Club Sale | It’s done!

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If the DIC rumours are true than Ratcliffe is not the richest person interested in buying us. That's something to be evaluated considering that we'll need around 1-2b in investment. The way he threatened the government of sacking loads of people at his plant in Middlesbrough if they stick to the EU regulation on pollution doesn't make him a nice human being either. He bought a Chelsea's season ticket and was close in signing Chelsea which suggest that he's not a great United fan either. Which leaves us to business. What is his track record in the football industry (aka Nice and Lausanne)?
 
Whoever buys the club cant be worse than the glazers. The anti glazer law stops anyone buying the club with loans and loading the debt on the club. Even if its a busness that takes over we will still be better off as the hundreds of millions in interest that have had to be paid interest for the debt, most would stay in the club.
I think any institution wanting to buy will look at how the glazers have been perceived by the fans and wouldnt want to go down that road anyway.
 
For the figures involved with a sale of the club there are only really two options here:
  • Sugar daddies (ie. oil state) with a bottomless pit of money to throw at the club
  • Owners who run the club like a business (ie, to make money - not put it in without any expectation of getting anything back)
The Glazers were closest to the latter. The main problem is they saddled the club with debt, spent the clubs own money unwisely in terms of transfers and ignoring infrastructure and generally ran the club terribly, leaving Ed Woodward to do his business and employing a non-sensical series of managers.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that 'type' of owner (ie. businessmen) if they do their job properly (which the Glazers didn't) since the club makes enough money to compete at the top level anyway, which is shown by how much we spent on transfers over the past ten years.

Whichever scenario it is, it's irrelevant if we get owners who don't have a clue what they are doing like the Glazers and continue to make bad decisions and run the club into the ground.

I agree with this.

My main issue with the Glazers is they run the club like absentee landlords, just waiting for their rents to come in. At no stage have they ever appeared to think about hiring a 'best in class' board of directors, including a world class Sporting Director, to run the club. They just picked people who they knew wouldn't oppose them when they wanted to dip into the piggybank. We're not run properly as a business, we're run as something like a slush fund, with compliant directors more than happy to sign of Glazer 'management fees' etc.
 
If the DIC rumours are true than Ratcliffe is not the richest person interested in buying us. That's something to be evaluated considering that we'll need around 1-2b in investment. The way he threatened the government of sacking loads of people at his plant in Middlesbrough if they stick to the EU regulation on pollution doesn't make him a nice human being either. He bought a Chelsea's season ticket and was close in signing Chelsea which suggest that he's not a great United fan either. Which leaves us to business. What is his track record in the football industry (aka Nice and Lausanne)?

Let’s stick with the Glazers eh
 
Colour me skeptical but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that these 'stories' of the likes of Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon being interested are unsubstantiated bollocks and lazy journalism at best, where they're simply linking every multi billion/trillion dollar corporate to us.

In short - its probably bollocks.
In short, you’re probably right.
 
If the DIC rumours are true than Ratcliffe is not the richest person interested in buying us. That's something to be evaluated considering that we'll need around 1-2b in investment. The way he threatened the government of sacking loads of people at his plant in Middlesbrough if they stick to the EU regulation on pollution doesn't make him a nice human being either. He bought a Chelsea's season ticket and was close in signing Chelsea which suggest that he's not a great United fan either. Which leaves us to business. What is his track record in the football industry (aka Nice and Lausanne)?
Yeah the fawning for a Brexiteer billionaire as some kind of saviour for this club is a bit of an odd one. I can respect the apprehensions people have for the likes of Dubai (even though frankly - they're lazy generalisations of Middle Eastern states), but Ratcliffe is hardly this saint with an astute track record of owning football clubs.
 
So what you’re saying is, my family member is wrong?

He may well be but he’s pretty knowledgeable with these sort of thing’s.

Hard to tell if he's right or wrong but can understand where he is coming from since there has been some reports of Dubai loaning a lot of cash to steady the ship after COVID. Reports which gets picked up in your family member's industry.
 
Let’s stick with the Glazers eh

Where have I said that? However I wouldn't like to see the club go to a slightly better version of them and all for what? Simply because Ratcliffe can find OT on a map and if he buys us he'll probably swap Chelsea's season ticket with ours?
 
Tbh, I think Glazers will always be remembered with hatred because of the poor performances on the pitch in the last 10 years.

Personally, I’m not fussed if we got new owners who treated the club in a same business manner as the Glazers but allowed us to spend the same amount on transfers. We just need owners who are competent and are able to put competent people in the important positions. It wasn’t for lack of spending that Glazers were a problem. It was the lack of management and control of the club.
 
Why the feck are people rambling on about a season ticket as if it means anything. If I lived in London I’d probably go and watch I dunno, Brentford, quite often. Doesn’t mean anything.
 

Would make us the richest club in the world


Old Trafford WiFi vastly improved, but Android phones are now banned on the premises. :lol:

I don't believe the Apple/Amazon/Google rumours for a second, but I guess in Apple's case it does make some sense. Money like this is hardly more than chump change for them and they get a massive branding opportunity.
 
Yeah no, letting rationale rule over emotion is the only way to run a club or business, the outcry over that notion is a bit ridiculous.

I'm not too knowledgeable about FSGs reign of Liverpool, but would you say it's generally been a success? Feels like a lot of Liverpool fans are equally happy they're about to sell, and Klopp's tenure aside, they've been pretty shit.

Most of the Liverpool fans I know are of the same opinion. They are grateful that FSG saved them from the previous owners but now they want them gone (they are hoping for the rich Indian owners). It almost feels like Klopp won the trophies despite FSG though - they sold Coutinho which funded the Alisson and VVD deals and Klopp got an absolute beast out of Salah and Mane but apart from that they've been very shrewd.

Ratcliffe will probably end up being very similar to FSG and probably more likely Levy from Spurs. I think he's too sensible for it, which is fine if we are happy to just plod along in the fight for Top 4 every season and maybe a League or FA Cup.
 
Hard to tell if he's right or wrong but can understand where he is coming from since there has been some reports of Dubai loaning a lot of cash to steady the ship after COVID. Reports which gets picked up in your family member's industry.
Yeah he has actually worked very closely with the city group and particularly Sheikh Monsour, he joked about not wanting to work on behalf of him because of his United allegiance, not that I’m saying he has any more knowledge about Dubais financial position because of that but he works in and around those type of clients so who knows.
 
Yeah the fawning for a Brexiteer billionaire as some kind of saviour for this club is a bit of an odd one. I can respect the apprehensions people have for the likes of Dubai (even though frankly - they're lazy generalisations of Middle Eastern states), but Ratcliffe is hardly this saint with an astute track record of owning football clubs.

What many can't understand is that United need huge investment. That might be 1b-2b on top of the 6B-8B asked by the Glazers. That's huge money. Any buyer would either have to have deep pockets or else he would have to saddle new debt on us. Which in turn will lead to us going back to square 1. Also note that Ratcliffe had proved with Nice and the Swiss team that he has no idea of how to run a football club. That's a huge red flag for me.

Assuming that Dubai (or any rich ME family) run clubs the way City owners do then the only downside about that is the appalling way they treat people in their own country. There again billionaires do abuse people if allowed to. Brexit guy threatened the livelihood of hundreds of people unless he is allowed to keep on polluting Middlesbrough. There are accusations of Ineos polluting Falkirk as well. There's nothing suggesting that such ruthless man wouldn't threat people like crap if he allowed to. After all with all it share of flaws it wasn't UAE who colonised and exploited half the world
 
If the DIC rumours are true than Ratcliffe is not the richest person interested in buying us. That's something to be evaluated considering that we'll need around 1-2b in investment. The way he threatened the government of sacking loads of people at his plant in Middlesbrough if they stick to the EU regulation on pollution doesn't make him a nice human being either. He bought a Chelsea's season ticket and was close in signing Chelsea which suggest that he's not a great United fan either. Which leaves us to business. What is his track record in the football industry (aka Nice and Lausanne)?

But ... but... he is British... and a United fan.
 
That Apple rumour…. No chance it’s real but just imagine…..
 
I’m hopelessly and senselessly in love with Apple products. I know I’ve been herded in like a good little sheep.

But I would fecking love a Utd shirt with a simple Apple logo on the front!

I know one of you guys can mock that up for me..
 
Bit ridiculous and presumptuous to suggest Liverpool and city fans would own iPhones mate. If they did, they’ll be locked and available to buy for £10.

Correction. Meant other people's iPhones that they may have acquired..
 
We are going to see alot of links from journalists. Obviously, the mirror is not what we want to be listening to.

I guess this process will take some time and potential buyers will need to evaluate how much they need to spend before even bidding.
 
Nice kit possibilities though
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That Apple rumour…. No chance it’s real but just imagine…..

They overpaid for Beats and that was their largest purchase/deal to date. Doubt if they will spunk out $6Billion on a club that is decaying infrastructure-wise and needs a bit of a rebuild.
 
Imagine they turn old trafford into a big apple
Here’s your season ticket. But in order to show your season ticket to the boopy scanner thingy you’ll need this special film that covers your phone screen so the code scans properly. Only £49.99. It also only works once or twice before it breaks so you should buy a few of them. They’re also not going to be available for the start of the season and should go on sale by about next March. You can show your ticket to a steward but they’re wearing special polarizing glasses so you’ll need another special film on your screen for that so they can see it properly. Still no date set for that release yet but it’ll only be £39.99. Why doesn’t the steward not just take off their special glasses? Did you even read our T&Cs?!
 
It's just a few bad apples
Well if we’re not careful it could all go pear shaped. We’ve slipped over enough banana skins in recent years. We don’t want to come out of this looking like lemons. If we keep snatching for the dangling carrot we’re going to look like a bunch of wet lettuces’.
 
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