The widely trailed BBC Panorama investigation into Glazer family finances, led by reporter John Sweeney and supported by analysis from andersred blogger Andy Green, in conjunction with the Guardian newspaper, airs Tuesday night revealing the true state of the Americans’ crumbling business empire.
Revealing total family debt to the tune of £1.1 billion across its property and sports businesses, Panorama will expose a tale of staggering incompetence, greed and financial mismanagement by a family that lauds itself a savvy business people.
The eye watering numbers include Manchester United’s bond debt, which now stands at £520 million, according to the club’s latest accounts, with further Payment in Kind (PiK) debt of £220 million held by the club’s parent company. Green’s superb investigation reveals – for the first time – the additional $500 million in mortgages held on the Glazers First Allied US property businesses.
The scale of the Glazers’ US debt is such that four of the Glazers’ shopping centres have already been foreclosed (repossessed) in recent months, with half the family’s portfolio almost certainly in negative equity. Green predicts, with overwhelming evidence, that further shopping centres will close unless the company’s financial position improves considerably in the coming months.
“Analysis of mortgage filings for 63 of First Allied’s 64 shopping centres shows the portfolio is hugely overleveraged and that without major improvements in financial performance in the next few months, half the centres will not be able to generate sufficient income to pay their mortgages and therefore risk going bust,” said Green today.
“Four centres have already gone into foreclosure. The majority of First Allied’s properties are currently in negative equity leaving the family little or no room for manoeuvre.
“The root causes are the disastrous decisions made by the Glazers in the mid-2000s as the US property boom neared its height, shattering their self professed reputation as savvy business people.”
The only explanation, says Green, for the four centres being foreclosed is that the Glazer family simply could not afford to prop them up any longer.
It’s a scenario that explains, with no room for doubt, why the family has borrowed heavily from the club in the past two years, while instigating a bond issue that served only to increase the interest payments on the club’s debts.
Green’s analysis demonstrates that the family’s profit from its US property business is so low – $9.7 million before tax last year – that payment of the PiK debt can only come from club funds, exposing as the deliberate misrepresentation it has always been chief executive David Gill’s assertion that United is not responsible for a debt that will attract 16.5 per cent interest from August this year.
The dire state of the Glazer family’s finances places into question not only short-term spending by United on transfers this summer but the long-term financial health of the club.
While the Glazers have not yet removed money from the United’s bank-account this summer, the January bond enables the family to take up to £100 million immediately and then half of the club’s annual profits ongoing to do just this.
It is widely predicted with considerable evidence that the family will do so in order to pay down the ruinous PiK debt after the club’s annual accounts close on 30 June.
“With First Allied contributing so little income, the argument that the United bond issue was undertaken entirely for the purpose of using the club’s cash and profits to repay the PIKs is indisputable,” adds Green.
“There just is no other source of cash flow or assets to borrow against that the Glazers can use.”
Indeed, those fans still in doubt about the Glazer’s intentions need only look across the Atlantic to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American Football team owned by the family. Coming off a losing 3-13 season, the Bucs are now in the bottom three paying teams in the NFL, with debts of its own approaching $150 million. It was the team’s worst performance in nearly 20 years.
The family’s “strategy” of investing in young players has failed, as was always going to. After all if 92 per cent of a team’s success is based on wages paid, then the Bucs ought to be one of the worst teams in the league.
With the family’s property business failing, United remains the Glazers’ principal cash-cow. Firstly, to pay off the family’s massive debts and then to milk the club for what profit remains – if any – after the mortgage is paid. Everything else, including a transfer budget, player wages, investment in Old Trafford or indeed trophies, comes second.
Gill will claim that United is not responsible for the PiK notes. The family’s ubiquitous spokesperson will say that the club’s profits more than covers interest on the debt. The family itself will profess to be businessmen of note. Green’s analysis over the past five months has proven each a fallacy, whatever spin emanates from the club’s hierarchy.
But in Green’s analysis there is also a stark warning. In times of financial turmoil even strong businesses have gone to the wall. The Glazers businesses are certainly not that.
Will the last Glazer supporter please turn the lights out when they leave Old Trafford.
Absolutely disgusting. Enough is enough. Whilst I love what the man has done for our club surely Fergie needs to walk out in protest at what these leeches are doing to our club. If he doesn’t his legend will forever be tainted by doing nothing in the face of this poisonous threat to our clubs future.
That’s another wild set of claims from Andy that does the anti-Glazer cause no good. He claims that the Glazer companies have a debt of £1.1bn and that might be true but he fails to say that they have a net asset value of £1.2bn even using Andy’s own figures which seem to undervalue both the Bucs and United. He repeats the wild claim that the Glazers have cost the club £450m when this has been debunked elsewhere and he admits is wrong and misleading. He goes on about the mortgages on the malls but that’s the business model that they use. Each mall is mortgaged and runs as it’s own company, if it doesn’t pay it’s way it gets sold or goes bust. He says that First Allied are in crisis but they are posting a profit and are expanding by buying new malls.
I wish Andy would stick to just publishing the figures instead of making those hysterically over-the-top statements that can and will be debunked. If I can do it and I’m only CMAP qualified, imagine what mincemeat a professional would make of his analysis.
Net assets are £1.1bn and that is in the data provided by Green today. Forbes valuations of the clubs and Green’s analysis of First Allied are the basis and doesn’t – unless you have other sources – undervalue either United or the Bucs. Being certified isn’t much good if you don’t read the source data.
The Glazers could indeed sell the Bucs and have a debt free United. They won’t, for now, because United is the cash cow that’ll pay them dividends and will pay off the PiK debt while they keep each club. Again, for now.
As for the £450m figure I think Green’s figure was £437, MUST started saying “close to £450m” or something to that effect. Elsewhere on Green’s blog he clearly notes that corporation tax and dividends not paid reduce this figure.
Debate over this misses the point both of analysis into the Glazers’ failing US property business and more importantly why United fans are angry. The business model is now clear – suck evey penny possible out of the club to pay debt and dividends.
Well I think lying about the cost of the Glazers is important. Far more important than the Glazers Malls in America. What has that got to do with how United perform on the pitch? Nothing. But when Andy lies about something as basic as the cost to the club of United, then it discredits all of his guesswork. The £236m figure is damaging enough. Why didn’t he just tell the truth? Now his work is easy to discredit and has been discredited.
If the Glazers wanted to suck every penny out of the club possible, why haven’t they? I read on another blog that they used the Ronaldo money to write off some goodwill and the interest rate hedge position and some other things. If they were desperate for cash, all of that could have gone straight to Red Football Joint Venture and the goodwill and hedge losses could have stayed on the balance sheet. They could have paid off one tranche of PIKs but they didn’t.
It’s this overly simplistic view that undermines your case. What the Glazers have actually done is bad enough without you having to invent more lies about them. The truth is enough. Why doesn’t anyone in the anti-Glazer movement just stick to it?
Andy Green doesn’t do the truth. He does propaganda. He’s a paid lobbyist. No more trustworthy than a slimy politician, or a Tory researcher or a born again Christian or a City banker. Come to think of it, Andy IS a city banker. No wonder he is in bed with the Red Knights. All mates together screwing the club and paying themselves huge fees and bonuses.
I’ll let Andy respond to that but I would think you’ve just lost all credibility with that rant. The last bit made me laugh though.. the only people screwing the club and paying themselves huge fees and bonuses are the Glazers.
I think the credibility gets lost when you try to pull the wool over the eyes of the fans as Andy has done. Have you not noticed that more and more people on the forums are rejecting the MUST stance, firstly on the Red Knights, then on the effectiveness of a boycott and now even on the case against the Glazers finances. From being 99% solid support, MUST have undermined things to the extent that maybe only 60% of posts are anti-Glazer and they are becoming more and more bizarre and self-defeating. The rest of the posts are ambivilent or pro-Glazer, something that would never have happened before. MUST, with their relationship with the Red Knights and employing Andy to fiddle the figures, have caused this ebbing of support. They moved from looking after the interests of the ordinary fans to the interests of a few millionaire fans from London.
@John Smith I agree – there has always been some, like you, happy to remain in total denial.
RedTetra,
Just noticed this. It’s probably libellous but it certainly isn’t true. I haven’t been paid by anyone. If anything i’ve been lucky to keep my job doing all this.
I’m going to ask you to retract what you wrote or present some evidence. Do you know how cowardly it is to fling unfounded slurs at someone from behind a keyboard?
Andy
I don’t know whether MUST or andersred fiddle figures or have some personal gain. I do know that they have lost credibility by aligning themselves with a bunch of bankers and the perception is that they will do anything to help these Red Knights to gain control of the club on the cheap. The perception is that they stopped being an independent force and became a subsidiary of the Red Knights or at least their cheerleaders. I like my independent supporters trusts to be independent. The perception is that MUST aren’t. They probably aren’t even a Supporters Trust given that they want others to buy the club. And I think all that weakens the anti-Glazer movement. The message is diluted and the Red Knights aren’t the sort of people we should be associated with. MUST should focus on the club finances, not shopping malls, not London bankers, not gridiron teams, just focus on the club or you’ll lose all support.
In the meantime, fans outside of MUST need to find a follow-up to the G&G campaign. We have to take the energy from that and channel it into something more constructive and fresh.
I tend to agree with you on the independence front, although I also think that supporters’ groups are too fragmented too. Needs a single strong voice from United supporters right now. There’s too much emphasis on the Red Knights, but you can understand why – hope that a change could come where supporters come first, not profit. That may have proven to be a forlorn hope given the economics of a bid but as I wrote on this website in March, always a huge long shot.
Surely the situation is now so bad that the FA and Premier League need to step on to salvage the situation.
The Glazer have failed to reduce the total debt in 5 years of ownership. The PL should demand a debt reduction plan and insist that by the end of next season the club’s debt is reduced by £100mill, and not achieved by selling the ground, training ground and ;easing them back.
Failure to meet these demand would result in the club being kicked out of the PL and mot returning until the debt is cleared,
Facing a loss of £100mill a year in income, and the possibility of the club’s value falling to well below £1billion, the Glazers will be forced to sell.
The alternative for them would be to hold onto the club but finally go broke, a situation most true UTD fans would not care about.
All it needs is for the FA/PL to take the bull by the horns and get rid of these parasites from English football for good,
You’ve been misled. The situation is nowhere near what you seem to think it is. United have the highest operating profits of any club. Cash reserves nearing £100m and a the lowest wage bill as a percentage of turnover of any club. The club is totally healthy.
If the Glazers default on the PIKs then they potentially lose overall control of Red Football, a scenario that would be favourable.
The debt is fixed for 7 years and easily manageable and we meet the financial probity rules coming in. The Premier League said very recently that the Glazers are great owners as far as they were concerned.
The club are not under any sort of threat whatsoever.
What is an issue is can the Glazers continue to fund the level of success that we’ve enjoyed. That’s a very different scenario to your doom laden nonsense.
It’s all part of the same scenario, and not doom mongering.
A good chunk of Uniteds income, is the result of that success. If we don’t maintain a competive squad… then we may not make the latter stages of the Champs league, FA Cup, etc… just a few million less in the pot is a few million Fergie doesn’t get to work with. It’s all connected.
But isn’t that a reason for the Glazers giving SAF the money he wants, so that he can maintain success and keep the cash registers ringing? We want what the Glazers want, a successful side competing for trophies. We want it because we love the club; they want it because the business plan is a lot easier to achieve with silverware.
The Glazers can be accused of being greedy but you can’t call them stupid or short-termist or asset strippers. I don’t think for a second they’ll fund the club with less than they consider is necessary to bring sustained success. It remains to be seen whether what they consider sufficient is what SAF thinks is sufficient but so far SAF seems happy.
You’ve fallen into something of an oft repeated fallacy there – the assumption that success = money = success. In the recent quarterly financial investors call Edward Woodward stated, with plenty of confidence, that revenue is not tied to success. He needs to otherwise investors would lose confidence in the club if results become “lumpy”. The vast majority of Champions League money – said Woodward – comes from the group stages not winning the tournament. In the Premier League the difference in prize money between first and second is in the low hundred thousand pounds.
Need more evidence? Real Madrid, who haven’t won the Spanish league in three years and haven’t reached the quarter finals of the Champions League in six have the world’s highest turnover of any football club.
The Glazers do indeed want to maximise turnover but that isn’t in any way tied to what the fans want.
Your second fallacy is the assumption that the Glazers are fully in control of their own finances. Their decisions – the debt swap, interest rate hedging – cost United £60m in the last quarter alone. Green’s analysis has shown that the disastrous property market speculation has placed almost half their property portfolio on the precipice of bankruptcy. Poor business decisions have cost this club, cost the Glazers and will continue to do so.
Ed, I was on the call being a bond holder and you are misrepresenting Woodward. Not untypical of the more excitable and unreliable wing of the anti-Glazer movement.
Now, you are arguing against yourself. Saying that without the Glazers we could spend more money on players but Real Madrid prove that spending money on players doesn’t work. Pretty lame thinking there. Then agreeing that the Glazers want success to maximise revenue.
Also lame thinking is believing that any owner we’ve had has cared a fig about the fans. You are really living in a fantasy world. I’ve lived through and campaigned against the last four plus the potential ownerships by Knighton, Sky and Magnier.
With Glazer finances, they are fully in control. They compartmentalise the lending and the risk. A point totally lost on Andy Green or if not lost, one that he ignores because it blows his pompous and preposterous theories out of the water.
The balance sheet adjustments didn’t cost £60m last quarter. That’s ludicrous. The costs were accrued years ago and they decided to address them now rather than take money from the club to pay their PIKs. They wrote down goodwill and the hedge position and made allowance for potential future interest rate losses on the bond interest on the American tranche.
The interest rate hedge position did lose money that’s never likely to be returned but that could have been kept on the books and a large profit declared for distribution. The goodwill needn’t have been written off. The exchange rate on the bonds needn’t have been addressed now. But all are good housekeeping. Does that sound like the Glazers are hell bent on taking the money out of the club to pay the PIKs? They’ve had 5 years when they’ve been able to take over £200m in distributions out of United and haven’t.
When will you wake up. The Glazers aren’t playing your simplistic naive game. They are far more complex than you or Andy make out. Making them out to be idiots throwing money away or pillaging club money detracts from the work sensible people were doing and has set us back again.
Five years you’ve been predicting doom, rape and pillage. It hasn’t happened. Get a new record, this one is worn out.
@redtetra
I’m not misrepresenting Woodward at all. I published an article moments after the call and quoted Woodward verbatim. Perhaps you need to find a new blog to read if you think this record is worn out? There’s probably a helpful bucket of sand you can find to bury your head in elsewhere – one where the wonderful world of Glazer finance isn’t bankrupt, dead-fuelled, speculative and loaded with huge risk. But while you’re here and since you have this wonderfully helpful inside track on Florida’s favourite family perhaps you can explain how the PIK debt gets paid down before 2017 without, as David Gill loves to call it, recourse to club funds.
I think the head in the sand description is more suitable for you and the others who think they speak for everyone. You don’t. You may speak for a very small minority but even that’s dwindling.
As for the PIKs, who cares how they pay them or if they are paid. They can’t be paid by the club. They can be paid by the profits that RFJV take from the club but as you helpfully point out the Glazers decided that they wouldn’t do that. They could have but they didn’t. They chose to put the United balance sheet in order. So, five years of fretting about the Glazers paying the PIKs off with United money (their money) and it hasn’t happened. Cry wolf once and people might just listen to you next time. Cry wolf every week for five years and you’ll find that few are listening.
158,000 who joined MUST don’t agree with you. Tiny minority indeed. Pray do tell where you think the PIKs are going to be paid from then, if its not Manchester United’s revenue via RFJV?
The bucs – in debt and in the bottom 10 profitable clubs in the NFL?
First Allied – made just $9.7m before tax last year?
Of course the Glazers could do nothing, let the PIKs roll up to 2017 and then lose the club entirely or sell it before hand. I for one hope its the latter.
Ed, we all know that there aren’t 158,000 MUST members. Tell us the number of email bounces you got the first time you sent out a press release to the 158,000 you captured from the unauthenticated webform. Did Mickey Mouse reply? Malcolm Glazer?
I can tell you plenty of ways that the Glazers can pay the PIKs. They can take their profits over time from RF ltd and pay the UK tax on that. They can take an advance distribution from RF ltd. They can take a loan from RF ltd. They can refinance commercially. They can sell equity in RFJV ltd to pay off the PIKs (20% of RFJV would pay the PIKs). They can make personal loans to RFJV ltd. They can borrow against their extensive personal property and investments. They could borrow against the Bucs. They could use the $74m they got selling Zapata last year or the $28m profit they made on buying and selling multi-million dollar properties in Florida so Malcolm could be nearer his kids. They could sell the Bucs. They could sell the top 10 profitable strip malls. They could issue non-voting shares in RFJV or RF to fans. They could issue a RFJV junk bond. They could transfer assets from RF to RFJV and borrow against those. Do you want me to go on?
If you want to know what I think they’ll do it’s pay from the profits of RFJV over the coming couple of years, including taking some money out between transfer windows as advance distributions. You still seem to think that the Glazers are afraid of their debts. They are not, they revel in them. In all of their ventures over the past 20 years they have used loans to finance nearly every aspect of their business to protect their own money and to be deliberately highly geared. It isn’t an accident or them overstretching. It is their plan. The nearest any transaction has come to risking Glazer money is the PIKs which put at risk an amount of shares in RFJV equal to any default and there is reason to believe that it’s limited to 25% of the total equity too. So defaulting on the PIKs wouldn’t even see them lose control.
If you want to fight the Glazers you should first try to understand how they operate. Calling them names is futile; they aren’t listening to you.
Oh fuck… another one.
@Red Tetra
Aside from being wrong in so many ways about the fundamentals of company finance I’m beginning to wonder what you’re doing here?
Perhaps you’re hoping to convince people that the Glazers really are fine people; that we’re misguided fools? Perhaps you’ve really got nothing better to do than lecture, although I’d go back to finance 101 quick.
Problem is your argument falls at every turn. It’s quite clear that the Glazers’ business plan isn’t to reduce their asset base – except through bankruptcy of course. Irony, I think that’s called. Might be hard to find 10 malls that actually make a profit, and the Bucs’ value is dropping faster than you can say leveraged buyout.
The plan is clear as it has been clear from January 11 when the bond prospectus was issued. The Glazers will use United’s operating profit, declare a dividend to pay off their PIK loans. They’re legally entitled to do so. Then they’ll take what’s left in management fees while doing what they’ve done to the Bucs – starve the club of cash while sticking the proverbials up at the fans.
Now if you like that scenario as a United fan there’s nothing more I can do for you.
OK dick ed, I take it that you just want your own kind on here and not intelligent debate. An incestuous love-in with your own kind. If you don’t want the people who are unconvinced with the red knights and MUST to bother, your readership will dwindle. The people who post on your blog must equal 1% of the readership. And now it’s down to 0.5%. But thanks for proving that that you care more about yourself and your precious little blog than you do about United. There are some arrogant people in the anti-Glazer world but Jesus, you take the biscuit. Take a chill pill and remember that you were put on this earth to support United, not antagonise half of your posters. Goodbye and thanks for all the lies.
Actually I was engaging in debate. If I “wanted my own kind” I could have deleted all your posts, the vast majority of which I disagree with and have debated against. Shame you couldn’t resist issuing the kind of personal abuse that all Glazer supporters seem to when their arguments run out.
RedTetra, I hope that you read this and reconsider. This blog is much the richer for your posts. Sensible debate is always better than Ed’s petty namecalling. You just have to rise above it.
Look I’m happy for lively debate. I don’t agree with you, you don’t agree with me. But let’s get something strait. Who called who names exactly?
I really fail to understand the point of your argument. I understand the argument itself… just not the reason for making it. If you were a supporter of another team, I could see the logic in taking the piss out of us United fans that cling to the hope that we can somehow get shot of these leeches.
But I assume that, since you’re here… you are also a United fan… and yet you’re only contribution to this thread is to lecture the desperate, on the pointlessness of hope.
There are people here that, naive or not, are trying to drum up support to oust the Glazers… and all you can do is tell them… “you’re wasting your time”…
Seriously Mate… if you’re not willing to help, or at least encourage… can’t you at least, NOT be so fuckin negative.
John, I don’t think the fans have their heads in the sand. they We have genuine concerns but we are being misled. The scare stories are being put out by people with a commercial interest in the outcome. There are very few people here on the side of truth or genuine information. Just one side shouting lies and insults over the heads of the fans at people who aren’t listening and aren’t talking. Truth is the biggest casualty in all this. Not the transfer budget.
oh dear. if the glazers don’t raid the ‘transfer’ kitty to pay the pik debt soon it will be over £400m in less than 5 years. Add that to the existing £650m+ and the interest on that and it coiuld be £1.5B by 2015. You’re gonna have to sell wooney for £550m…. good luck, dontcha just love it when a plan comes together..
The FA, UEFA, FIFA, The UK Government stood by and watched the takeover and did nothing about it. It is an absolute disgrace. David Gill and the rest of the board who accepted the offer need shooting. Has any debt United have been reduced since the Glazers have taken over? I think not.
this is the message that i have just sent to must and i hope they listen aswell as you, ed.
—-
blah blah blah blah blah.
the knights have no money, you people should test the glazers by making a 1.5 billion bid, but you wont as you are all talk and want to ruin our football club…..go on prove me wrong, make the bid…test the glazers.
i am manchester united until the end, you people clearly are not and jsut in it for ego rights and now wants to bring us down because your little egos are hurt.
i want our club free of debt again, thank god we have the greatest manager in the history of the game, sir alex ferguson leading us to success against the debt and it will stay that way as fergie is the best, long may his reign of dominace continue as we will always be at the top, we are manchester, we are united, we are manchester united..
make the 1.5 billion bid or shut up…..test the glazers.
i am not a protestor, i support manchester united only and focus on my club, stop talking down to the club and show us respect, fergie is god, gill is great at his job, the club is run fantasitcally, the only problem is something that should never of happened to begin with and that is the debt.
match the glazers asking price and show them you mean business, or just leave us alone….or cant the skintos afford 1.5 billion or are you jsut scared of the glazers, match the price and show them now, you want us at all costs…..1.5 billion is only a small price to pay to help rid us of the debt, so what they get a nice profit, we get our club back, make the bid, make the bid, make the bid….1.5 billion, do it for united.
manchester united until the end….i am not a protestor, i just want my club debt freee again…..we will never die.
sir alex ferguson is god.
—————-
yes ed, i have been reading the news on the glazers, and i hate to admit it, but some of the stuff you said was right, aldo i disagree with you attacking gill, he haves no choice as they own the club…. the glazers should do the right thing and sell to someone who can free of us the debt straight out and not waste time in doing so.
i know if i was a multi-billionaire i would make a nice bid like in the area of 2 billion for the club and clear the debt straight away and take care of manchcester united.
alphars
gill and the board had no choice, the glazers bought the club bit by bit and got to a stage where a takeover could not be avoided.
gill is innocent, he is stuck just like we are.
the real problem is the stupid debt, we need to get rid of that as it is gettign really boring now.
free us, for god sakes, someone do something.
and yes i mean those last few words quite seriously, i love united, they and wwe which is wrestling are the main things in my life, i love them both with money coming in third and obviously i love myself most of all as i am god, manchester united until the end.
aj – if you keep writing in all caps and make me reformat your posts I’m just going to hit delete.
Oh the irony of aj.
“1 want our club free of debt again..make the 1.5 billion bid or shut up…..test the glazers.”
How can making a wildly inflated bid help the club become free of debt again? What a plonker aj is.
The thing is… as much as I agree that aj. is a tool… it’s not as daft as it sounds to buy United, even at an inflated price.
United is probably the most profitable club in all of sports.
If you owned United outright… it would pay for itself with ease… generating enough income to keep it competetive with Real, Barca, Chumpski, City… the best players, the best wages, best stadium… while those other clubs have to go into debt, or spend the fortunes of their oil baron owners… United would pay its own way… and… maintain a world class youth program, world class facilities, keep Old trafford beautiful, and keep ticket prices family friendly… all debt free.
10 years from now, it would be worth a lot more that 1.5 billion.
All United needs is to be owned by a fan/fan group… that want to own it for the love of it, not to make money from it.
Debt free, United carries its own weight, and holds it value… head and shoulders above any team in the world… loaded with dabt, we’re just another club struggling to keep up with the subsidised ilk of The Bitters, Chumpski, Real…
It doesn’t matter that when the red knights were around they valued the club at £800m or that Deloittes, Forbes, KPMG or others value it between £1.1bn and £1.4bn. The sellers value it at £1.5bn or above. That’s the price. Pay up or ship out and the red knights have given up and shipped out. Now we’ll see if anyone else actually does have the money to meet the Glazer valuation.
I believe the supporters need to do something a little more constructive than the green and gold campaign for the last campaign. Yes it generated some publicity but i believe it was only a mere annoyance to the Glazers. They continued to breathe easy in their Florida residence. I believe summer is the best time to stage such protests so it is not to the detriment of the team morale or performance. I saluted David moore’s open letter to the times newspaper regarding liverpool’s owners and I believe these are the only tactics that can be employed to make the glazers take notice. I want the same as everybody else- cheaper admission prices especially for youth & OAPs, capital investment in the club and surrounding area, unrestricted access to funds for the manager for transfers if required. It’s quite evident that these guys want to make a quick buck of our club without putting anything back into the club or community. I am a realist and any owner will want a return on investment and I respect financial prudence but any institution that is leveraged over 50% by debt is in trouble. I hope MUST continue to innovate and develop a more effective strategy to challenge the glazers.
So last week I said the following in the Say What Mr Gill article
“If you also look at where the Glazers made their money I believe it was in property in Florida, owning caravan parks and malls. Can you think of a worse area to have your money over the last few years? It’s up there. They are hurting. ”
Ok so looks like there is a lot more detail to back that off. What is interesting about this whole situation is how much the Glazers are on the brinck of ruin.
The guardian article here talks about how the Glazers will try to hold onto Utd as it is pofitable. Well not this quarter, they lost 60 mlillion through terrible management.
The glazers are at a real point where any small thing that affect there bottem line can’t go against them. They are leveraged up to a huge extent at Utd and their other businesses are going banrupt. That this means is that for the Utd fan there is a huge window of opportunity. Anything that the fan base does that lowers the glazers profit/cash flow, makes their business model unworkable. They have to become foreced sellers then.
What good about this for fans. Well if the fans have forced out the pervious owners effectively, then any new owners will have to understand that the fan base is organised and will to act to see whats best for this club. That’s a difficult thing to try f%%k with.
p.s It would be really interesting to see what ccovenats came with the bond. If the glazer breach these it probably game over.
The fans have never forced out owners in the past. There was never the stomach for it and fans could never be organised. The only time the owners or prospective owners have had any interference was when the MMC blocked the BSkyB bid and that wasn’t anything to do with the fans. That was because Mandelsson caved in when faced by every TV station and newspaper lobbying him against the BSkyB conflict of interests and monopoly position. That’s what the Compettition Commission reported on. No mention of fans.
The (now) Competition Commission report into the proposed merger is available to the public. It’s more than 250 pages long and I read it completely at the time. But even a quick reminder now demonstrates how limited your summary is (hardly the first time). The findings were threefold:
1) Takeover could reduce competition for broadcast rights, therefore increasing consumer price for channels
2) Takeover could increase inequality between teams
3) Takeover would give BSkyB undue influence over the Premier League
Importantly both IMUSA and Shareholders United Against Murdoch, which became MUST are heavily featured. As are submissions from about 15 other clubs and a series of broadcasters, Universities and MPs. The three arguments above were each made strongly by IMUSA and SUAM. That’s a matter of public record for those that are interested.
Another vital piece of information that you’ve missed, Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers made the final decision, after Trade and Industry Minister Peter Mandelson refereed it to the independent (then called) MMC, which conducted the review.
But you’re not one to let facts get in the way of a good story.
I’m talking about the judgement, not the submissions. The judgement was entirely about competition and conflict of interest. But don’t let the truth get in the way of you insulting one of your readers.
Here’s the link http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1999/426sky.htm
and for those not bothered, here’s the key phrase from the summary: “In considering the public interest consequences of the merger, we looked primarily at its effect on competition among broadcasters for live Premier League rights.”
No mention of fans. OK? As someone who spent far too much time campaigning against the takeover, including lobbying MPs I know what I’m talking about.
Yes me too… so it earns you little credit to select sentences from a two page-long summary in a 252 page document.
“However, we also think that the merger would adversely affect football in two ways. Firstly, it would reinforce the existing trend towards greater inequality of wealth between clubs, thus weakening the smaller ones. Second, it would give BSkyB additional influence over Premier League decisions relating to the organisation of football, leading to some decisions which did not reflect the long-term interests of football.”
It doesn’t need to say the word “fans” or “supporters” – there’s about 50 pages dedicated to that – for the judgement to have also taken into account the wider interests of football and therefore those who attend.
We can keep on doing this. And where’s the insult? If you don’t like being contradicted in public don’t take part in a debate but to call it an insult for arguing against your views is plain wrong.
On a slightly different note… the judgement failed completely. BSkyB is virtually unchallenged for sports rights (even if they’re having to cut wholesale prices), the big clubs are clearly more powerful than the small, and fans are paying more than ever both at the turnstile and for TV subscriptions. Not that stopping Murdoch was a bad thing mind you.
well are we suprised no, andersred keeps me up 2 date to whats happeneing and panarama was to light on the glazers. I comment on andersreds blog and on ROM and I have heated debats with wakey who defends the parasites on ROM I just came oin here to tell PPL on my thoughts on the glazers.
one day united will not be profitable if the team is not getting rebuilt fergie is keeping the parasites one of phew last buisness thats still alive just about. MUFC like I said on ROM is not a business that can grow that will lead to other big profit deals so it can pay off their debts like Sony apple Microsoft? because they will go into debt because they can because what they earn blows anything MUFC will ever make, when businesses go into debt it can expand the business open up great doors that will lead to debts payed off in huge chunks, if its not that debt can drain the clubs profits making MUFC a business that stops growing on and off the pitch, because its stuck with a mountain of debt and interest payments that cannot be payed off.
and this is where another problem arises, for clubs team and manager maintenance is a huge factor in a successful F,C that’s how they make their money on the pitch, if the club is not doing well on the pitch it will be a devastating effect off the pitch that’s why the glazers model makes absolutely no sense at all. so how can you keep a successful club running? when you have to pay off the debt, the interest payments, maintain the quality of the squad, and also in the end bring in a new manager how can you keep all that up.
also 08/09 is united’s most successful season in the history of the club on and off the pitch.
– we won the premiership
– we won the Carling cup
– we won the world club cup
add the prestige prise money winning those trophies, the games counted up that is enough to pay for 2 world class players.
we can add
– we got to the champions league final
– semi finals of the FA cup
how much TV money did we make for getting this far in both tournaments, the gate money that alone we should have made a fortune and profits should have seen united in the green by well over a hundred million, we made a 22 million pound profit because of the sale of ronaldo these are outrages results.
we also made a 44 million pound loss in 07/08 for winning the 2 biggest prizes in club football, call me crazy but this alone makes the glazers business model? has the foolish man who built his house on sand, we know what they said about the titanic? how can you sail with lifeboats only available for half of the PPL on board oh forgot the titanic is unsinkable LOL, the glazers business model for united is a time bomb ready to explode.
ed – if you looked at my post I am no glazer lover, look at my posts on andersreds website I say what I think of the parasites and they are a disgrace.
@rooney the new king – I’m pretty sure I wasn’t replying to you! Threaded posts seem to have disappeared…
oh rite thought it was most on here you said who posted on here, my anger towards the parasites has no end, when we were winning titles my anger towards the parasites was has vile has ever. its personal when it comes to the parasites and for me the numbers dont add up and it cannot be sustained especially if the team is not strengthened, when that has got to be done to keep the success fo the club going.