Who is your preferred next owner of Manchester United?

estel_manutd said:
Sorry, but there are multiple ways to read that poll. A fair poll would have two options: 1) Qatar and 2) SJR
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There are multiple ways - for instance, one could also read it as only 22% of voters are ok with Qatar without reservation. At a minimum, one has to consider that there is no unanimity on the issue, with Qatar being seen (at best) as the lesser of all evils.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I agree, except we also need the new owners to spend about 1B in infrastructure/stadium upgrades as well. Why the feck do you all think ME owners will all of the sudden do that when history tells us that's not how they've operated other clubs? It's like you lot are just making it up because you don't want ME owners, not because you have actual footballing reasons
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99.9% of clubs manage to build/renovate stadiums and training grounds without ME money.

The only examples of Qatari ownership are PSG and Malaga. I don't want us to be ran like either of them.
 
Raoul said:
There are multiple ways - for instance, one could also read it as only 22% of voters are ok with Qatar without reservation. It a minimum, one has to consider that there is no unanimity on the issue, with Qatar being seen (at best) as the lesser of all evils.
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Is there a potential bid that anyone would get behind without reservations? Framing effects are huge in survey design: https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/framing-effects-2_25_15.pdf

Furthermore, with the current poll, the interpretation of the preference towards or against Qatar is not clear. For example, perhaps you interpret the results of that the polls as 'nearly 50/50 at this point' because that is more in line with your preferences. I do not know.

Lastly, the comparison group is not clear at all - maybe *relative to SJR* many more or fewer would prefer Qatar without reservation.

A poll with two options with remove these ambiguities.
 
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Bert_ said:
99.9% of clubs manage to build/renovate stadiums and training grounds without ME money.

The only examples of Qatari ownership are PSG and Malaga. I don't want us to be ran like either of them.
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You think we can afford £2bn without any inwards investment or sponsorship of the stadium? The training ground is fine but with the size of our new stadium and inflation, its double the price of Spurs' stadium which was top price.
 
PoTMS said:
@Damien is it possible to get some of the options listed as a poll? Sir Jim Radcliffe/INEOS, Qatar, Saudi, China, Elon Musk, US private equity firms, etc.

There's obviously pros and cons to every bidder but a recent Athletic article found an overwhelmingly majority wanted Sir Jim and only 17% wanted Qataris in. However, there was no elaboration on who they polled and how many.

I wonder if the same result will show when polling the largest Manchester United forum.
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Dangerous politically I suppose. But would be fun. I would vote Radcliffe.
 
Prodigal7 said:
You think we can afford £2bn without any inwards investment or sponsorship of the stadium? The training ground is fine but with the size of our new stadium and inflation, its double the price of Spurs' stadium which was top price.
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The same way Spurs could afford £1 billion back in 2014 despite making a fraction of the turnover united make.
 
estel_manutd said:
Is there a potential bid that anyone would get behind without reservations? Framing effects are huge in survey design: https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/framing-effects-2_25_15.pdf

Furthermore, with the current poll, the interpretation of the preference towards or against Qatar is not clear. For example, perhaps you interpret the results of that the polls as 'nearly 50/50 at this point' because that is more in line with your preferences. I do not know.

Lastly, the comparison group is not clear at all - maybe *relative to SJR* many more or fewer would prefer Qatar without reservation.

A poll with two options with remove these ambiguities.
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A poll with two options wouldn't negate how the board feels about Qatari ownership, which is currently hovering around 54% (including those with reservations) and 46 completely against. That is the central question given that Qatari appear to be the most hyped up contenders in the media. A virtual 50/50 split about accepting Qatari ownership doesn't exactly scream unanimity to any objective observer.
 
Bert_ said:
The same way Spurs could afford £1 billion back in 2014 despite making a fraction of the turnover united make.
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Spurs are desprately searching for sponsors for their stadium and they have been hamstrug in the market as a result of the stadium. Their revenue is also not a fraction of ours, its around 400m and ours is around 600m. Both clubs' profits are close to zero each season just through regular operation before repayments.
No club can afford a £2bn new/redeveloped stadium without inward investment and at least partial naming rights. That's the unfortunate truth. Barcelona can't even afford a small expnsion without allowing partial renaming rights to the "Spotify Nou Camp".
 
Raoul said:
A poll with two options wouldn't negate how the board feels about Qatari ownership, which is currently hovering around 54% (including those with reservations) and 46 completely against. That is the central question given that Qatari appear to be the most hyped up contenders in the media. A virtual 50/50 split about accepting Qatari ownership doesn't exactly scream unanimity to any objective observer.
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But the relevant question is not about Qatari ownership in isolation; it is about Qatari ownership vs. SJR ownership vs. continued Glazer ownership vs. ownership backed by Elliot. You can't infer rank order preferences over multiple owners from a poll that is about just one owner.
 
Raoul said:
There is a poll for this. It seems nearly 50/50 at this point.
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Come on man. Let’s not be politicians.

It’s quite simple and what the people want.

Qatar, Ineos or other.

Explain to me why peoples Views on political matters counts for this?

Somebody make the poll and be fair to our community.
 
estel_manutd said:
But the relevant question is not about Qatari ownership in isolation; it is about Qatari ownership vs. SJR ownership vs. continued Glazer ownership vs. ownership backed by Elliot. You can't infer rank order preferences over multiple owners from a poll that is about just one owner.
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So then it would seem your issue is with the question being asked not the results of the poll itself.
 
Prodigal7 said:
Spurs are desprately searching for sponsors for their stadium and they have been hamstrug in the market as a result of the stadium. Their revenue is also not a fraction of ours, its around 400m and ours is around 600m. Both clubs' profits are close to zero each season just through regular operation before repayments.
No club can afford a £2bn new/redeveloped stadium without inward investment and at least partial naming rights. That's the unfortunate truth. Barcelona can't even afford a small expnsion without allowing partial renaming rights to the "Spotify Nou Camp".
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Their revenue was around £150m when they signed off on the stadium. One of the reasons they have increased it to 400m is the ROI in the stadium.
 
Bert_ said:
Their revenue was around £150m when they signed off on the stadium. One of the reasons they have increased it to 400m is the ROI in the stadium.
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Yes but profit is what matters and that hasn’t changed since 2014. Clubs are spending 90% plus of there revenue on wages and transfers. Look at our profit each year, it’s around £20m at best. How can that stretch to pay for a £2bn stadium? It’s simple maths.
 
Cutter

I can see most of the top-half clubs in the PL being owned or backed by oil states sooner rather than later. Don't think INEOS would put us in a position to be able to compete with them.
 
Prodigal7 said:
Yes but profit is what matters and that hasn’t changed since 2014. Clubs are spending 90% plus of there revenue on wages and transfers. Look at our profit each year, it’s around £20m at best. How can that stretch to pay for a £2bn stadium? It’s simple maths.
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Which is why you finance the money needed to pay for a £2bn stadium and the ROI increases your revenue to cover the repayments, higher wages, higher transfers etc.

Profit isn't everything, just as long as there is some. It's what you do with your revenue which makes a difference to a business.
 
astracrazy said:
Which is why you finance the money needed to pay for a £2bn stadium and the ROI increases your revenue which covers, hopefully, the repayments.
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You need money from other places as well, financing the whole thing with circa £2bn in debt would be unsustainable, even for a club of our size. That's where having generous owners and naming rights have to come in.
 
Prodigal7 said:
You need money from other places as well, financing the whole thing with circa £2bn in debt would be unsustainable, even for a club of our size. That's where having generous owners and naming rights have to come in.
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I was just trying to highlight it can be detached from profit.
 
Whoever pumps money into United for infrastructure and players, and do not remove ETH.
 
Radcliffe. Really puzzles me that so many seem to have no issues at all with us becoming a sportswashing front for a regime with such a questionable track record in terms of human and basic freedom rights. I just don't understand how it's not at all a problem for some people. Some impressive mental gymnastics going on as well trying to make it out as if winning in the game of capitalism is somehow equivalent.
 
Qatar. Really puzzles me that so many seem to have no issues at all with us becoming a a financial tool for a regime with such a questionable track record on multiple fronts. I just don't understand how it's not at all a problem for some people. Some impressive mental gymnastics going on as well trying to make it out as if winning in the game of ‘not oil owners’ is somehow equivalent.
 
Andy_Cole said:
Qatar. Really puzzles me that so many seem to have no issues at all with us becoming a a financial tool for a regime with such a questionable track record on multiple fronts. I just don't understand how it's not at all a problem for some people. Some impressive mental gymnastics going on as well trying to make it out as if winning in the game of ‘not oil owners’ is somehow equivalent.
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Lets not pretend companies have the same powers as countries, there's a good lad. We're better than that.
 
Jim Ratcliffe is the obvious preferred option but with him will come more debt. He has to lend from banks to fund his bid.
Will we be any better off than under the Glazers.
 
Damien said:
I'll put the poll up when we know for sure who the initial bidders are. Half of the ones mentioned aren't going to bid (Musk for example)
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It's a hypothetical to gauge opinion. Doesn't need to be feasible. Other forums are painting an inaccurate picture also!
 
Dion said:
But they will be, obviously.
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I don't think we'll be run in the same way as PSG. Our brand is big enough to stand on it's own and we won't need to stockpile superstars on obscene wages to get people to take us seriously.
 
Blood Mage said:
I don't think we'll be run in the same way as PSG. Our brand is big enough to stand on it's own and we won't need to stockpile superstars on obscene wages to get people to take us seriously.
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Qatar don't buy clubs to make people take said club seriously, they buy it as a status symbol. Biggest, best, brashest.
 
They both suck and a lot of fans around me are just 'sigh... fine' leaning into Qatar.

When you're an international fan, you don't have to back any of the 'he's british and our club should have a british owner' or any white-leaning race biases, which allows us to look at Ratcliffe as a person who's proved that he shouldn't be at the helm of a football club. Nice are an awfully run club, and Ratcliffe made his brother the head of his footballing operations, who eventually walked away because of just how awful he had made the situation. That is exactly the buffoonery we should sprint away from at full tilt, it's Woodward on steroids. Add the backing and intentions of Goldman Sachs, and this is going to be a situation that likely takes from the club more than it gives.

Qatar are going to be financially competitive at a ridiculous level in a sport where the numbers are getting blatantly ridiculous and they don't need to take money from Manchester United. Their social situation is of course well discussed and documented and as a football club, we will be tainted by the 'state-owned' tag, and we will well and truly be a part of their sports-washing movement. It's probably better for the club but objectively not nice at all.
 
kinda funny the mods don’t want to do a straight up poll between qatar and radcliffe
 
Raoul said:
There is a poll for this. It seems nearly 50/50 at this point.
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That poll is a joke one in favour and 3 in varying degrees of concern. Skewed representation. We're being misrepresented and this forum is one of uniteds biggest? Should have a poll we had one for managers a while back with plenty of unlikely candidates.
 
Raoul said:
There are multiple ways - for instance, one could also read it as only 22% of voters are ok with Qatar without reservation. At a minimum, one has to consider that there is no unanimity on the issue, with Qatar being seen (at best) as the lesser of all evils.
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We should have the same poll for ineos, America, Saudi etc. People are always going to have reservations unilaterally
 
Jim could be our Mike Ashly for Newcastle, a catastrophic.

Remember that Glazers took 600M loan and after repaying 1.5B and 20 years later, the debt still stands at 500M. While the infrastructure were left to rot and underinvestment in the squad since SAF days with no value in the market until now where we can only afford loan signings.

Now, the loan that required to buy the club, invest in the squad and infrastructure could be up to 8B. This is too big even for Man Utd to get it wrong. The club cloud get into liquidation. We are talking about maybe 20B repayment over several decades.

The risks are too high to go with Jim, I don't think he is in it as a "fan" and he taking on something way beyond his capacity.

Qatar eliminates all that concerns or at the very least are at 100 times more secured financial standing than Jim. With Qatari I can see that we will not be "handicapped" again by financial issues and will have proper investment into the club. That's for the best interest for the club now.
 
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stepic said:
kinda funny the mods don’t want to do a straight up poll between qatar and radcliffe
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I questioned the logic behind it in a series of back and forth messages and they were deleted along with a few other posters messages on the subject
 
Prodigal7 said:
Yes but profit is what matters and that hasn’t changed since 2014. Clubs are spending 90% plus of there revenue on wages and transfers. Look at our profit each year, it’s around £20m at best. How can that stretch to pay for a £2bn stadium? It’s simple maths.
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It's really not just simple maths.
 
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