I'd make you our DOF. You have more sense than the morons in charge ruining our club.
The uncomfortable truth - United’s current finances.
- Thread starter Plant0x84
- Start date
Thought these two graphs from The Athletic's piece were illustrative of our issues.
This is also part of the reason why the people arguing that selling Garnacho would allow to spend three times as much to replace him are wrong. The books still need to be balanced, both for PSR and for actual hard cash. These graphs, the recent PSR close shave and the official statement suggest that we have been outspending our means. I wonder at this point if we need to do things like sell Garnacho just to balance the books.
He's miles better than what we've got.
Are you really saying that the Glazers have skated free of public scrutiny before INEOS came into the picture and Jim is only getting it because he's local?
No white text?
While I dispute the use of the term "Real Facts" here, I do think there are some pretty valid points.
The whole "The Qatar bid wasn't even real" argument is just based on some stupid comment Ratcliffe made at the time, and a way for people to justify to themselves why they so heavily backed the INEOS bid, despite it becoming apparent that not really much has changed (and also becoming apparent that this was actually quite obvious to begin with).
The Glazers never did want to sell. They MIGHT have been forced to eventually but as soon as Ineos gave them an out that was never going to be the route they took. Which is why I find this argument that Ineos will now just buy the club off them a bit farfetched. Why would the Glazers opt for that? Any arrangeent they come to with Ineos will involve their pockets being lined by the club's money.
The ease with which people swalloed the Ashworth sacking and spun from thinking he was the greatest DoF in the world to some clown the club had to get rid of, was particularly bizarre. He wasn't at United long enough for even the journalists with a bit of inside info to have much of a clue what he did or didn't do. THe only thing we really know is that he is more qualified at running a Premier League football team competently than the people who sacked him.
I agree with everything you're saying about the Glazers, I don't need convincing there. But I am much less sure how it would've gone under a Qatari takeover than you are. It is all speculation. I am opposed to that takeover on different grounds, so maybe my bias is colouring my judgement, but it does feel like a section of our fanbase still daydreams about what could've been based on little evidence.
Ultimately, we need to be managed better top to bottom. And it will take a while. Whether INEOS can do that long term, I don't know. It is not an easy task.
Roman was forced to sell Chelsea, same needs to happen with Glazers. They have completely ruined the club, so much so that there are rules against leveraged buyouts.
Club isn't paying for itself, it's just servicing a debt.
I very much doubt the club will clear the debt within the 2 to 4 decades I've got left alive. Unless Sir Jim has a plan to remove the parasites.
Honestly, what is staggering is that the equity purchased by Jim was not ring fenced for the elimination of all debt. It should have been a clear condition of purchase.
They were bleeding money.
Why would the Glazers give away a large chunk of their shares to have United's debt cleared when they can line their pockets instead? They've never been bothered with paying off the debt before, it's just not a priority to them. Don't think they'd have gone for it. They'd have threatened selling to Qatar instead.
Well thank goodness we have morally upright and ethical INEOS running the club, wonderful job they’ve done so far…
It’s a temporary reprieve and kicks the losses down the road where we could conceivably be fecked again if we don’t invest the money in recruitment well.
They will never clear the debt. The Glazers could walk away from the club and not look back if it all goes south. They've got their precious Tampa Bay Bucs. We're just an income stream to them. And the saddest thing of all is they could have been stopped at the outset. Greed got the better of some people. Greed and hubris and here we are. Did they see this coming?
Last edited:
They haven’t payed a single penny. They took out loans, we, fans of United and the club itself, are paying their interest every year. So if they are selling it, for an enormous profit, it was all a win win for them and an even bigger loss for everyone else interested in the club.
This should be illegal. The club, through income, should not be allowed to pay their interest. It so wrong in so many ways.
Even I could take a mortgage, let United pay the interest and then ten years later I could sell the club. Never spending a single dime. This as long as bank allowed me to do this.
It is illegal now. You can't buy a club now in that fashion. It was illegal in the USA when that poison, malignant, ginger dwarf bought us in 2005. That grubby little man should never in a million years have passed a 'fit and proper' test - if they ever gave him one. His litigation history in the States was there for all to see. That shit Mandelson stepped in and stopped Rupert Murdoch from buying United, but allowed a leveraged buyout that put a great community asset into debt so deep it will never get paid off. We were betrayed by those who should have been stewards of the club. David Gill, Martin Edwards, Alex Ferguson, all share the blame. I would gladly swap all the titles and cups we've won since 2005 to stop the Glazers getting their feet in the door.
How?!!
LBOs weren't illegal in the US then and aren't illegal now.
They were for purchasing NFL teams.
No, they weren't. Now the NFL is a closed club, a franchise can't be sold or purchases without the approval of the other owners and they set their own rules to join their club.
You are mistaken. Malcolm Glazer could not have bought an NFL franchise in 2005 by loading it with debt. Show me where under NFL rules of the time, that was permissible. It was widely reported in the British press - citing American sources - that what Glazer was doing here could not be done there.
Last edited:
I'm not mistaken, you are mixing the existence of rules within the NFL and the illegality of LBOs. LBOs are legal in the US and were in theory legal for NFL teams, though ownership rules created by other owners limited the ways to purchase a franchise or who could purchase it since it was subject to a vote. Now a few weeks ago the owners voted for the introduction of private equity firms, so now people expect the worst.
Stopping the sky bid and letting Glazers buy United almost seems a move to destroy United. Conspiracy theory of course.
If something like the Glazers happened to Real or Barcelona I am sure there would have been riots.
If something like the Glazers happened to Real or Barcelona I am sure there would have been riots.
The rules were changed in 2024. I know that. In 2005, a buyer could not purchase an NFL team with a debt load of 73% of the purchase price. It was widely reported in the UK at the time Malcolm Glazer did what he did and, as I recall, The Times cited NFL rules chapter and verse on this point. I will have to go back and check the archives but there are numerous books out there on the takeover and they pretty much agree with what I've said. Glazer was laughing all the way to the bank, at our expense.
where will the sancho fee come into things? ok its not huge but its another 20m+ exit, plus wages off the books. add in plenty of sales last summer and we surely cant be that bad?
I amazed that no one have used physical abuse or threat to get the freak shows from Florida to get out of the club, maybe even worse.
Here in Sweden they shoot fireworks and banners, burn things at the stadium, camp outside the owners house, invade the team training, paint the roof of the stadium with messages, burn cars, vandalise the office etc etc. Big banderols on every game etc. Death threats even.
All to get the leading members to leave or sell.
It all seems so nice and cuddly in England. I guess it’s because of the corporate feeling of all the big clubs.
Check this out - 1:10 in. This is a club with 15k in attendance.
Again you are wrong for two reasons, the first one it's not illegal in the US and it's not even agains the rules in the NFL. Now to be clear the bylaws state that an excessively leveraged shall not be recommended by the finance committee(the PDF is secured so I can't copy and paste it). And an interesting thing is that the minimum amount that an owner should put cash on hand isn't predetermined but determined by the committte with the prospective owner.
Selling a player for PSR doesn’t matter. We have no cash to spend. We’d have to borrow more money to be able to buy anyone.
I personally hope our recruitment staff are scouring europes top leagues for players out of contract this summer to try and identify the best bosmans now or we are really in a tricky situation this summer I feel
OK, so The Times, the BBC and multiple other mainstream news outlets got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time would it? Again, would Malcolm Glazer have been able to purchase an NFL franchise in 2005 by 73% debt financing, to be paid back by the franchise concerned? If you have a pdf showing that this is wrong, just send me a link.
Yes, exactly the point I was trying to make
We're fecked aren't we? Proper fecked.
As I mentioned in the ownership thread, realistically we aren't close to breaching PSR. They've only said that to hoodwink the fans but are telling investors we're fine.
There's always a lot of talk about what the club owe, and what's been spent, but it often ignores our huge revenues that can easily deal with all this.
The financial situation is being massively overblown to allow Ratcliffe to aggressively make all of these cuts. Maybe long term that'll work, but don't fall for these feeble excuses.
There's always a lot of talk about what the club owe, and what's been spent, but it often ignores our huge revenues that can easily deal with all this.
The financial situation is being massively overblown to allow Ratcliffe to aggressively make all of these cuts. Maybe long term that'll work, but don't fall for these feeble excuses.
SJR did exercise his option of buying more shares for further cash a few months back. It was stated at the time it was for infrastructure and not transfers, but that could have been posturing to ensure people don't think we're loaded (as if)
I wonder if anyone has done a look at when we actually might have some spending ability again - probably contingent on getting some big earners off the books etc but could it not be a couple of years because of the 3 year rolling PSR period?
This isn’t about defending or championing anybody but nobody criticise my hero. Lovely little echo chamber you’re creating for yourself.
There is no actual answer to this my understanding is not directly, at the time while leveraged acquisitions were allowed, the issue would have been with the debt limit which was at 150m. But since it's something that is subject to negotiations with the finance committee and the prospective ownere, I'm just guessing. Now nothing prevents the prospective owner to put less than 150m on the franchise and also take the rest of the profits and pay the debt that he would have put to his name or the name of an other company.
But that's beside the point I made initially leveraged buyouts aren't illegal in the US now and weren't then, nor are they illegal in the NFL, they are just impractical.
In the corporate world, LB are fairly common, I'll grant you that. However, the NFL has only just permitted hedge funds to put money in. In 2005 it wasn't permitted for one simple reason: the owner wouldn't be the owner, but the lender would. Read up on this as there's still stuff around from 2005, though a lot has been scrubbed from the web. I have a Justia account so I'll check again on Monday as Westlaw and Lexis are minefields.
Lastly, it's incorrect to call the Glazer family the owners of Manchester United. They hold that title subject to their creditors who, believe me, wouldn't hesitate for a second to dismantle the club if the Glazers could no longer pay. It was this scenario that the NFL sought to prevent and did so. The British (like your own countrymen after 1945) sought (outwardly) to limit the Americanization of the local culture. But that's always been a facade for the British. We gladly allowed them in with our eyes blinded by dollar signs.
I still wonder was Qatar bid legit or not. If it was then INEOS completely fecked us up.
This is the most aggravated part, that they could just leave it all and don’t pay the interest and just let the club be dismantled and even going bankrupt. What would they care, it’s not even their own money.
Or, they could just sell their part, make a huge profit and let someone take care of the dump they left behind. A dump that million of people actually care about.
People like that is not worth the word human even.