Emirate in saying you want Dubai the club?
Dubai a contender to buy Man Utd
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
I mean, give me a choice between a blood-sucking parasite who masquerades as a billionaire tycoon (Joel Glazer) and a state from the UAE with a long history of human rights issues that would use the name of our club to wash the stain from their reputation, well, I'm probably going with the parasite. The lesser of two evils if you like.
And I hate bugs
The good news is you wouldn't be constrained to just two choices. There are loads of billionaires (especially in the US) that have net worths upwards of 50 billion who could easily buy United. Steve Ballmer instance, is worth 100b and already owns a basketball team. Larry Ellison is rumored to be a massive sports fan and is worth over 100b as well. And that's before we get into Gates, Bezos, Musk levels of wealth.
Im sure they do to israel aswell which has imposed apartheid in palestine.
Emir, aren’t I?
I’m totally with you. However, the parasite will be selling to the highest bidder. Like I said yesterday - this is now Pandora’s box. Jim needs to stump up some cash if he’s serious.I mean, give me a choice between a blood-sucking parasite who masquerades as a billionaire tycoon (Joel Glazer) and a state from the UAE with a long history of human rights issues that would use the name of our club to wash the stain from their reputation, well, I'm probably going with the parasite. The lesser of two evils if you like.
And I hate bugs
I know this is a serious subject, but domestic abuse by the Emir is incredibly benign and tiny stuff compared to the US and Afghan invasion and the deaths caused by covid denial.
The glazers funded the politicans that did that, before and after the fact. You're making a really good case for the Emir being a more moral owner than the Glazers.
You make it seem the the Glazer's contribution to the GOP are just a few pennies that fell out of their pockets and ended up there by accident.
They've organized fundraisers for Bush and Trump. That's giving their own money and persuading other oligarchs to do the same, spanning at least 2 decades (possibly even longer, I haven't looked into it that deeply). They've done so before and after their policies that killed a million people. They live in a free country in which they could just fund the corporate dems, or make the decision to not contribute and be slightly less wealthy in return.
A US oligarch and active republican donor is just as evil, if not more so, than the emir of dubai.
You really shouldn't separate financial backers of politicians from the politicans in the US. they're one and same. There is no way to win an election of a significant scale in that system. In many ways the US is an oligarchy.
Who's talking about the Glazers? And sorry, but frankly I have no interest in a discussion about ethics with someone whose point of departure is as futile and irrelevant as the reductive dualism that you're espousing.
That's what I'm talkign 'Abu't...(I'm Canadian, so that one is incorporating the Canadian accent.)
Probably, he's not always completely terrible though. It's just such an open-goal for a journalist though isn't it?
Man United [check]
No way of verifying or disproving [check]
Loads of outrage [check]
Your a emir of your own house.
These new owners? Not sure alaykum...
Have they actually placed a bid?
you would have to boycott the club entirely if this happened. obviously there was that big initial boycott back during the 2005 period and many went off as everyone knows. but this is a different scale. i had no problem with the first boycott because they were largely right. but this would rise to a level where you'd have to be a complete scumbag to keep patronizing the club.
It's not loads really. Even if you start with a few dozen people, their appettite for a 4-5bn investment in a Manchester-based soccer club should quickly brings it down to a handful at best.
Then you have to consider continued interest/commitment as a desirable factor going forward. If rich dude eventually sells to undesirable owners you are back in square one, except you may as well have had stable undesirable owners to begin with. You need rich dude to agree with Gates re eventually giving all that money away, i.e. fans inheriting club ownership.
There aren't that many realistic good and sustainable options. The biggest problem though is the value to be unlocked is inevitably greater for a sportswashing project and the ones assessing the offers are these leeches.
Well… stone me…
Please just get Jim ratcliffe and be done with it. None of these Middle-eastern owners with poor human rights records.
The Glazers have used more of their own money to support Trump and Bush than they’ve put into Man Utd…
Any owner is better than them.
Any owner is better than them.
Yup, and arguably he's the biggest image washing merchant out there, with the facade of a glitzy city and luxury tourism.
Emirates airlines is run very professionally and so is their airport. Yes, they have an appalling human rights record in their own country. But they won't hire imbeciles to run United if they buy it. They are going to get professionals to run it. By the way 3 or 4 billion is nothing to them.
There really aren't very many nice rich people in the world when it comes right down to it. UAE are on the nasty end, though not quite as bad as the Saudis.
Tax the foreign (slave) workers of course.
This isnt Abu Dhabi. Dubai doesn’t have that much money to throw around now considering its oil reserves are next to nothing.
If we have to accept human rights abusers then atleast they should be filthy rich. Dubai would be a disaster on both fronts
Feck that, I'd hate to have cnuts like these involved with our club, let alone owning it.
This isnt true for Manchester united. Few sports team can claim to be on the status that Manutd enjoy throughout the world
I wish people would open their eyes a bit about the west incl. the US. We can blame and slate Dubai and Saudi Arabia as much as we want but we need to look at ourselves too.
Also, look what they’re doing at City, you need to give these countries a chance to change.
Also, look what they’re doing at City, you need to give these countries a chance to change.
The bolded part was abundantly clear 3 posts back.
All you've done in each of your 5 posts responding to me was restate your existing view, calling mine silly, without providing a single argument.
I don't know why you're so offended by someone challenging your pre conceived notions that you have to resort to petty insults.
It's obvious you don't have an actual argument, when you think giving an argument equates to writing a 10,000 word essay. Bye bye.
English owned means English owned
In what world is the owner of the state not a state actor? This is a ridiculous argument.
There are 725 billionaires in the US alone and about a 1000 if you factor in Canada and Europe, so that is plenty of people (aka loads). Buying United would be pocket change for the likes of Gates, Buffet, Musk, Ellison, Bryn, Page, Zuckerberg, Bezos et al.
They might do I wouldn't know. But a wealthy person donating money to a political party that runs a country is very different to actually being a country.
I tend to agree.
My point is, in a sporting context, in the interest of fair competition, the alleged cheating is more of a bone of contention.
In the wider global context, of course there are the more serious allegations from Amnesty international etc.
Even Uruguay has billionaires, it doesn't mean they have 5bn spare to buy a shiny toy. Those you mention at the end are the sort I counted as "a few dozen" and at best we can hope for one of those to be mildly interested, if that.
I wish people would open their eyes a bit about whataboutism.
This club shapes your world view, that's why it's great for sportswashers. Most American billionaires likely never even heard of us and would almost definitely be more attracted to 5bn worth of any sort of philanthropy ahead of sorting our problem of disliking our owners.
Consider the Glazers wealth which is each at about $1B (they are barely billionaires). Therefore it wouldn't take that much to buy United if a person was worth 20-30b. It would get exponentially easier as we get into the 50-100m range.
What has that got to do with this question? They can afford to pay a few billion dollars to buy United. In that sense Emirates Airlines and Dubai airport should be disasters too? They are not. They get professionals to run their business.
Bush is the epitome of "human rights" as the face of the Iraq invasion and the millions killed as direct consequence of the said action. However nobody talks about this aspect when describing the Glazers ownership.
There is no difference between them. Aiding and financing Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu put blood on their fecking hands as well.
They can support whoever they want as citizens and business people. That's how the system works in a democratic society, which is in stark difference to autocratic ones where dictators and absolute monarchs are the state, and are directly responsible for state policies. That's light years away from a businessman contributing to a political party (or in the case of the Glazers, to both US parties).
everyone knows the glazers are scumbags. it was known before they bought the club. the point is really simple. concentrated wealth, when we're speaking about hundreds of millions or billions, almost always implies terrible things. but there are degrees of terrible. ideally, the club would be supporter owned. anything less than that represents something crap. but as i said, there is a scale of crap. the glazers are indirectly tied to terrible things through political spending. the uae and its royal family are directly tied to a genocidal war in yemen, which the americans and some european states do also participate in, something which is a disgrace, but in relative terms you'd be hard pressed to argue that the glazers are worse than anyone whose wealth is tied up so intimately in warfare.
So they should accept being called out as endorsers of war criminals