Club Sale | It’s done!

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If you hand pick the CEO, the DOF and sit on the board with 25%+ voting power. You can do almost anything. The big projects need Glazer approval, but it's in their best interest for the club to be worth as much as possible before a sale date. What are they going to do, say no to letting Ratcliffe buy a training complex with his own money?

The main concern is obviously transfers, which none of us know how will be impacted.
He won't have 25% voting power though, not on day 1. Maybe in 3-4 years.
 
What? I like dividends. I think the Glazers gave themselves far too much, to the detriment of the club, but the concept is entirely fair.

Any United fan suddenly being fine with the idea of dividends being pulled out of the club is, well, it’s quite something.
 
£245 million staggered….what is that actually going to do to improve Old Trafford and Carrington. It just highlights what a mess we are in and Jim Ratcliffe has done the worst thing possible by giving the Glazers the option of staying.

As it stands the only outcome worse seems to be nothing at all.
 
Sorry, but your post is just utter nonsense, and also very poorly written to boot.

Suggesting that the 92F bid was ‘never serious’ makes it clear that you’re abandoning sound logic for daft conspiracy.

You’re talking about the only bidder other than Ratcliffe, in a process that has dragged on for a year… if the 92F bids and negotiation were just ‘fake bro’, Ratcliffe and his Glazer chums would already have their deal signed and sealed.

You claim at some point in your outpouring that Ratcliffe wouldn’t use Utd to make or extract money… hmm, you might want to Google ‘Ratcliffe dividends Mercedes’ and then get back to us with what you learn.

Your angle of anyone who’s critical, concerned or angry at this deal as being ‘crying for Qatar’ really does nothing but showcase your own bitterness on the topic, as does your conspiracy theory rhetoric regarding the 92F’s bids and pledges for the club.

The majority of true Utd fans want the Glazers removed from the club, and with them - and the club - being on their knees, grovelling around for investment, Ratcliffe has bailed them out.

If that doesn’t make you angry, I don’t know what to tell you.

If you find it funny to sit on online forums, laughing at other Man Utd fans who have a greater understanding of what this means for the club than you appear to have, and making silly comments about these fans ‘crying for Qatar’ then I pity you, and I fear for the future of Man Utd.

I'm not saying the Qatar bid wasn't serious, but I would still like to know why they couldn't be more flexible with their bid.

It seemed quite clear from the get-go that at least Joel and Avram wanted to retain a holding in the club. Why "all or nothing" ?

It was reported a few weeks ago that The Glazers/Raine were not able to communicate with anyone from the 92 Foundation, so had to resort to using Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG Chairman, as an intermediary.
 
£245 million staggered….what is that actually going to do to improve Old Trafford and Carrington. It just highlights what a mess we are in and Jim Ratcliffe has done the worst thing possible by giving the Glazers the option of staying.

As it stands the only outcome worse seems to be nothing at all.

£245 would allow for huge amounts of improvements at Carrington. Although what they would be, im not sure, because few people have been able to say what the actual issue with Carrington is.

How can Ratcliffe's investment be the "worst thing possible" and "the only outcome worse seems to be nothing at all"??

It has been said a million times, he intends to move towards majority ownership / full control. Let's see how it play out.
 
Hopefully part of the deal is that glazers put up the remaining £750m needed to rebuild the stadium but not confident

If he's buying Glazer shares then it may be possible that they'd put some of their money from the partial sale into the pot and invest together towards the stadium, but then they'd need to finance part of the costs.

Correct, it's not, but I don't see the class A holders allowing anything else without a legal fight.

Genuine question as I've not read much on this recently, but where has it been reported he's buying Class A shares? That just sounds bonkers unless they'll be converted to Class B shares by the Glazers.
 
£245 would allow for huge amounts of improvements at Carrington. Although what they would be, im not sure, because few people have been able to say what the actual issue with Carrington is.

How can Ratcliffe's investment be the "worst thing possible" and "the only outcome worse seems to be nothing at all"??

It has been said a million times, he intends to move towards majority ownership / full control. Let's see how it play out.
The club is at a point NOW where huge investment is needed. £245 staggered is like needing a new roof on your house and buying a few slates a month. By the time you’ve done that there will be bigger issues.

Nobody it seems, was giving the Glazers the opportunity to keep leeching on us, until Sir Jim had he’s genius idea. I hope his plan works I really do. More than happy to admit I’m wrong in a few years when everything about the club is elite once again.
 
This post is riddled with guesswork, I don't understand why but it seems you are pulling it to fit your pre-conceived notions.

£245 would allow for huge amounts of improvements at Carrington. Although what they would be, im not sure, because few people have been able to say what the actual issue with Carrington is.

So it would allow a "Huge" improvement but you don't really know the cost(s)/ quote(s) to make a huge improvement, so you don't know, furthermore you don't even seem to know the apparent issue with Carrington so how you can say this would be a huge improvement is madness.

How can Ratcliffe's investment be the "worst thing possible" and "the only outcome worse seems to be nothing at all"??

Ratcliffe offering this £245m is only one step up from nothing as it's a drop in the ocean of what our infrastructure alone requires unfortunately, such is the state we are in, reports indicate fixing the stadium alone could be north of £1b without training investment/ investment in local area, paying off debt, investing in mens and women's teams and it allows the Glazers to stay here longer.

It has been said a million times, he intends to move towards majority ownership / full control. Let's see how it play out.

This is my favourite piece, this is the same man who changed his bids multiple times but now you know his intentions because of a report? "Let's see how it plays out" is what we said in '05 with the Glazers.

I appreciate this comes across condescending and I'm not even necessarily anti Sir Jim, I'll admit based on what was reported, I would have preferred Qatar as I think the club needed larger investment but we may well prove to be successful with Jim. All I am asking is that you and others read this speculation and take it for what it is, rumour. Nothing has been confirmed and it's all guesswork unfortunately, so was the Qatar bid to a degree although they did say publicly first hand about plans for investment.
 
It has been said a million times, he intends to move towards majority ownership / full control. Let's see how it play out.
Just repeating this continually doesn't make it true. In fact it's the least certain thing about the deal.

Here's what Kleinman said:
Several other key questions remain about United's future ownership, including whether Sir Jim will ultimately seek overall control of the club.
 
The club is at a point NOW where huge investment is needed. £245 staggered is like needing a new roof on your house and buying a few slates a month. By the time you’ve done that there will be bigger issues.

Nobody it seems, was giving the Glazers the opportunity to keep leeching on us, until Sir Jim had he’s genius idea. I hope his plan works I really do. More than happy to admit I’m wrong in a few years when everything about the club is elite once again.

To use your analogy, would you rather have a few slates a month, or have no slates at all?

The fact that Ratcliffe is providing £245mil, on top of his 25% for $1.5bil, shows you he is in it for the long term. He wouldn't do that if he didn't think that he would soon be moving towards majority ownership. You don't put that kind of money in as a minority investor otherwise, because you know the Glazers wont match it.

Likewise, happy to admit im wrong if that doesn't happen.
 
He won't have 25% voting power though, not on day 1. Maybe in 3-4 years.

3-4 years? Why 3-4 years? The Glazers think 2026 is the golden year, Ratcliffe has suggested he could be in a position for majority control by the end of 2024,

I fully expect him to be majority shareholder by 2026 at the latest - probably before.

Any United fan suddenly being fine with the idea of dividends being pulled out of the club is, well, it’s quite something.

It's part of the parcel of being a listed company. It will change if we ever go private. My main concern with the Glazers have always been their lack of interest, ability to manage the club and their business over sporting success focus. They are parasites who aren't very good at the business they are in and have had no interest in investing in the club, but would rather bleed it dry.

Normal financial processes such as dividends and debt has been abused by them for the purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the club's ability to compete and have left the club rotting. That is what I don't like.

What are talking about, they’re awesome.

Buy some stocks with dividend payments, it's a nice financial boost. The dividends are only a problem because they are coupled with the parasitic nature of the Glazers ownership.
 
To be fair, you are correct because most of time you would still use the last name as well. But I guess that's more to avoid confusion, and there's only one Jim trying to buy United this week :)

Does seem a little bit too friendly though, considering he is a tax dodging world polluter like you mention.
Yes that was what was bugging me in a journalistic text, but then again I thought it was a more informal form than it apparently is.
Goes to show though how much British society sucks up to their knighted people. And then again, the idea of people being "knighted", in the 21st century :lol:
Oh well.
Do you complain about Alex Ferguson being called Sir Alex in the media too? What a weird thing to get worked up about. :lol:
Why would I complain about Sir Alex being called Sir Alex? The man is a sweetheart.
If anything it bothers me that the 'Sir Jim' places Ratcliffe on a designative level and proximity with SAF, but yeah again I was not aware it is standard practice.
I would not be getting too bothered about calling him Sir Jim, a lot worse dudes got called Sir (the other Sir Jimmy springs to mind) and thats fairly standard practice for anyone with a knighthood. I'll stick to calling him the Jimster if that makes you feel any better and move on Sir Jim when we win the title.
It does make me feel better, and sounds like a very reasonable plan. Thank you!
 
Any United fan suddenly being fine with the idea of dividends being pulled out of the club is, well, it’s quite something.
Peak Wumminator energy from some of these 'fans'.
 
Yes that was what was bugging me in a journalistic text, but then again I thought it was a more informal form than it apparently is.
Goes to show though how much British society sucks up to their knighted people. And then again, the idea of people being "knighted", in the 21st century :lol:
Oh well.
Hey, I'm Scottish so I think the whole of British society is weird. Including the Scots.
 
Peak Wumminator energy from some of these 'fans'.

You could try reading the response to understand why I say that, or you could just ignore it and assume I'm less of a fan just because I don't object to what is essentially a fairly normal mechanism of stock ownership.

The Glazers and how they abuse those mechanisms are the problem, not the mechanisms themselves.
 
Sorry, but your post is just utter nonsense, and also very poorly written to boot.

Suggesting that the 92F bid was ‘never serious’ makes it clear that you’re abandoning sound logic for daft conspiracy.

You’re talking about the only bidder other than Ratcliffe, in a process that has dragged on for a year… if the 92F bids and negotiation were just ‘fake bro’, Ratcliffe and his Glazer chums would already have their deal signed and sealed.

You claim at some point in your outpouring that Ratcliffe wouldn’t use Utd to make or extract money… hmm, you might want to Google ‘Ratcliffe dividends Mercedes’ and then get back to us with what you learn.

Your angle of anyone who’s critical, concerned or angry at this deal as being ‘crying for Qatar’ really does nothing but showcase your own bitterness on the topic, as does your conspiracy theory rhetoric regarding the 92F’s bids and pledges for the club.

The majority of true Utd fans want the Glazers removed from the club, and with them - and the club - being on their knees, grovelling around for investment, Ratcliffe has bailed them out.

If that doesn’t make you angry, I don’t know what to tell you.

If you find it funny to sit on online forums, laughing at other Man Utd fans who have a greater understanding of what this means for the club than you appear to have, and making silly comments about these fans ‘crying for Qatar’ then I pity you, and I fear for the future of Man Utd.

I mean it wasn't a serious bid though was it? The man consistently bid almost a billion under the valuation - multiple times according to reports - with no interest in actually reaching the Glazers valuation, that's not exactly serious is it? When the bid was failing we kept reading ACTUAL PR that kept saying things like 'But he's going to invest 1 billion into the infrastructure!!' Okay so what? The Glazers don't give a shit about that, if you're going to do that throw that extra billion onto the price and actually buy the club off of them first? It was all nonsense, absolutely nothing stopping the 92F as you like to call them, from trying any means necessary to buy the club from the Glazers but all they did was stick to a solitary under valued bid, yeah super serious this lot. So if all this is reported on by virtually every journo - how is it a conspiracy theory? I'm not just making this shit up, this has all been widely reported before SJ pulled out of the race.

I've noticed a theme where you seem to be completely ignorant of any and all reporting on this subject - which is ironic because you, for some reason, like you tout your superior knowledge on the subject over me on an online Manchester United forum like some intellectual giant that you are. I didn't say it was fake did I, but again from reports, the reason a deal hasn't been struck is because of course Qatar was bidding, and the Glazers and Raine no doubt said hey yeah keep bidding, and the 92F kept underbidding the competition in terms of overall valuation. That and legalities in the Ratcliffe bid that need to be looked over and ironed out.

Hey i'm not against anyone who's critical of either bid, i've got absolutely no reason to be bitter because the reality is me you or any of the fans cannot do anything about the situation. The Glazers own the club and it's up to them what to do with it, I don't like this and neither do you i'm sure but that's the situation we are in. It's not like I don't see any potential issues with a Ratcliffe bid myself, you're just being extremely over emotional about it and you are vastly over exaggerating the potential issues without really any facts to back these up, you basically said anything positive reported about the Ratcliffe bid is just spin. Rather than be angry at him or the Glazers be angry at the 92F for thinking they could underbid and get the club so long as they had people in the press and on social media pushing the bid, instead of just putting in more money.

Of course i'm angry with the Glazers, I have been since they even came anywhere near the club and I get it, your insinuation is that i'm not a 'true' United fan because i'm not pissing in the wind that the Glazers aren't selling to Qatar. There is no seperation of fans here because every United fan wants the Glazers gone, this includes me, I hate the rats, but i'm also a realist and that means rather than getting angry about it on an online forum i'm choosing to put some faith into the Ratcliffe bid that, as reported, will eventually see the Glazers leave the club fully down the line. Granted we need some clarity on the overall deal from Ratcliffe and the Glazers themselves but I suspect that won't happen until its signed.

I just fail to see how, according to you, the club is going to circle the drain more than it already has when a man is looking to invest his own money into the club - something the Glazers have never done - run the football side of the club and bring in an actual footballing structure, and eventually takeover the whole thing and remove the Glazers.

You'll forgive me if I don't write my forum posts like i'm writing a University dissertation.
 
This post is riddled with guesswork, I don't understand why but it seems you are pulling it to fit your pre-conceived notions.

So it would allow a "Huge" improvement but you don't really know the cost(s)/ quote(s) to make a huge improvement, so you don't know, furthermore you don't even seem to know the apparent issue with Carrington so how you can say this would be a huge improvement is madness.

I'm not a quantity surveyor, but you look at what is there at Carrington now - one main building, one indoor pitch and a bunch of outdoor fields. There is no way that would cost £250mil, even if you were to bulldoze it all and build it again.

And we know the new Liverpool training facility cost £50mil....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...w-pictures-reveal-look-champions-complex.html

Leicester Citys is said to be the best in the country, including a golf course, cost £100mil...
https://www.the-sun.com/sport/footb...6/leicester-city-training-ground-golf-course/

So yes, it is a based on a bit of guesswork, but also on what has come before.

Ratcliffe offering this £245m is only one step up from nothing as it's a drop in the ocean of what our infrastructure alone requires unfortunately, such is the state we are in, reports indicate fixing the stadium alone could be north of £1b without training investment/ investment in local area, paying off debt, investing in mens and women's teams and it allows the Glazers to stay here longer.

The £1b to fix Old Trafford, would include a capacity uplift. That is significant work.....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...build-Old-Trafford-new-state-art-stadium.html


This is my favourite piece, this is the same man who changed his bids multiple times but now you know his intentions because of a report? "Let's see how it plays out" is what we said in '05 with the Glazers.

Because it makes logical sense. Tell me why he would buy only 25%, then invest £245m ? Because you know that The Glazers wont be putting in anything.
Why put in the 100% of the investment, when you own only 25% of the asset?
We already know he was ready to pay for 69% of the club but couldn't because of threats of minority shareholder legal action.

I appreciate this comes across condescending and I'm not even necessarily anti Sir Jim, I'll admit based on what was reported, I would have preferred Qatar as I think the club needed larger investment but we may well prove to be successful with Jim. All I am asking is that you and others read this speculation and take it for what it is, rumour. Nothing has been confirmed and it's all guesswork unfortunately, so was the Qatar bid to a degree although they did say publicly first hand about plans for investment.

So you are saying "Let's see how it plays out".
Like we did in 05 ?

This also may "come across condescending", but try doing your research before you try picking apart someone's points. Not hard to look up what other training grounds may cost before trying to ridicule my POV that a new Carrington wouldn't be £245m.

Agree, that there has been a huge amount of speculation, some of it has been BS. It's speculation wasn't going to be discussed, The Caf would have one 5th of the posts that it does.

And re Qatar, you can take that with a pinch of salt too. No serious bidder comes in and makes a statement about what they plan to do next and what they spend.
I come in and put an offer in for your house and tell you im going to spend an extra 100k to renovate it. Next thing you do is put the price up because you know i have 100k extra to spend.
Qatar didn't read the exam question. You are trying to buy the club off The Glazers, not try and win a PR war and get the fans on your side.
 
Just repeating this continually doesn't make it true. In fact it's the least certain thing about the deal.

Here's what Kleinman said:

Fine, Kleinman said that it wasnt clear. I would agree, nothing is.

But likewise, it has been reported a hundred times that INEOS intend to move towards majority control.

And IF reports are true that they indent to make investment into infrastructure, it would suggest that they are not looking to stop at 25%.

We will so find out.
 
If you hand pick the CEO, the DOF and sit on the board with 25%+ voting power. You can do almost anything. The big projects need Glazer approval, but it's in their best interest for the club to be worth as much as possible before a sale date. What are they going to do, say no to letting Ratcliffe buy a training complex with his own money?

The main concern is obviously transfers, which none of us know how will be impacted.
Not sure where you are getting 25% voting power from. He will have class A shares not class B so in no way is he going to have 25% voting rights

The Glazers have never acted in the best interest of the club so why would you expect them to start? The club being worth as much as possible has everything to do with money being pushed into things which help the club from a revenue and commercial perspective and not sporting which we have seen already.

Also on transfers which would require spending club funds, without full control of how club funds are used then you won’t be fixing much.
 
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Toto to Michael Oliver when another Var decision goes against United
"NOOOOO Michael nooo"
 

I wanted the full sale and Glazers out, but if this is happening then I'm fully prepared to see what Sir Jim brings to the club and back him.
This forum has been fighting and bitching for months now and not one of us can actually to anything about what's happening anyway.
 
It's part of the parcel of being a listed company. It will change if we ever go private. My main concern with the Glazers have always been their lack of interest, ability to manage the club and their business over sporting success focus. They are parasites who aren't very good at the business they are in and have had no interest in investing in the club, but would rather bleed it dry.

Normal financial processes such as dividends and debt has been abused by them for the purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the club's ability to compete and have left the club rotting. That is what I don't like.



Buy some stocks with dividend payments, it's a nice financial boost. The dividends are only a problem because they are coupled with the parasitic nature of the Glazers ownership.

I mean, dividends have literally nothing to do with being listed verses private, but keep going.
 
As opposed to us Germans who are not weird at all.
Why do you have a month to celebrate drinking beer? All that time and effort putting up stalls and wearing strange outfits, when you could cut out all of that wasted time and just become alcoholics like us?
 
Is this normal? Thought the manager decides on the playing style?

This is how we’ve ended up with a Frankenstein squad. If you let managers decide, they buy players to suit their style, if it doesn’t work, they get sacked, then a new manager comes in, brings in players he wants to suit his style, and on it goes.

It worked with SAF because he had longevity. That’s a rarity in today’s game.
 
Why do you have a month to celebrate drinking beer? All that time and effort putting up stalls and wearing strange outfits, when you could cut out all of that wasted time and just become alcoholics like us?
As an Irishman, following United for over 40years, I fully support this way of life!! Get those pints into ya
 
Not sure where you are getting 25% voting power from. He will have class A shares not class B so in no way is he going to have 25% voting rights

The Glazers have never acted in the best interest of the club so why would you expect them to start? The club being worth as much as possible has everything to do with money being pushed into things which help the club from a revenue and commercial perspective and not sporting which we have seen already.

Also on transfers which would require spending club funds, without full control of how club funds are used then you won’t be fixing much.

There is no way you pay a premium for shares to not have voting power attached to them. It just isn't happening. The board can change how those rules work, so it isn't exactly set in stone that only Glazers can hold voting power. I would assume it's a preqrequisite of the 25% purchase that those rules change - Ratcliffe isn't that stupid.

I don't expect them to start caring about the club. I expect them to continue to do what they always do, which is maximize their own income and final pay day. I have no faith that the Glazers will be spending any of their own money, or wanting to invest money in a way that reduces their own income. I do have faith that they will be plenty happy to let Ratcliffe spend his money to make them richer though.

On the last part, I agree - it will be interesting to see how that works out.

I mean, dividends have literally nothing to do with being listed verses private, but keep going.

Fair enough, I should have been more clear. I believe the dividends will remain as long as we are listed, and not likely to be removed until we potentially go private. That is not to say that every listed company pays dividends or that private companies never pay dividends. The point I'm trying to get at, is that it is a perfectly normal element of investing. As of right now Man Utd stocks pay dividends to all its shareholders. As the Glazers are majority holders, they get the most of that. If I, you or anyone else have shares in ManUtd we also get dividend payments twice a year. That mechanism is not in itself a terrible thing. The root problem is how the Glazers have done nothing but bleed money from the club, mismanaged it, and set it up to enrich themselves at the expense of the team.
 
There's zero chance that Ratcliffe is investing in the club without being given guarantees that he'll eventually complete a full takeover. There's definitely question marks over his integrity and reasons for wanting to own the club but he's not an idiot.
 
As an Irishman, following United for over 40years, I fully support this way of life!! Get those pints into ya
I've heard that drinking alcohol severely reduces your risk of being shot by a grizzly bear. To this day I have never once been shot by a grizzly bear, so clearly it works.
 
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