I do see why people dislike the oil money in clubs and I do get that United having a massive, global fanbase and selling pencil cases and duvet covers to them is different to getting money given to you by a sugar daddy.
But at the same time I do always think its a bit self serving when the traditional big clubs like United cry foul when some other club suddenly has more money than them, and they find themselves no longer at the top of the food chain.
To borrow from an analogy Im sure Ive used discussing this before in years gone by, it reminds me of aristocrats looking down their noses at the nouveau riche. "Our money is better than your money."
Do we really think Woodward's skill signing up noodle partners is somehow truer to the spirit of what football is about than a billionaire owner simply handing money over? Yes ours is probably more legitimate, given it leverages our global fanbase, but another way to argue it is that if this was left unchecked the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" would only grow: big clubs win more and then attract more fans and generate more revenue and buy better players and then win more, a virtuous circle. You could argue the sugar daddy thing has mixed things up and made things more competitive at the top. You could argue its been good for football in some ways. For the segment of the UK population that dont support United, there are now more teams who can win it. Or on a European level, if PSG challenge Madrid and Barca, in some ways I say good luck to them.
At the end of the day, to me they are both a depressing reality about modern football, which is that it is all about money. Id much rather spend my time raging against that than argue about whether some massive marketing-based corporation is more noble than some other oil baron.
