U19 is tanking which is bad enough if INEOS were managing Manchester United but is scandalous when one is managing a club in the French league were the youth academy play a central role to everything. TBF there are attempts for improvement. Blanc was an astute buy, Fabrice Bocquet seems quite promising and they hired Florent Ghisolfi as well. However we're talking of an organization whom, till this time of writing, has been tanking in football despite being into it since 2017. If they can't handle the likes of Lausanne and Nice then they'll certainly struggle with a juggernaut like Manchester United.

 

[devilish]

The Raine group asked all interested parties, even if they wished to buy a minority or refinancing package to value the club in its full entirety. The current share price is $19.16 and the market cap is $3.09billion that’s the full value of the club if all shares were to be sold at that price.

However because two main bidders are trying to take over the controlling shares of the club, they have to bid for the full value of the club so by SJR offering £5bn which is more likely his bid not £6bn that is $6.2bn which is double the market cap, he can afford to be this bold because he does not intend to buy 100% of the club, he only intends to buy 50.01% or 69% which is (£2.51bn or £3.45bn)

SJ bid is different because he has made it clear they will buy only 100% of the shares, So his offer will be slightly lower, because he is offering a premium to the Glazers but also to all the other share holders. The part that people have missed and this is quite important is that the Glazers have Voting B shares and A shares too.

Apparently Darcie, Joel snd Avram have 4.25% of the 31% left, so he is theoretically offering the Glazers the opportunity to purchase their 73.25% of £4.8bn which is £3.516bn, In other words more cash now, probably not enough but the fact they met at Clarridges with Avram this week makes me think that we are near the end game, however the Qatar bid through 92 Foundation will probably have to offer another £500m to get the deal done or if it’s being done already they’ve offered more than what’s been circulated through the media.

whom do you think will win?

 

[Amarsdd]

Why would minority investment be the worst option. For me, morally it has to be Ratcliffe out of the two takeover bid simply because of I can't overlook the human rights record of the other side.

However I think financially it's the worst option. Our debt at the moment is structured around the owners having to borrow £750m to buy us. That level of debt with minority investment is surely preferable than the levels of debt acquired in a scenario where an owner is going to borrow billions to own us. Which is what the scenario will be under Ratcliffe.

At least with minority investment it would be to invest. At least hopefully. With Ratcliffe it will be borrowing for the privilege of being owned by someone else, which I thought was the entire objection to the Glazers to begin with. I see no other difference other than Sir Jim being marginally more feckable.

The reality is Ratcliffe neither has £4bn stuffed down the sofa, nor is he selling any portion of Ineos. He's going to borrow.

Jassim is also not going to be paying cold hard cash. Both will be taking out loans to pay for the club. All that matters is that the loan is not secured against the club.

 

[Reapersoul20]

Man City prior to Abu Dhabi was a small club with a local fanbase that bounced around the football divisions. They were bought and essentially became a phoenix club. They used the name of the club and their shirts, but essentially built and entire club on the framework of Man City. There is nothing about this current Man City that has anything to do with their history, or the club prior to Abu Dhabi. They went from Stephen Ireland and Shaun Goater and no success to Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland and racking up trophies.

Manchester United has one of the most storied histories in the world of football. They are arguably in the top 2 biggest football clubs in the world. Their fanbase is massive, their history is massive their success is massive. Qatar can't buy Man Utd and turn them into something they aren't, because they already are a huge club, with big players, they pay big transfer fees, they pay big wages they have a history of success. We can't be bought by Qatar and then criticized when we buy Osimhen for a record breaking fee, because we have a history of signing players for record fees, Denis Law, Bryan Robson, Andy Cole, Rio, Veron, Pogba.

We will never be the next Man City, because they're still trying to be the next Man Utd. We just want owners to return us to the level we historically belong.

Respectfully I completely disagree. Our club moves on once we're sold to Qatar. History isn't deleted, but it's a new era and we become Qatar FC, with all wins contributing to the sportswashing effort and cheapened by the injection of dirty, bloody petrodollars.

United has a great and storied history of working class struggle in the north of England. Going from that to doing a 180 into representing slave-driving, homophobic sexists is a new era essentially forming a new club in my eyes.

It is sad either way to me .

 

[Berbaclass]

FSG were fairly dire during the their first years at Liverpool. Dalglish as manager, Downing, Carroll, Charlie Adam etc.

They obviously learnt from experience.

I would say Ratcliffe's ownership of Nice is a good thing as I'm sure he'd have learnt a few things.


Projecting what has happened at Nice over the last few years onto a potential Ineos ownership of United is short sighted and simplistic imo.

You live in magic land

 

[Woziak]

How is it to the detriment of the club?

Due to the type of buy out SJR is proposing , the club ownership could be challenged that an overall better offer was on the table for the other 31% shareholders by SJ and they should get offered a premium of some description not the $12-13 per share they may be worth 2 or 3 years down the road while Joel and Avram have a guaranteed buy out of maybe $30 per share.

INEOS could face a legal challenge, so could The Glazers, it’s not clean in any way and if some of these same investors who have equity in Manchester United also have Equity in Their NFL club, it’s could be a huge potential problem.

From a club point of view, SJR might use legal court battles as a reason not to invest money in the club for the short term as he could be removed from power with such a slender majority of 50.01%. How any one thinks this is a good idea now we are starting to see the full detail of the proposal is just madness.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Respectfully I completely disagree. Our club moves on once we're sold to Qatar. History isn't deleted, but it's a new era and we become Qatar FC, with all wins contributing to the sportswashing effort and cheapened by the injection of dirty, bloody petrodollars.

United has a great and storied history of working class struggle in the north of England. Going from that to doing a 180 into representing slave-driving, homophobic sexists is a new era essentially forming a new club in my eyes.

It is sad either way to me .

I knew someone would disagree with him. Surely you can see the difference between what had to happen at City and what United need. He is right that they are desperately trying to be us. We will always be us, nobody can change that.They had a smaller fan base, ours if massive compared to what City had. Pep has the ego of a planet, he wants to better SAF.

 

[Syphon Wallet]

Cards on the table, I do not have a Harvard MBA although I do have my have my own business and at least so far haven’t filed for bankruptcy protection.

Question: why is the Glazer debt being dismissed as irrelevant by pundits in the valuation of the offers from Sir Jim and Shiek Jassim?

Jassim’s offer clears the roughly £1B debt, and Sir Jim’s does not…at least so it seems. If that debt isn’t cleared, it’s still there and if it’s still there Jimmy, Joel and Avram are presumably still obligated to service that debt. Or is there is something obviously missing in my two cent analysis of the nature of this debt that makes it reasonable for the British media to ignore this aspect of the relative valuations of these two bids?

Because they leveraged the debt onto the club when the glazers took over, the debt stays as the clubs burden if Jim takes us over but doesn't pay it off.

 

[Coops73]

Man City prior to Abu Dhabi was a small club with a local fanbase that bounced around the football divisions. They were bought and essentially became a phoenix club. They used the name of the club and their shirts, but essentially built and entire club on the framework of Man City. There is nothing about this current Man City that has anything to do with their history, or the club prior to Abu Dhabi. They went from Stephen Ireland and Shaun Goater and no success to Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland and racking up trophies.

Manchester United has one of the most storied histories in the world of football. They are arguably in the top 2 biggest football clubs in the world. Their fanbase is massive, their history is massive their success is massive. Qatar can't buy Man Utd and turn them into something they aren't, because they already are a huge club, with big players, they pay big transfer fees, they pay big wages they have a history of success. We can't be bought by Qatar and then criticized when we buy Osimhen for a record breaking fee, because we have a history of signing players for record fees, Denis Law, Bryan Robson, Andy Cole, Rio, Veron, Pogba.

We will never be the next Man City, because they're still trying to be the next Man Utd. We just want owners to return us to the level we historically belong.

Hear, hear.

 

[Berbaclass]

The Raine group asked all interested parties, even if they wished to buy a minority or refinancing package to value the club in its full entirety. The current share price is $19.16 and the market cap is $3.09billion that’s the full value of the club if all shares were to be sold at that price.

However because two main bidders are trying to take over the controlling shares of the club, they have to bid for the full value of the club so by SJR offering £5bn which is more likely his bid not £6bn that is $6.2bn which is double the market cap, he can afford to be this bold because he does not intend to buy 100% of the club, he only intends to buy 50.01% or 69% which is (£2.51bn or £3.45bn)

SJ bid is different because he has made it clear they will buy only 100% of the shares, So his offer will be slightly lower, because he is offering a premium to the Glazers but also to all the other share holders. The part that people have missed and this is quite important is that the Glazers have Voting B shares and A shares too.

Apparently Darcie, Joel snd Avram have 4.25% of the 31% left, so he is theoretically offering the Glazers the opportunity to purchase their 73.25% of £4.8bn which is £3.516bn, In other words more cash now, probably not enough but the fact they met at Clarridges with Avram this week makes me think that we are near the end game, however the Qatar bid through 92 Foundation will probably have to offer another £500m to get the deal done or if it’s being done already they’ve offered more than what’s been circulated through the media.

Good post. The point about the A shares is a good one, which as you say has barely been talked about.

 

[Reapersoul20]

I knew someone would disagree with him. Surely you can see the difference between what had to happen at City and what United need. He is right that they are desperately trying to be us. We will always be us, nobody can change that.They had a smaller fan base, ours if massive compared to what City had.

Yep, no doubt. It was a bigger swing for City. They went from a small club to getting pumped with cash and turning into a big club. We would be a big club remaining as a big club. Both clubs had a passionate fan base and a good history (United winning out in both cases obviously ).

That's not really my main bone of contention though - it's more the sportswashing and sacrificing our history and integrity for short-term gain. I don't believe we would continue being Man Utd though. We become the tool of a rich oil state to spread acceptance for their archaic laws and practices. PSG were a big club too. We always refer to them as Qatar FC. Newcastle were a big club - the threads here were all calling them Saudi FC this year. Our identity is irreversibly changed and linked to horrific slave-drivers. I don't want it. I don't welcome it.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Yep, no doubt. It was a bigger swing for City. They went from a small club to getting pumped with cash and turning into a big club. We would be a big club remaining as a big club.

That's not really my main bone of contention though - it's more the sportswashing and sacrificing our history and integrity for short-term gain.

Just curious. Do you think City's will be a short term gain or are they being set up for years of success?

 

[bludsucker]

You can analyse past performance but it's almost useless if your automatic hot take is some doomsday projection and you fail to contextualise things properly.

What have I failed to contextualise properly? That Nice and Lausanne have stagnated under SJR’s ownership. That he appointed his cycling coach as a director of football at Nice who made signings which the coach neither knew about nor wanted. If that is not mismanaging then I don’t know what is.

 

[Berbaclass]

Good post. The point about the A shares is a good one, which as you say has barely been talked about.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

What have I failed to contextualise properly? That Nice and Lausanne have stagnated under SJR’s ownership. That he appointed his cycling coach as a director of football at Nice who made signings which the coach neither knew about nor wanted. If that is not mismanaging then I don’t know what is.

That seemed a really strange appointment.

 

[bludsucker]

You live in magic land

With an overdose of hopium!!

 

[Syphon Wallet]

The Raine group asked all interested parties, even if they wished to buy a minority or refinancing package to value the club in its full entirety. The current share price is $19.16 and the market cap is $3.09billion that’s the full value of the club if all shares were to be sold at that price.

However because two main bidders are trying to take over the controlling shares of the club, they have to bid for the full value of the club so by SJR offering £5bn which is more likely his bid not £6bn that is $6.2bn which is double the market cap, he can afford to be this bold because he does not intend to buy 100% of the club, he only intends to buy 50.01% or 69% which is (£2.51bn or £3.45bn)

SJ bid is different because he has made it clear they will buy only 100% of the shares, So his offer will be slightly lower, because he is offering a premium to the Glazers but also to all the other share holders. The part that people have missed and this is quite important is that the Glazers have Voting B shares and A shares too.

Apparently Darcie, Joel snd Avram have 4.25% of the 31% left, so he is theoretically offering the Glazers the opportunity to purchase their 73.25% of £4.8bn which is £3.516bn, In other words more cash now, probably not enough but the fact they met at Clarridges with Avram this week makes me think that we are near the end game, however the Qatar bid through 92 Foundation will probably have to offer another £500m to get the deal done or if it’s being done already they’ve offered more than what’s been circulated through the media.

When less is more.

 

[HarryP]

In a previous post I called INEOs as the richer but dumber version of the Glazers. There's a huge disclaimer to that which is that I am only talking in football terms. As a business man Ratcliffe is simply amazing.

Now let's dissect that claim

Richer. That goes without saying but it also have a key advantage over the Glazers. While the latter are forced to rely on the likes of Woodward to juggle the huge debt, INEOS can run clubs as a proper football team. That means that in theory they can hire the best people for it without any concerns on how to keep the whole venture afloat. I call them dumber because they keep on relying on people who have no idea how football works. Take Bob Ratcliffe as an example. He failed as president of Lausanne. Instead of firing him, Ineos made him as a CEO of Nice FC. He then tanked again and he was given the role as head of football operations. The same with Brailsford. The guy might be a legend in cycling but he shouldn't be anywhere near to football clubs. Its like asking Tyson on whether we should replace DDG or not or if ETH is doing a good job. Yet Brailsford was tasked to make an audit on Nice and he was even within INEOs inner circle who visited Manchester United.

Nice is run poorly. They bought players not even the manager knew anything about, they are at 10th place and their U19 is tanking which is bad enough if INEOS were managing Manchester United but is scandalous when one is managing a club in the French league were the youth academy play a central role to everything. TBF there are attempts for improvement. Blanc was an astute buy, Fabrice Bocquet seems quite promising and they hired Florent Ghisolfi as well. However we're talking of an organization whom, till this time of writing, has been tanking in football despite being into it since 2017. If they can't handle the likes of Lausanne and Nice then they'll certainly struggle with a juggernaut like Manchester United.

This is all fine but United is a totally different beast so I don't think it's wise to project what you perceived to have happened at Nice onto what might happen here. Different league, higher revenue streams, different appeal, different expectation, less room for experiment or speculative gambles in key positions upstairs etc.

 

[Reapersoul20]

Just curious. Do you think City's will be a short term gain or are they being set up for years of success?

City are a well-run club and will have continued success for a number of years. I do think they are having a golden era now with Pep and their current crop of players and they will fall off in some time.

There's no guarantee selling our souls to Qatar will beget the same results for us - it hasn't worked for other clubs. It hasn't worked for PSG. We have spent more than City has and are still shite. Money has not been the issue, so why sell our souls for it?

 

[DomesticTadpole]

City are a well-run club and will have continued success for a number of years. I do think they are having a golden era now with Pep and their current crop of players and they will fall off in some time.

There's no guarantee selling our souls to Qatar will beget the same results for us - it hasn't worked for other clubs. It hasn't worked for PSG. We have spent more than City has and are still shite. Money has not been the issue, so why sell our souls for it?

I think most of us think the transfer side can be financed through the money the club itself generates. What is worrying people is the debt we already have, how will the infrastructure be financed, we do not want it to be just to be put on the backburner hoping that issue will go away. The fans who go every week deserve the best facilities, not just the players. The worry is we are being sweet talked by both sides to get their hands on the club and neither actually delivers. One saying all the things he is going to do, while the other is being rather cagey while pushing the local lad done good angle. You do not become a billionaire with being a bit of a p**ck.

 

[Syphon Wallet]

Why does Ed Glazer get shafted with his share , daddy didn't love him as much, or sold some of his?

 

[Castia]

City are a well-run club and will have continued success for a number of years. I do think they are having a golden era now with Pep and their current crop of players and they will fall off in some time.

There's no guarantee selling our souls to Qatar will beget the same results for us - it hasn't worked for other clubs. It hasn't worked for PSG. We have spent more than City has and are still shite. Money has not been the issue, so why sell our souls for it?

Yes it has why do people keep saying this

Before Qatar they had 1 league title in their entire history they took a nothing club and made them completely dominate the league whilst also being a threat in Europe

They didn’t come in and take over the best team in France they bought a club who’s biggest achievement in the last 2 decades was having Ronaldinho play for them

If Qatar buy United and we pick up multiple league titles it will be a success regardless if we win the CL or not.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

I can definitely see Ineos's partners, investors and customers agreeing to that. Put the financial stability of one of the worlds biggest chemicals companies at risk in order to indulge someone's desire to own a football club.

INEOS is owned by three people. Ratcliffe owns 60% of the company. Their gross revenue is something like 60 billion a year.

 

[Woziak]

Cards on the table, I do not have a Harvard MBA although I do have my have my own business and at least so far haven’t filed for bankruptcy protection.

Question: why is the Glazer debt being dismissed as irrelevant by pundits in the valuation of the offers from Sir Jim and Shiek Jassim?

Jassim’s offer clears the roughly £1B debt, and Sir Jim’s does not…at least so it seems. If that debt isn’t cleared, it’s still there and if it’s still there Jimmy, Joel and Avram are presumably still obligated to service that debt. Or is there is something obviously missing in my two cent analysis of the nature of this debt that makes it reasonable for the British media to ignore this aspect of the relative valuations of these two bids?

Its a great point but the actual debt of the club id £535m or $665m, the other debt is transfer amortisation which is simply what the club owes for player’s purchased, this is about £300m and there is no interest charges on these payments as they are built into the transfer payments. Who ever takes the club over will agree to complete these payments as ongoing concern. The final debt is the day to day running of the club where they are simply maxing out their credit line to pay for police, Wages, tax liabilities, lighting, electricity, rates etc day to day running the club. Up until 3 years ago the club made a small profit and had built up cash reserves but since covid the club has lost money so now they are waiting to repay this revolving credit line facility current debt of £200m with EPL Tv and other legacy payments. The Glazers are saying that this will be used for Summer transfers and then repaid by new owners with new sponsors

Your right about the debt being dismissed as the club ends up paying £40m per year to service the debt and loans which have never been paid off. The difference with SJR bid is he is not taking over 100% of the club and delisting the club from the NYSE so he is not obliged to clear the existing debt, he can absorb the debt into Ineos which means Man United would effectively be debt free. SJ bid is for 100% so the process is different ;

1. Buy out Controlling Shares
2. Offer to buy out all existing shares of the club
3. Pay off any existing Debt
4. Delist the club from the NYSE
5. Change the banking of the club and set up new credit facilities
6. Appoint a New CEO/MD/ sporting Director

 

[Moriarty]

Why does Ed Glazer get shafted with his share , daddy didn't love him as much, or sold some of his?

Born on the wrong side of the blanket maybe.

 

[Amarsdd]

Due to the type of buy out SJR is proposing , the club ownership could be challenged that an overall better offer was on the table for the other 31% shareholders by SJ and they should get offered a premium of some description not the $12-13 per share they may be worth 2 or 3 years down the road while Joel and Avram have a guaranteed buy out of maybe $30 per share.

INEOS could face a legal challenge, so could The Glazers, it’s not clean in any way and if some of these same investors who have equity in Manchester United also have Equity in Their NFL club, it’s could be a huge potential problem.

From a club point of view, SJR might use legal court battles as a reason not to invest money in the club for the short term as he could be removed from power with such a slender majority of 50.01%. How any one thinks this is a good idea now we are starting to see the full detail of the proposal is just madness.

I was wondering if it was something concrete based on how confident the poster sounded. But basically its based on lots and lots of hypotheticals. Got it!

 

[Amsterdam Devil]

City are a well-run club and will have continued success for a number of years. I do think they are having a golden era now with Pep and their current crop of players and they will fall off in some time.

There's no guarantee selling our souls to Qatar will beget the same results for us - it hasn't worked for other clubs. It hasn't worked for PSG. We have spent more than City has and are still shite. Money has not been the issue, so why sell our souls for it?

Yeah, hate to say it but Guardiola is just the best manager in the world with a great structure around him with a lot of people he already knew and worked with at Barcelona. Will be interesting to see who will follow him at City. They will have their own Fergie and Wenger moment where it will turn out that it will be hard or even impossible to replace Guardiola.

 

[McGrathsipan]

Respectfully I completely disagree. Our club moves on once we're sold to Qatar. History isn't deleted, but it's a new era and we become Qatar FC, with all wins contributing to the sportswashing effort and cheapened by the injection of dirty, bloody petrodollars.

United has a great and storied history of working class struggle in the north of England. Going from that to doing a 180 into representing slave-driving, homophobic sexists is a new era essentially forming a new club in my eyes.

It is sad either way to me .

The connection with the working class struggle began to diminish when the PL started in the early 90s as commercialism took over and vanished completely when the glazers took over.
Its a commercial entity. Full stop.

fans can connect to the history and the marketing department are great at pulling the heart strings - its all about separating you from your money. Don't kid yourself any other way.

the world is full of hypocrites -

Nike/Adidas - child and forced labour
Nestle - lots of unethical behaviors
Volkswagen - cheating emissions tests
shell - polluting

People still use these companies and don't give it a second thought. The idea that people will boycott something due to what the owners are doing is nonsense. Group think and herd mentality take over - literally the only way for the Man United brand to compete on the pitch is to get oil money. Otherwise its gettng left behind. City and Newcastle and who ever Qatar buy will hoover up the talent.

Its a bit of a mental leap to accept that the "club" is just a phrase.

The old Manchester United is gone now- and that wont change regardless of who owns the rights to the crest in a few weeks (months or years)

 

[Berbaclass]

Due to the type of buy out SJR is proposing , the club ownership could be challenged that an overall better offer was on the table for the other 31% shareholders by SJ and they should get offered a premium of some description not the $12-13 per share they may be worth 2 or 3 years down the road while Joel and Avram have a guaranteed buy out of maybe $30 per share.

INEOS could face a legal challenge, so could The Glazers, it’s not clean in any way and if some of these same investors who have equity in Manchester United also have Equity in Their NFL club, it’s could be a huge potential problem.

From a club point of view, SJR might use legal court battles as a reason not to invest money in the club for the short term as he could be removed from power with such a slender majority of 50.01%. How any one thinks this is a good idea now we are starting to see the full detail of the proposal is just madness.

Yeah, if the Glazers want the cleanest and quickest option for them then I'm fairly confident they will take the offer of SJ. I believe they all want to sell and are just waiting for the right price, hence the Claridges meeting and the direct contact between Glazers and SJ.

 

[strandty]

This is a few years old. Avram no longer holds any A class shares. They are now as follows:



Joel & Darcy own a combined 4.37% of all A class shares, which equates to circa 1.35% of the Club. So the Glazer holdings of ALL shares is 70.35% (there or there abouts).

 

[Berbaclass]

This is a few years old. Avram no longer holds any A class shares. They are now as follows:



Joel & Darcy own a combined 4.37% of all A class shares, which equates to circa 1.35% of the Club. So the Glazer holdings of ALL shares is 70.35% (there or there abouts).

Apologies.

 

[MackRobinson]

I posted that because people said our success would be meaningless, but real Madrid don't seem to have that issue despite their questionable history, and it wouldn't happen to us either

Maybe not meaningless but most definitely hollow.

Madrid was never the plaything of petrostate, regardless of how the government helped them.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Maybe not meaningless but most definitely hollow.

Madrid was never the plaything of petrostate, regardless of how the government helped them.

Weren't they a plaything of a dictator at one point.

 

[Moston Red]

Man City prior to Abu Dhabi was a small club with a local fanbase that bounced around the football divisions. They were bought and essentially became a phoenix club. They used the name of the club and their shirts, but essentially built and entire club on the framework of Man City. There is nothing about this current Man City that has anything to do with their history, or the club prior to Abu Dhabi. They went from Stephen Ireland and Shaun Goater and no success to Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland and racking up trophies.

Manchester United has one of the most storied histories in the world of football. They are arguably in the top 2 biggest football clubs in the world. Their fanbase is massive, their history is massive their success is massive. Qatar can't buy Man Utd and turn them into something they aren't, because they already are a huge club, with big players, they pay big transfer fees, they pay big wages they have a history of success. We can't be bought by Qatar and then criticized when we buy Osimhen for a record breaking fee, because we have a history of signing players for record fees, Denis Law, Bryan Robson, Andy Cole, Rio, Veron, Pogba.

We will never be the next Man City, because they're still trying to be the next Man Utd. We just want owners to return us to the level we historically belong.

This is so true…remember the Peter Swales days

 

[Woziak]

Yeah, if the Glazers want the cleanest and quickest option for them then I'm fairly confident they will take the offer of SJ. I believe they all want to sell and are just waiting for the right price, hence the Claridges meeting and the direct contact between Glazers and SJ.

I know your pro Qatar but I’m really neutral on this just want Glazers gone, Hunch and it’s just a hunch they want Qatar to pay at least £5.4/5.6bn without the proposed future investment, they don’t care about that, they do care about future opportunities in the Middle East with their NFL team however and other Opportunities with their IPL cricket team so this is why although they liked SJR offer and proposal they would prefer cash more, if Qatar want this done they need to go in with an actual final bid which is something like £5.5bn valuation on the club plus £0.8bn future investment plus the £0.535bn debt and package the bid up as £6.8bn or $8.5bn world record bid.

They also need to tell the Glazers that this offer would expire within 48 hours, that’s how you deal with parasites like these!

 

[united_99]

Man City prior to Abu Dhabi was a small club with a local fanbase that bounced around the football divisions. They were bought and essentially became a phoenix club. They used the name of the club and their shirts, but essentially built and entire club on the framework of Man City. There is nothing about this current Man City that has anything to do with their history, or the club prior to Abu Dhabi. They went from Stephen Ireland and Shaun Goater and no success to Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland and racking up trophies.

Manchester United has one of the most storied histories in the world of football. They are arguably in the top 2 biggest football clubs in the world. Their fanbase is massive, their history is massive their success is massive. Qatar can't buy Man Utd and turn them into something they aren't, because they already are a huge club, with big players, they pay big transfer fees, they pay big wages they have a history of success. We can't be bought by Qatar and then criticized when we buy Osimhen for a record breaking fee, because we have a history of signing players for record fees, Denis Law, Bryan Robson, Andy Cole, Rio, Veron, Pogba.

We will never be the next Man City, because they're still trying to be the next Man Utd. We just want owners to return us to the level we historically belong.

Yes and no.
Yes it will be different to Man City or Chelsea or PSG when only a few years after take over they already beat all the clubs‘ previous relatively small successes.

With us you can’t as easily overtake 20 league titles or 3 CLs. We are still record champions, we will always remain the first English club to win the European Cup as well as the new Champions League. And we will always have a pre oil treble, etc.

But anything after Qatar will be hollow to some. Alright if the majority doesn’t think that way. Also most who are against Qatar won’t stop supporting the club, but no amount of our history and historical success is going to give same value to post oil success as to pre oil as far as I am concerned.

 

[TsuWave]

Not many people outside of England care about how "hollow" their success is. What they see is probably the best football played on the planet by a team that is utterly dominant in the most competitive and spectacular football league in the world. City are gaining more and more fans across the globe whilst we are heavily reliant on the old-timers. We are losing the younger generation of fans, we are becoming more and more irrelevant. We are about to turn into an Arsenal or pre-Klopp Liverpool.

The above is all facts.

Looking at social media you now see “City fans” from all over the globe. Walking around Piccadilly, Manchester these days you find tourists in City gear - that used to be all United.

Locally, my nephew started saying he’s a City fan (he’s a child), I looked at my brother like “what’s going on?” and all he could say was “all his friends and kids in his year at school are City fans”. City has the biggest stars - manager included, play the best football, dominate, score a bunch of goals and do so consistently. Kids aren’t in the playground thinking “oh but they cook their books”, they’re thinking “I want to be like Haaland”.

Even looking at social metrics - Gen Z is flocking to City (even if these fluctuate due to specific players):

 

[DomesticTadpole]

The above is all facts.

Looking at social media you now see “City fans” from all over the globe. Walking around Piccadilly, Manchester these days you find tourists in City gear - that used to be all United.

Locally, my nephew started saying he’s a City fan (he’s a child), I looked at my brother like “what’s going on?” and all he could say was “all his friends and kids in his year at school are City fans”. City has the biggest stars - manager included, play the best football, dominate, score a bunch of goals and do so consistently. Kids aren’t in the playground thinking “oh but they cook their books”, they’re thinking “I want to be like Haaland”.

Even looking at social metrics - Gen Z is flocking to City (even if these fluctuate due to specific players):

This is what kids do. They follow the winners. At the moment we have a massive fanbase, but that will lessen and lessen if we do not get right back to the top. It is how it is. The older fans will unfortunately die off, that is also how it is. While the successful clubs will attract the new generation.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

The above is all facts.

Looking at social media you now see “City fans” from all over the globe. Walking around Piccadilly, Manchester these days you find tourists in City gear - that used to be all United.

Locally, my nephew started saying he’s a City fan (he’s a child), I looked at my brother like “what’s going on?” and all he could say was “all his friends and kids in his year at school are City fans”. City has the biggest stars - manager included, play the best football, dominate, score a bunch of goals and do so consistently. Kids aren’t in the playground thinking “oh but they cook their books”, they’re thinking “I want to be like Haaland”.

Even looking at social metrics - Gen Z is flocking to City (even if these fluctuate due to specific players):

Get him to change schools.

 

[jm99]

Weren't they a plaything of a dictator at one point.

Yes, that's what I was saying with their questionable history, it's really odd for people to draw that kind of distinction between Qatar and Franco