So, the Glazers. Are they parasites? Blame game topic.

KeninDC said:
Not to get into a dueling spreadsheet discussion-but this is from Andy Green's August 2012 blog. It takes into account savings realized from debt payments and also the dividends paid by the PLC. The £350M estimate in cash Glazer costs (£531M - £180M implicitly assumes that the PLC would have generated the same increase in commercial revenue as under the Glazers.

Not defending the Glazers, just trying to establish a starting point for the discussion.
imagejpg1_zps8cca75fa.jpg
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Our revenue would've grown with or without the Glazers like it did with clubs like Barcelona, Bayern and Real Madrid. Revenue increased because of an increase in both interest and money pumped into football in recent times from sponsorships, TV money and many other things. Still, the cost of maintaining the Glazers is much higher than the previous costs.

Then there's the other issue, when new owners take over a club they usually pump money into it, instead the Glazers take away the money. If you compare the money spent before the Glazers took over, you can see that in most season we used to spend more in the first 4 years of the 2000s.
 
Kill 'em all said:
BvVa-bLIIAEpoY7.jpg:large


The Glazer regime.
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So if the debt, interest and ticket price increases are enough of an indictment against the Glazer's ownership, why the need to include useless stuff like consultancy and management fees and net transfer spend (a figure that is hugely skewed by the Ronaldo sale), why take excellent points and dilute them?
 
I don't understand anyone who thinks their ownership model is fine, simply because they allow the manager to do his job etc etc. They are everything that is wrong with football, and we always criticize Man City whose owner actually cares about the club and is investing his own money into it.
 
Kill 'em all said:
Our revenue would've grown with or without the Glazers like it did with clubs like Barcelona, Bayern and Real Madrid. Revenue increased because of an increase in both interest and money pumped into football in recent times from sponsorships, TV money and many other things. Still, the cost of maintaining the Glazers is much higher than the previous costs.
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It's a hypothetical counterfactual-so we'll never know. My guess is that the Glazers have been more aggressive than another owner would have been-and so some, but certainly not all of the increased commercial revenue is due to the Glazers.

But-your opinion that the amount is zero is just as valid.
 
Invictus said:
I think it bears repeating that prior to 2012, our net spend for the preceding 7 seasons was :

2005 : £1 million.
2006 : £4.1 million.
2007 : £26.5 million.
2008 : £ 33.75 million.
2009 : -£64.5 million
2010 : £13.5 million.
2011 : £38 million.

Adds upto : £52.4 million.

No-one expects Madrid/ Chelsea/ PSG/ City level but £52.4 million over 7 seasons ? Wanna guess what Sunderland's net spend for that duration was ? £86 million. Aston Villa ? £108 million. That's how far United were from the upper echelons of spending. Forget the European elite we were outspent by mid-table Premier League clubs.
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No wonder we're at mid table
 
KeninDC said:
Sorry-but I disagree. The purpose of United is to win-and they did. I agree that we're in a diminished state-through a combination of too little and poorly directed spending. I'd argue that the original Green and Gold campaign lost traction because the results were good.

Now-the squad must be improved. And if the money isn't made available I'll be the first one to light the pitchforks.
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How come ? Do you honestly believe the results are down in part to the Glazer family ? United was the biggest brand in football even before they came along. What have they contributed towards our success ? We had one of the if not the biggest revenues in world football. The bedrock of our title machine teams was already in place before they arrived - the rest were cheap acquisitions - Vidic, Paddy, Van der Sar. Do you honestly believe if we had an owner like Mansour or Moratti or Magnier/ McManus the results would've been different ? The results were good because of Fergie not because of the Glazer ownership. They are by far the worst owners among top clubs - only Kroenke another uberknob comes close IMO. We don't even have to consider United. Watch the Buccaneers. Malcolm was the decent one among them I'd say. He kept the franchise in Tampa, granted Dungy the time to turn them into a playoff team, traded picks and cash to the Raiders for Gruden leading to the Superbowl win. Avi and the other scrub are just really poor in that regard. Ever since Malcolm's heath declined the Bucs have nosedived. They went for cheap fixes in Morris and Schiano and underspent in FA. The same has been done to United for the most part. Dare I say if Malcolm was healthy we'd have seen a more ambitious model at United.
 
Dwazza Van Hernandez said:
So if the debt, interest and ticket price increases are enough of an indictment against the Glazer's ownership, why the need to include useless stuff like consultancy and management fees and net transfer spend (a figure that is hugely skewed by the Ronaldo sale), why take excellent points and dilute them?
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I don't get this argument at all. Yes, we received an extortionate amount of money at that time for a player, but the fact is we also lost a player who was worth that extortionate amount and didn't really replace him. It's not skewed at all in my opinion.
 
Invictus said:
How come ? Do you honestly believe the results are down in part to the Glazer family ? What have they contributed towards our success ? The bedrock of our title machine teams was already in place before they arrived - the rest were cheap acquisitions - Vidic, Paddy, Van der Sar. Do you honestly believe if we had an owner like Mansour or Moratti or Henry the results would've been different ? The results were good because of Fergie not because of the Glazer ownership. They are by far the worst owners among top clubs - only Kroenke another uberknob comes close IMO. We don't even have to consider United. Watch the Buccaneers. Malcolm was the decent one among them I'd say. He kept the franchise in Tampa, gave time to Dungy to turn them into a playoff team, traded picks and cash to the Raiders for Gruden leading to the Superbowl win. Avi and the other scrub are just really poor in that regard. EVer since Malcolm's heath declined the Bucs have nosedived. They went for cheap fixes in Morris and Schiano and underspent in FA. The same has been done to United for the most part. Dare I say if Malcolm was healthy we'd have seen a more ambitious model.
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Absolutely not. The Glazers have nothing to do with the success of United. The argument, as I understand it is that United would have done better under a different owner. Ok-better than what? Better than 5 titles and 3 CL appearances? Maybe-but hard to imagine.

I agree that we will now see what happens-and if the required investment isn't made then I will be furious.
 
Bestie07 said:
I don't get this argument at all. Yes, we received an extortionate amount of money at that time for a player, but the fact is we also lost a player who was worth that extortionate amount and didn't really replace him. It's not skewed at all in my opinion.
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It skews the net spend figure, so when using net spend as a basis for criticism it leaves that counter argument open (i.e. we got 80 million quid for one player). A better argument is that we sold a once in a generation player for a shedload of money and didn't try to replace what was lost, as you have pointed out.
 
I suspect we'll see United without CL football for at least two seasons. How will that affect their model? It's a great to have the biggest brand in the universe but if we don't spend big on the pitch surely a lack of investment will slowly undo the work done in the past few decades? Truth is we are competing against four...possibly five clubs...it's going to take time and a lot of money to get amongst them. Initially the Glazers got lucky, without Fergie and a poor squad things aren't looking as rosy. Let's see what they do eh. Interesting times.
 
Transfer fees paid by the club

Before Glazers
98/99 £ 27,750,000
99/00 £ 17,800,000
00/01 £ -
02/03 £ 57,000,000
03/04 £ 53,350,000
04/05 £ 27,200,000
After Glazers
05/06 £ 19,500,000
06/07 £ 18,600,000
07/08 £ 61,750,000 sold 35m worth of players
08/09 £ 35,750,000
09/10 £ 21,000,000 year in which Ronaldo was sold
10/11 £ 27,200,000
11/12 £ 52,900,000
12/13 £ 63,000,000
13/14 £ 67,700,000
14/15 £ 56,000,000

It's a joke that in recent years we've had windows in which we've spent less than during the 98/99 season. Do note that these figures don't include sales, they're just expenditure.

van Gaal really did put it well.
“It is the biggest club because of world renown but in sport you are never the biggest unless every season you prove it,” Van Gaal said.

“If last season you were seventh you are not the biggest but are well known all over the world
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KeninDC said:
Absolutely not. The Glazers have nothing to do with the success of United. The argument, as I understand it is that United would have done better under a different owner. Ok-better than what? Better than 5 titles and 3 CL appearances? Maybe-but hard to imagine.

I agree that we will now see what happens-and if the required investment isn't made then I will be furious.
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We surely wouldn't have let our squad deteriorate to this level.
 
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KeninDC said:
Absolutely not. The Glazers have nothing to do with the success of United. The argument, as I understand it is that United would have done better under a different owner. Ok-better than what? Better than 5 titles and 3 CL appearances? Maybe-but hard to imagine.

I agree that we will now see what happens-and if the required investment isn't made then I will be furious.
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Hmm fair enough. So you'd agree that putting results aside they've been nothing but a massive financial burden then ?
 
Kill 'em all said:
Transfer fees paid by the club

Before Glazers
98/99 £ 27,750,000
99/00 £ 17,800,000
00/01 £ -
02/03 £ 57,000,000
03/04 £ 53,350,000
04/05 £ 27,200,000
After Glazers
05/06 £ 19,500,000
06/07 £ 18,600,000
07/08 £ 61,750,000 sold 35m worth of players
08/09 £ 35,750,000
09/10 £ 21,000,000 year in which Ronaldo was sold
10/11 £ 27,200,000
11/12 £ 52,900,000
12/13 £ 63,000,000
13/14 £ 67,700,000
14/15 £ 56,000,000

It's a joke that in recent years we've had windows in which we've spent less than during the 98/99 season. Do note that these figures don't include sales, they're just expenditure.

van Gaal really did put it well.
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The summer we sold Ronaldo was disgraceful. No other big club on the planet would sell their star player without replacing them with top, top talent. What did we get? Valencia, Owen and Obertan.
 
Invictus said:
Hmm fair enough. So you'd agree that putting results aside they've been nothing but a massive financial burden then ?
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That's just it. All I care about are the results--and until last year I've been a happy United fan. I don't care about the marketing strategy used by the Glazers--if they want an official snack partner in Timbuktu-whatever. If they want to take money in the form on consultant fees-whatever. It's their toy. So long as the team wins. I don't care about ownership style points.

So--I'm indifferent about the Glazers. But--now that United appear to be in decline, and Woodward says ridiculous things about spending in the transfer market--yeah, I'm pretty pissed off.
 
KeninDC said:
That's just it. All I care about are the results--and until last year I've been a happy United fan. I don't care about the marketing strategy used by the Glazers--if they want an official snack partner in Timbuktu-whatever. If they want to take money in the form on consultant fees-whatever. It's their toy. So long as the team wins. I don't care about ownership style points.

So--I'm indifferent about the Glazers. But--now that United appear to be in decline, and Woodward says ridiculous things about spending in the transfer market--yeah, I'm pretty pissed off.
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But isn't that indifference enabling unfit owners like the Glazers to just carry on with the status quo they've established ? Doesn't it set a dangerous precedent for owners to just pillage clubs at their will ? Bit of a tangent but living in DC don't you feel even a little bit of distastefulness at Snyder's catalog of shenanigans ? Do his theatrics become bearable if the Redskins win ?
 
J-Stander said:
The summer we sold Ronaldo was disgraceful. No other big club on the planet would sell their star player without replacing them with top, top talent. What did we get? Valencia, Owen and Obertan.
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Unless the club is owned by the glazers trying too make money, not spend it
 
Really good article from The Times on the Glazers:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/premierleague/article4179240.ece

Here's the text:

How much repair work did Manchester United need? £200m of it
David Moyes was not the reason Manchester United flopped so badly last season. Louis van Gaal is not the panacea to Old Trafford’s problems. The storm hitting the Stretford End has been brewing for nine years since the Glazer family took over the club in a leveraged buyout. In the run-up to the new season, there were copious amounts of unrealistic positivity about United.

They were widely tipped to regain a top-four place and some pundits imagined a Van Gaal-led title challenge. It is wishful thinking. Predictions are dangerous. Two and a half years ago this column opined that United’s squad was substandard and needed “freshening up to the tune of about £100 million”. Three months later, Sir Alex Ferguson’s side were Barclays Premier League champions and Times Sport’s mailbag bulged with correspondence from United fans that ranged from mild gloating to accusations of professional incompetence and bias. It became clear in time that the opinion in the original column was significantly off-beam. In that respect, the letter-writers were correct. The figure of £100 million massively underestimated the weakness of Old Trafford’s playing staff and the gap that would be left by Ferguson’s retirement. To give any successor to the Scot a chance to compete for trophies would have required an investment in players of double the initial estimate.

That £200 million is about the amount that Andy Green, a brilliant football financial analyst and relentless exposer of “Glazernomics”, suggests the American owners have received from selling shares in United over the few past months. It is an excellent return for a family that has never invested a penny in the club. The Glazers must snigger at the stupidity of English football. They own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football team. When they bought Tampa Bay in 1995, National Football League rules insisted that they could fund only 15 per cent of that buyout by borrowing. The majority of the money had to come from their own pockets. By contrast, United were purchased completely by debt, which was then leveraged against the club. Green calculates the cost of debt to United in the nine years since the takeover to be in the region of £700 million. That is aside from the cash the Glazers have made from shares. Ferguson’s rare genius meant that he was able to maintain United’s place at the top table despite such mind-boggling amounts of revenue being drained away from team-building.

The 72-year-old was never critical of the Glazers, but perhaps he should have been. Between the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80 million five years ago and the Scot’s retirement last summer, Ferguson bought only one player for more than £20 million, Robin van Persie. He added a handful of others in the £15 million to £18 million range but, with the exception of David De Gea, they were as ordinary as their price tags suggest. At this time, United were generating revenues that should have allowed them to compete with Real Madrid. The Glazers siphoned off cash and Ferguson carried on as if nothing was wrong. That apparent complicity casts a shadow over the Scot’s legacy. Van Gaal has inherited a similar substandard squad to Moyes and the same transfer negotiator who failed last summer. Ed Woodward could not bring Ferguson’s successor the sort of reinforcements the new manager needed.

That was when United had Champions League football to dangle in front of potential recruits. Woodward’s efforts this summer have been almost as underwhelming. Only Ander Herrera and Luke Shaw have joined. Both should develop into significant contributors for Van Gaal, but the Dutchman might have expected another three or four battle-hardened newcomers to bolster his squad. Woodward managed to escape the Moyes meltdown without too much personal damage, despite being a significant contributor to last season’s chaos. It is hard to imagine a man who failed to get his targets from a position of strength achieving a better result in a less attractive environment. There are no easy answers for United. The present troubles are merely symptoms. Their causes go back to the Glazers. The owners have taken the money and someone has to pay the price. Moyes already has and Van Gaal will have his work cut out not to be the next victim.

EDIT: A comment from an Arsenal fan who is familiar with the situation (found on Reddit):

Hi, I'm an Arsenal fan. I almost never comment in other subs but I wanted to see if this had been posted in here and couldn't really resist.

I was involved with some of the PIK loans that were made to United by Perry partners, Citadel and a few other hedge funds. I really don't want to give away the group that I work with so I'm very hesitant to say too much.

What I will say on the matter is that every single United fan should be incredibly concerned about the Glazers. To an extent it's acceptable to profit and make money out of football clubs and people will have various tolerances to what they consider acceptable in this regard.

That being said the Glazers have very little 'regard' for the club in my opinion. in fact their 'regard' for the club extends to pretty much keeping the fans spending money whilst milking as much money out of the club as possible.

Make no mistake those PIK loans were savage and whilst I don't know exactly how much that debt ended up costing United but figures of around £850m are probably not far off the mark. If possibly a little low.

The common retort when this is brought up is that they have grown the club commercially. And they have. When you look at it in isolation. However when you look at United's growth against the rest of the league it is good but it is not quite as spectacular as is made out.

I'd be keeping an eye on share sales by the Glazers going forward. I don't think they are ready to exit fully but the performance of the club will be concerning them and they may view this as somewhat of a top.

Anyway it's your sub and this is just my opinion so I'll leave you to it.

Edit. Added some links.

You can read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-club-says-hedge-fund-star-Paul-Marshall.html[1]

Also here[2] I would draw your attention particularly to Goldman's CIO Jim O'Neill ""Manchester United is a global brand and it is owned by people who are not particularly interested in what it does on the football pitch, they are more interested in revenue.". I know Jim reasonably well. He is about as dyed in the wool United fan as I have ever met. To the point that he got his Bloomberg colours inverted from Blue into Red because he didn't want to look at 'City colours'.

There's a lot more you can read into it but trust me when I say that if you have these two speaking out about the Glazers (and there are far more) and they understand finance better than 99.9% of the population then you should be worried.
 
bishblaize said:
What gets me is the way United's history has been retconned by anti-Glazer types so that everything was super-duper before the Glazers came along, just to justify a mantra that lost its relevance about 5 years ago.
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You said the Glazer plan worked. . But it only worked because SAF was able to make the most of the very limited resources they provided. . Had he not turned a 3rd place team into a league winner with practically no net investment in 2 years, we can only wonder how their leveraged strategy might of worked out. At best, we could of ended up like Arsenal, fighting for a top 4, at worst the club could of collapsed under the financial constraints imposed by the new owners. .

You keep writing as if everything that happened was planned in a manner that was relatively low risk or would of eventually worked out when nothing could be further from the truth. . There was a greater risk that their takeover would of ruined the club, then succeeded. That was why most people thought United was f**ked. Nobody had ever done what they did successfully and at the time the club was going through a period of transition with a few seasons without success. Even the Leeds business model was less risky because at least clubs had proven in the past that you could at least be successful financially by spending ridiculous amounts on the squad . .

You cant rewrite history, just because everything worked out in the end. These guys didn't have a full proof plan and they invested practically nothing which meant that it was easy to take the risks they took when they stood to lose very little proportionately to what they had riding on it.

You say you don't think the ends justified the means, but that is the basis of your entire defence or justification of your Glazer stance. "Things worked out good" . . Well have they really ? Had the club been doing what pretty much every top club is doing, and buying at least one top class addition to the FIRST TEAM, every season, maybe the squad and team wouldn't be quite as mediocre as it has looked.

Chelsea and city can replace managers with little impact on their league standing because they have superior quality players, who can perform with whomever is coaching them. The benefits of a SAF squad are only obvious when he is managing them. Their limitations have been there for everybody to see since he left.

I loved the way SAF worked, but I differ from you in that I do think that there were transfer restrictions that handicapped the clubs potential for even greater success.

Even in the last 2 years, when the club has spent the money that has some united fans purring, its not been breaking world records. Its just been surprising United fans who thought that the Glazers were like the person who "always forgets their wallet" when it comes to paying for the party . .

You can laud them for all their commercial success, but the truth is that the squad and by extension the club has benefited little from it. There is nothing special about their investment in our squad. The success of the squad built by SAF pretty more then paid for itself and all the Glazers did was exploit this success by whoring the club to every pot noodle company willing to buy a piece of the pie.

They could invest more, if they actually gave a flying f**k, but like you said their business model is about saturating and flogging the club in as cost efficient manner as possible. You can dress up the figures anyway you want, you can applaud their ingenuity and the success of their plan. But theses guys have taken so much from the club and really couldn't of put any less if they tried.
 
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Invictus said:
But isn't that indifference enabling unfit owners like the Glazers to just carry on with the status quo they've established ? Living in DC don't you feel even a little bit of distastefulness at Snyder's catalog of shenanigans ?
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@Invictus--I have enough in my life to be aggravated about without caring about how an owner behaves. Sports is a business-plain and simple. Owners are not guaranteed to be the type of people who I'd want to hang out with.

Snyder-as a person is odious. He's arrogant and entitled. For example, he tore down trees that were blocking his view of the Potomac River even though the trees were not on his property. It caused a fuss. What can I say--he's a creep.

And yet-there are no protests here--although there are rumblings that he should change the team's name. Still-people go, and there's no Green and Gold-like movement.

Maybe it's cultural--here in the states we don't really care about ownership so long as the team is winning. All sports here are too expensive to attend, IMO: but that ship has sailed. When I was a kid a ticket to a Mets' game cost $1.35-now the cheapest ticket is $25.

I have no illusions about sports and owners. It's a cut-throat business run mostly by very rich white men. I just focus on the game-enjoy when my teams win and die a little when my teams lose.

I have an interest in financial matters-so participate in discussions in this forum regarding financial matters as a hobby. Keeps me sharp. But-the world goes on in capital's favor whatever is said here, or any discussion about United.

So-that's where I coming from.
 
Between the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80 million five years ago and the Scot’s retirement last summer, Ferguson bought only one player for more than £20 million, Robin van Persie. He added a handful of others in the £15 million to £18 million range but, with the exception of David De Gea, they were as ordinary as their price tags suggest. At this time, United were generating revenues that should have allowed them to compete with Real Madrid.
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Just about says it all.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
Just about says it all.
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What it doesn't mention is how much we paid those mediocre signings per week and I have some suspicion that something to do with wages is hampering the club. I just can't decide if we pay mediocre players too much, refuse to pay quality players enough or both.
 
Spoony said:
Where are Tampa these days? I suspect they're not exactly top of the tree.
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Had the 7th pick in the 2014 draft. So essentially the 7th worst team in a 32 team league if we account for strength of schedule. Haven't made the playoffs since 2007 either while going through 4 head coaches since 2008..
 
Invictus said:
Had the 7th pick in the 2014 draft. So essentially the 7th worst team in a 32 team league if we account for strength of schedule. Haven't made the playoffs since 2007 either while going through 4 head coaches since 2008..
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Hmmmm...why have they let Tampa fade away?
 
I'm now starting to believe Fergie's desire masked over the Glazers tight approach to transfer fees. David Gill knew it and funnily enough left when Fergie retired.
 
Spoony said:
Hmmmm...why have they let Tampa fade away?
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TBF they still have above average revenues and net worth despite consistently being one of the worst teams so the Glazers don't bother with raising the level up a couple of notches. I'd dread to see them employ a similar strategy at United. That said there were some factors out of their control so the Glazers the only party to blame - poor drafting by the GM while perennial pro-bowlers Brooks, Sapp, Barber, Lynch retired or were cut, no franchise QB/ productive offence like ever and Florida's economy was pretty bad for the last decade. A lot of their games were blacked out in the recent past as a consequence of the last point. Funnily enough their fans blame their interest in United for the lack of attention/ investment. They're under the impression that all the extra money is being siphoned off to Old Trafford. :lol:

They aren't the only underperforming NFL-EPL owners :
Fulham's owner also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Arsenal's owner also owns the St. Louis Rams.
 
Invictus said:
Are we sure about that ?

In 2002 at the peak of the Galactico era Madrid's total wage bill was the highest in the world at €135.9 million while Manchester United was at €129.8 million. So the difference ware a bare minimum. And the net transfer spend was :

2004/ 2005 :
Madrid : £17,550,000
United : £21,350,000

2003/ 2004 :
Madrid : £18,170,000
United : £13,350,000

2002/ 2003 :
Madrid : £20,000,000
United : £27,050,000

2001/ 2002 :
Madrid : £39,560,000
United : £29,300,000

2000/ 2001 :
Madrid : £34,800,000
United : -£8,300,000

1999/ 2000 :
Madrid : £19,500,000
United : £16,050,000

1998/ 1999 :
Madrid : £3,000,000
United : £25,950,000

So in 7 seasons preceding the takeover we were outspent by only around £26 million ~ £3.5 million per annum while paying just €6 million ~ £3.7 million lower at the peak of Perez' Galactico policy. This was how close we were to the highest spending club in the world. The difference from 2005-2014 is staggering in comparison. In only the 2009 summer window Madrid spent a net of £163,100,000 while the Glazers spent a net of -£1,900,000 from 2005-2009 !!!!! Even if you count half of Rooney and Ronaldo's fee it's still a paltry £17.8 million. Not only did Madrid spend £163,100,000 in the 2009 window they spent a net total of £224,700,000 from 2005-2009. That's difference of over £206,900,000 while in the previous 7 seasons it was only ~£26,000,000.
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Yes Im sure about that!
We have been one of the bigger spenders for some time but never challenged the top spenders in Europe and never broken the global transfer record - the highest we went is the exact period you mention around 2001/2 (you cant just pick 1 random year of wages to prove a point!) when we splashed out on Veron and Rio, but apart from a few other exceptions we have never been in the market for Galactico signings and it was always well known that other clubs were willing to offer higher wages than us.

The figures comparing us to Madrid are interesting (and BTW what is the source for these numbers anyway?) but not that relevant to what I said because they were not always the biggest spenders back then - you cant call 2002 the peak of the Galacticos era, it was just the start really - the peak is now!
In late 90s/early 00s it was still Serie A where the bulk of the big transfer came from and then La Liga started to take charge.

Again you focus on transfer fees which is only a small part of the story - if you really want to do a comparison then you need to look at transfer fees + wages over a period of time.
 
Red Phoenix Rising said:
I'm not saying that some aren't, that some are putting this before actually getting behind the team. That bit I find strange.
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You can still state on an open forum that you detest the Glazers, and their ownership of the club, yet still get 'behind the team' even from a armchair on the other side of the world.The two positions are not mutually exclusive.
 
After a few days of thinking, I've started to think that the Glazers are the fundemental cause of the problem. They can't run a sports team.
If I'm correct in my facts, Tampa Bay have been awful the last few years. They've gone from being a moderately successful franchise to a mess. Hiring coaches all the fecking time etc. The Glazers know how to sell merchandise and brand a team world wide, but as far as putting together a winning squad they haven't a clue. It seems as if investing smartly in a team is a luxury extra, not a requirement. They plan badly and make decisions that baffle most ceo's in equivalent positions to Woodward.
Ferdinand and Vidic gave plenty of notice that they'd be leaving at the end of last season. The office at united has been aware of the team's roster situation for a month and a half and what have they done? The only reasonable signing they've made is Herrera and Shaw. Shaw is now injured. No sign of a backup. Most of us feel that defense and even moreso midfield has been a problem for United 2 seasons now. We've done feck all to rectify that. The Glazers are going to need soon, or it'll hamper United and them.
 
Jesus Christ looking at those facts really does show that Fergie is indeed the greatest manager of all time. To achieve so many trophies with man city and Chelsea around is beyond ridiculous.
 
Rood said:
Yes Im sure about that!
We have been one of the bigger spenders for some time but never challenged the top spenders in Europe and never broken the global transfer record - the highest we went is the exact period you mention around 2001/2 (you cant just pick 1 random year of wages to prove a point!) when we splashed out on Veron and Rio, but apart from a few other exceptions we have never been in the market for Galactico signings and it was always well known that other clubs were willing to offer higher wages than us.

The figures comparing us to Madrid are interesting (and BTW what is the source for these numbers anyway?) but not that relevant to what I said because they were not always the biggest spenders back then - you cant call 2002 the peak of the Galacticos era, it was just the start really - the peak is now!
In late 90s/early 00s it was still Serie A where the bulk of the big transfer came from and then La Liga started to take charge.

Again you focus on transfer fees which is only a small part of the story - if you really want to do a comparison then you need to look at transfer fees + wages over a period of time.
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Err...

1. How can we say that when if you look at those numbers, bar one season (2000/2001) we spent almost as much or slightly more than Madrid. So how did we not challenge the top spenders in Europe ?

2. Does it matter if we're breaking world records when we continually broke British records and spent almost as much as Madrid when you consider the totals ? Madrid may have had 1 Galatico signing per summer but United got a player 1 step below Galactico level and spread out the rest of the fee a bit on others. Something we haven't done since the Glazers took over ? The closest we've even come to the British transfer record was once in this winter window with Mata but it still was a huge margin short of the record...

3. How come ? That particular season was the high-point of Galactico #1 with Raul and Ronaldo and Zidane and Figo and Carlos and Hierro - the highest paid, most expensive players of the era were playing side by side... Isn't that the best example to compare ?

4. Strange comment.
That period was specifically considered because the Galactico era of massive world record spending starting with Figo in 1999/ 2000 and we were at a similar level of expenditure.. And how can we say the club never made record signings ?

Roy Keane was one of the most expensive British transfers of the time, Andy Cole was a British transfer record, we almost matched that with Yorke again, Stam was the most expensive defender in the world, Ruud van Nistelrooy was the most expensive striker in British football, Veron was the most expensive midfielder in world football and the most expensive transfer British transfer, Rio Ferdinand was the most expensive defender in world football and the most expensive transfer in British football.

In 2000 Madrid signed Figo for a world record £37 million and in 2001 United signed Veron for £30 million. That's how close we were to the world record. In today's market that'd be Madrid spending £80 million and Ronaldo and United spending £65 million on Zlatan if we project those numbers or them spending £80 million on Bale and United spending £65 million on James.

Yet now Madrid have made multiple signings near the £80 million mark and our highest is still close to 2000-2001 levels in Juan Mata at £37 million.. We made all these huge record signings in the space of about a decade prior to their arrival. How many such records have we broken since 2005 ? Have we even broken the British transfer record once ? When before they came along we did that multiple times...

5. This can be broken up into 2 parts :

a) It is mighty relevant because as I've stated before Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo were all bought in that era. Apart from Beckham all the Galactico signings were already there. And even if talk about wages it coincided with that time because the had all the highest earners of that era side by side - Raul, Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane, Carlos Hierro etc. And we almost matched those wages.

b) This just further reiterates my point. You say the Galactico peak is now ? Yet if you ask any normal football fan Galactico #1 era was superior by far. They had 3 Ballon D'Or winners and 1 finalist playing side by side with 5 Ballon D'Or and 6 World Player of the year awards between them. Also Ronaldo > Ronaldo, Zidane > Bale, Figo > James, Raul > Benzema, Carlos > Marcelo, Hierro > Ramos. That was by far the zenith of Perez's Galatico obsession.

We almost matched the Galactico #1 era spending in terms of total fee and wages. How far are we now behind that kind of spending from Galactico #2 ?
 
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Spoony said:
Hmmmm...why have they let Tampa fade away?
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Tampa is a terrible market for professional sports franchises. That being said if you own a NFL franchise it's virtually impossible to lose money. So there's no incentive to do well because they're not going to make much more money doing well than they are now.
 
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