Did a United fan not just bid like £4bn to buy Chelsea like 3 months ago? I agree they aren't going anywhere anytime soon sadly but as the Chelsea situation showed there are a large number of people and companies that suddenly become interested if a big club is available, and they are nowhere near as big as United.
Glazer Family Consider Selling? (Source unverified)
- Thread starter BenitoSTARR
- Start date
The thing is as JIm Ratcliffe said, United aren’t for sale. So until such time that the fans either drive them out or they feel the time has come to get out of football we are stuck with them.
United would be more expensive, for one thing.
But, more importantly (we wouldn't be that much more expensive), if you desperately want the Glazers to sell, then I don't see why you'd be confident that a consortium of some kind would be significantly better: they'd run the club as a business too, taking dividends for their shareholders and the rest of it.
If you want an owner that absolutely would not run the club as a business, then we all know what kind of candidates we're looking at.
Where did I (or anyone for that matter) say I wouldn't want an owner to run the club as a business, or that I'd be unhappy with owners making money out of the club?
I can't think of anything apart from corporate sponsorship that you believe they have being doing with any competence.
It only takes basic competence to bring in lots of corporate sponsorship for arguably the most popular/marketable sports club in the world. Doesn't display any great business acumen.
You didn't, granted - I just assumed that your problem with the Glazers is that they aren't investing enough money into the football side.
If that's not the case, I apologize.
Honestly this sentiment gets on my tits.... "anyone could do it" then someone comes in and fecks everything up and @Fanta Stick is nowhere to be seen...
Whilst United as a business remains profitable its highly unlikely the Glazers would sell outright. Of course they could start to off load shares, (have already done so) but still retain control. We have to face the fact that Manchester United is a multi-billion dollar business and any new owners would view it in that way.
Maybe, just maybe, the apparent news that SAF, David Gill and Robbo are being invited into the management of the business (if indeed that's what it is) could offer some comfort, in that the Glazers (if they didn't before) now realise that success on the field is the only way to keep the cash rolling in, off it, especially from sponsors.
With the world wide mass media organisations (Amazon/Netflix,/Disney+ etc.) likely to get involved in some sort of 'super league' football in the not too distant future, things will change. The Glazers are savvy enough to 'realise' they need top line football wise ambassadors to get involved with the mass marketing requirements, as the 'product' will have to be right... all the time!
Maybe, just maybe, the apparent news that SAF, David Gill and Robbo are being invited into the management of the business (if indeed that's what it is) could offer some comfort, in that the Glazers (if they didn't before) now realise that success on the field is the only way to keep the cash rolling in, off it, especially from sponsors.
With the world wide mass media organisations (Amazon/Netflix,/Disney+ etc.) likely to get involved in some sort of 'super league' football in the not too distant future, things will change. The Glazers are savvy enough to 'realise' they need top line football wise ambassadors to get involved with the mass marketing requirements, as the 'product' will have to be right... all the time!
So because an asteroid can hit Earth tomorrow and wipe all life, we should be happy with what we've got?
What dumb strawman is this?
It's a bit like thinking that top level football players or managers (who actually do remain at the top level - they may not win the Ballon or the Champions League, but they clearly aren't in danger of being sold to the Championship or relegated) are "shite".
I mean, nuance still is a thing. You can be competent (enough) without being great. And you can't be an absolute, actual, genuine "fraud" and still get pretty good results - not over time, forget it, that doesn't happen.
All we want is an owner/owners to clear the debt, and not take dividends (like every other club owner in the Premier League) while investing ambitiously. Without the debt and dividends the club could easily afford the required investments.
Protests at every home game would definitely unsettle them.
Protests at every home game would definitely unsettle them.
Are you saying the glazers have done a good job?
Which area of the club has improved since their takeover?
Caf doesn't do Nuance.... it's lalaland or the sky is falling, no inbetween.
With respect to sponsership and commercial activity as a whole? Erm... good enough not to claim anyone could do it.
Anyway, for the last time, what I'm saying is.... Be careful what you wish for! We see it all the time on here. Posters always want change and when they get it and it goes tits up those posters go missing.
If they only took dividends, and only when the club was doing well, I could easily live with that.
It's their debt which has cost us far more. And it's still there.
Good enough? Maybe, if you're happy with a slow decline from superiority to mediocrity.
I wish for better owners.
When we finally get our shit together and boot out these parasites, the next lot will be on notice: Perform or fk off.
We have huge power as fans, but only when we reach a critical mass of willing participants. What NEVER helps, is the apologists and naysayers in every single fukking thread.
Yeah, agreed. Taking dividends this summer was criminal.
I hope more fans can get on the same page with trying to force the Glazers out. If I lived in or around Manchester I would happily stay outside the ground and protest if it meant ramping up the pressure on them.
Posting a strawman, then accusing another poster (who didn't) of doing the same.
That I agree with - pure greed.
We all wan't better owners, better jobs, better partners
Sometimes you get them, sometimes you get a shit sandwitch and spend the rest of your days in regret wishing you appreciated what you had. If you can show me a better owner waiting to take over, I'll join ya. All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for I'm no apologist ffs...
How do you expect this to happen, though?
They aren't up for election, they can't be sacked, they just own the feckin' thing. If they keep making money from it, why would they feck off?
You can - in theory - force them out by making them lose (enough) money. Yes - you can do that. But that's literally the only way - and then they sell their shares to...whom?
We all wan't better owners, better jobs, better partners
Sometimes you get them, sometimes you get a shit sandwitch and spend the rest of your days in regret wishing you appreciated what you had. If you can show me a better owner waiting to take over, I'll join ya. All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for I'm no apologist ffs...
Well you kind of are really. You're happy to repeatedly excuse them by saying that things could be worse. While technically true, we have just about the worst owners in football right now. Is it really likely to get worse?
And, as I said, it the next lot need kicking out then we'll deal with that too.
What I don't want to see, is this club continuing to bend over for the glazers, while they make a fortune out of us. Without even a hint that they will repay THEIR massive debt.
Every time this thread is bumped my cock grows. Ffs.
It's easy, you know how, we all do.
All it takes is sufficient buy-in from the fans. We could have them gone in a few months with enough focus on denying their income streams.
Ok mate, if thats hopw you want to frame it, I'll leave you to it...
Sorry, touchy subject for me. I just don't see why anyone here defends them.
At the very least Man Utd should be ‘owned’ by an owner who can actually afford to OWN the club.
The club shouldn’t be paying off the debts of an owner.
The club shouldn’t be paying off the debts of an owner.
Apology not required mate, but I'm not sure that's a reasonable thing to assume. The issues United fans have with the Glazer family go way beyond investment into the football team. They don't invest at all and yet we've still spent over a billion pounds in the last decade - because of how well ran the business side of the football club has been it produces enormous amounts of money for itself to spend despite not necessarily being successful on the pitch (although obviously the time you can go without success and still continue being as profitable at such high levels is finite, as we are seeing with the pace City and Liverpool have been catching up over the past few years).
The issue I have is that with the Glazers behind this, the club has been operating with one hand tied behind it's back. It is them taking over a debt free football club and immediately loading almost £550m of debt onto it. Debt itself is not necessarily the devil but it's what comes with it that causes problems - although for that debt to still be sitting around £500m 17 years later is outrageous. The problems are the circa £750m in interest funding the debt in that time and a further £200m+ in debt repayments in that time. We sold the best player in the world for a world record fee and used the money to pay off a couple of years worth of interest on the debt rather than replacing him. £22m a year in dividends is just a drop in the ocean of money going out of the football club. Where would we be had that £950m been available to the club over the past 17 years, would we be needing to be looking at borrowing a further billion pounds to renovate Old Trafford or would regular improvements have continued throughout that time? Would we still have just stood aside while City and Chelsea bought players we'd been watching for years in the early 2010s? It creates an entirely different landscape.
So in short, no I don't really care about the owners putting their own money into the club or making money out of the club. Sure, blue sky world it would be great, in reality, the club doesn't need it. It'd just be nice to have owners who allow the club to run to its full potential, if that's happening and they want to take a dividend then I don't have any real issue with that.
Yes - like I said, it could be done.
It would take a monumental effort, though - not anything close to "all it takes" territory. Getting millions of people to hurt United's multiple sponsors in a way that would make the owners so skittish that they'd actually put the club up for sale - that's easier said than done.
And the question still remains: who buys the club?
I think that's a really concise way of putting it.
We do not need a sugar daddy (or a sugar state for that matter).
People talk about our spending but the Glazers and their ownership model have cost us over a billion. Imagine if we had access to that money over the last 15 years, we may have spent it like shit still but I would rather that than lining trust fund babies pockets.
That's fair - I don't disagree with any of that.
I was 100% against the Glazer takeover and I still think that taking over a football club in that manner should've been illegal.
So, that's my personal history with regard to the Glazers.
I have even argued that the old plc might have evolved (in a positive way) if Uncle Malc had not bought the club - but that's another debate: the bottom line is that I was never happy with the takeover.
But none of this has any bearing on whether it would be good for United if the Glazers sold out here and now: the question is - obviously - who would buy us? Being "Glazers out" on principle back then is very different from being it now.
To be clear - back then it made 100% sense on principle (the principle being that nobody should be allowed to just purchase a football club that means so much to so many in a leveraged takeover), whereas now: what is the principle? Anyone but the Glazers? I'm sorry, but that does not make any sense to me.
Potential owners out there:
Sir Jim Ratcliffe - bid over £4 billion for Chelsea
Malaysian Prince, Tunku Ismail, showed interest last year
Consortiums that showed interest in the Chelsea sale.
Red Knights consortium
Fan ownership
Class of 92
Sir Jim Ratcliffe - bid over £4 billion for Chelsea
Malaysian Prince, Tunku Ismail, showed interest last year
Consortiums that showed interest in the Chelsea sale.
Red Knights consortium
Fan ownership
Class of 92
The day we get rid of these leeches will feel like winning the Champions League. It's not going to happen anytime soon though unless Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk decide they want to own Manchester United.
I think Ratcliffe doesn't fancy it, I was shocked to see he bid for Chealsea if that story was true. I am pretty sure he has talked about football clubs being a terrible investment previously.
Shame because he is minted.
Have the Glazers actually given any concrete notion that they will sell?
There is a more nuclear option, but yes of course, it will take a larger buy-in than we've seen before.
There would be plenty of interested buyers, as soon as it becomes clear that the club is for sale(at least as many as Chelsea, you'd expect). Also, the club would likely come with a reduced price due to the protests. As a result of this, I feel we'd be in a much stronger position to make demands of the next owner.
One of my big fears with the glazers, is if they're still here in 10 or 20 years when the issue of a new stadium simply cannot be put off any longer, is that they'll knock down OT and build us a budget stadium which will saddle us with even greater debt. It's not like they have been saving that £1b+, that they've taken from the club, for a rainy day. It's gone. And the debt remains. What clearer indication do we need that they have no interest in improving the club, only maintaining their money tree.
Would be worth it to see the Redcafe reaction.