Manchester United Football Club - biggest club in the world?!

Random Task said:
If you mean in terms of worldwide support, Real and Barca are out in front with United trailing a distant third. That's always been the case and always will be.
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In Asia and Africa, where combined population is almost 6 billions out of world population of about 8 billions. And EPL is by far the most popular league in these regions. In term of most supported club worldwide I think English clubs will be right there at the top especially Man Utd and Liverpool.

EPL also have the most growth potential in these regions. EPL is also getting bigger and bigger rapidly in these regions compared to other league. EPL will pull further away from other leagues.
 
harms said:
They were certainly bigger at the time (as a club, not as a side) but they've grown a lot on that Messi-Ronaldo thing, just like Barcelona did. If we were to remain Barcelona's biggest competitor for a decade, having Cristiano in our side, who knows how that could've changed things. It didn't happen though, so it's just a thought exercise.
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Madrid would still be bigger. What player joined United at their peaks? What players joined Real? Starting with Puskás and Di Stefano...
 
Yakuza_devils said:
In Asia and Africa, where combined population is almost 6 billions out of world population of about 8 billions. And EPL is by far the most popular league in these regions. In term of most supported club worldwide I think English clubs will be right there at the top especially Man Utd and Liverpool.

EPL also have the most growth potential in these regions. EPL is also getting bigger and bigger rapidly in these regions compared to other league. EPL will pull further away from other leagues.
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Asia and Africa are not some monolithic entities. There are different shades to different countries and you cannot apply the same brush to those 6 billion. Madrid has a massive pull in North Africa and the Middle East.
At the end of the day the size of the PL is a moot point. It doesn't matter as long as Madrid manages to paint themselves as the pinnacle of football and play the part. Them winning those CL's and beating 3 PL sides on their last go helps them boost that "legend" even more. What we need to do is start winning some silverware again instead of worrying about some online d*ck measuring contest with some 13 year old keyboard warriors on the other side of the globe.
 
RoyH1 said:
Asia and Africa are not some monolithic entities. There are different shades to different countries and you cannot apply the same brush to those 6 billion. Madrid has a massive pull in North Africa and the Middle East.
At the end of the day the size of the PL is a moot point. It doesn't matter as long as Madrid manages to paint themselves as the pinnacle of football and play the part. Them winning those CL's and beating 3 PL sides on their last go helps them boost that "legend" even more. What we need to do is start winning some silverware again instead of worrying about some online d*ck measuring contest with some 13 year old keyboard warriors on the other side of the globe.
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Not sure about North Africa but I have lived in middle east for many years and certainly EPL was huge there.

Overall, still the EPL is by far the most popular league in Asia and Africa.
 
Once upon a time, many years ago and in a galaxy far far away United was the biggest club in the world.

United turned into the thing they laughed about the most for 30 years….Liverpool.

I hope to see the resurgence of the United I grew up watching as a kid. God I miss SAF.
 
Probably not the biggest in anything other than fanbase. I don't think we could claim to have ever been bigger than Madrid in any other way.

Sadly, in a few years we'll fall behind there too. It might not seem like it matters but of course it does as this is where the money comes from.

In terms of being well-known we're probably still in the top 3 whereas in terms of 'stature' of the clubs currently I think we're behind City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Juve, Bayern PSG, and Madrid/Barca. Obviously competing more with Arsenal/Tottenham.
 
We were one of the biggest, like 15-25 years ago. But we are no longer there over the past decade.

Here's the biggest clubs across different era from my understanding:

50s - Real Madrid
60s - Santos, Benfica, Inter, Real Madrid, Man Utd
70s - Ajax, Bayern, Liverpool, Forest
80s - Liverpool, Juventus, Milan, Hamburger, Bayern, Real Madrid, Everton
90s' - Milan, Barca, Ajax, Man Utd, Juventus, Inter, Real Madrid
00's - Man Utd, Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal
10s - Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Liverpool, City
20s (current) - City? Liverpool? PSG? Bayern? Real?
 
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It’s a magic club and its history is beautiful. Don’t care what anyone says. United has always had hardships and it’s always bounced back. This club is unique and stand alone in many ways but this era has really really been tough to watch.

we have something that all the new big clubs are trying to buy. So next anyone calls city or psg bigger clubs, think about that.
 
RedRonaldo said:
We were one of the biggest, like 15-25 years ago. But we are no longer there over the past decade.

Here's the biggest clubs across different era from my understanding:

50s - Real Madrid
60s - Santos, Benfica, Inter, Real Madrid, Man Utd
70s - Ajax, Bayern, Liverpool, Forest
80s - Liverpool, Juventus, Milan, Hamburger, Bayern, Real Madrid, Everton
90s' - Milan, Barca, Ajax, Man Utd, Juventus, Inter, Real Madrid
00's - Man Utd, Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal
10s - Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Liverpool, City
20s (current) - City? Liverpool? PSG? Bayern? Real?
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If you measured the size of a club using success as the only metric, this list would be accurate.
 
We can all try and break it down into statistics but you can always paint statistics in a way to suit your argument. Not to say there isn’t a place for statistics - they’re the most important thing in many many decisions and discussions. But not for one as subjective as this.

Going by gut feel, I would have us marginally above Liverpool but behind Real Madrid and Barcelona. Bayern, Juve, and Milan a notch behind. PSG further back.
 
For me this is definitely the best club in the world. I don't need metrics to tell me how I feel, it's like the girl you fall in love with, who cares what other people think.
 
Random Task said:
If you measured the size of a club using success as the only metric, this list would be accurate.
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Yes - more or less accurate, at least.

It would be horribly inaccurate on the whole, though (I know you realize this).

The most obvious case is Nottingham Forest. They were never a huge club - they just happened to win the old EC two years in succession: which is a remarkable achievement, of course, but nobody in their right mind would class them as being anywhere near a huge club. They aren't that in the context of English clubs - and obviously miles off in a European context.
 
I don't know about "the biggest" today, but we are among the biggest clubs in the world today and we're long overdue in acting like one. We've taken a positive step forward by getting rid of Woodward and Ole (legend as a player, but a disastrous appointment as manager) and hopefully we can follow that up with solid acquisitions as well as showing a bit more character on and off the pitch.
 
Some younger fans think football started in 1992 and dont realise it took Fergie 4 years to win a trophy, 7 years to win a title. We became world famous due to the tragedy in Munich. We may have been on the verge of being like Madrid and winning a couple more European cups in the late 50s and 60s if it hadnt happened.
The Munich disaster propelled Utd to be a lot of peoples 2nd favourite team. City, Stockport, Bury fans in the aftermath went to watch Utd if their teams were away. The hooligan element that seeped in the game during the 70s eroded a lot of that, but by then we were a big name worldwide and certainly in Uk and Ireland.
We aldo had THE superstar in the UK as well during the 60s and early 70s, Bestie. All helped propel Utd to the top.
Where once we could go in for any player with a 90% probability of getting him its all slowly eroding. Young players look towards the perennial top teams first if offered a chance to move. We can get back there, but obviously need to start winning trophies again.
 
too far behind when it comes to CL success, imo. you can't have almost all traditional european giants with twice the total european cup/CL trophies that United have, and claim to be the biggest. one of, certainly.
 
Yakuza_devils said:
Not sure about North Africa but I have lived in middle east for many years and certainly EPL was huge there.

Overall, still the EPL is by far the most popular league in Asia and Africa.
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I've been living in UAE for near 3 decades, this place is divided between Barca and Madrid, there have always been a significant number of ManUtd fans, but that's reducing rapidly, Juve PSG and ManCity(obviously) fans are on the rise. Juve not so much anymore since Ronaldo left, but PSG and City fans are not going anywhere.
 
Even though I don't consider UCL (or any KO competition for that matter) success as a benchmark to judge a manager or the players, but that competition is a huge factor in how a club is perceived.

We ran into the mighty Barca on two occasions, Bayern did us dirty in one campaign, Rafa red didn't help, the Nani red was also harsh, but RvP did miss a few good chances in the first leg.

We'd be very different in terms of global appeal if we'd have won 2 out of those 4 CLs. Having said that, even winning all 4 of them wouldn't have mattered once SAF left and how we were run after that.
 
kthanksbye said:
I've been living in UAE for near 3 decades, this place is divided between Barca and Madrid, there have always been a significant number of ManUtd fans, but that's reducing rapidly, Juve PSG and ManCity(obviously) fans are on the rise. Juve not so much anymore since Ronaldo left, but PSG and City fans are not going anywhere.
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Based on friends and family members, I have the same take. If I was to generalize Arab countries and north Africa are mainly divided between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Then people can also have second and third teams, for example in North Africa, people often support Barcelona or Madrid, then they have a local club and also a Ligue 1 club for older generations. The same applies to french speaking countries in Africa.
 
Partridge said:
To be fair, most of us knew this would happen when fergie left. What we didn't know was how long it could last for. Our stature has dropped alot since 2013. There can be no doubt. Madrid have been the daddies since the 60s really.

We should have rebuilt like Liverpool did under klopp. We didn't , and here we are.
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Took the scousers 25 years to rebuild until they employed Klippity Klopp, took them 30 until they won the league.

I'm hoping we don't endure that long?
 
Can some one kindly explain why a club like UTD of this magnitude failed to have a top class transfer Guru(negotiator) + the best Sporting Data analysis team (not some one from Cambridge Maths department) over last 10 years?

Is that difficult to recruit them or we are not bothered?

By spending on top class Transfer negotiator like Campos/Paul Mitchell we could have saved millions of pounds on players sales/salaries. It is painful to see other clubs get players of higher quality on lesser salaries than we do.
 
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