Manchester United’s financial situation is in the spotlight this week after the club announced a £500 million bond aimed at reducing the £70 million annual interest burden. But the Prospectus for the club’s market offer served to highlight the myriad of ways the Glazer family is riding roughshod over our 132 year-old club.
Here’s ten reasons to hate them just a little bit more:
Piling on the debt
When Malcolm Glazer and Sons walked into United four and a half years ago the 132 year-old institution was the most profitable club on the planet. Today, United is still the most profitable club on the planet with £700 million of debt piled on the club’s books that will not be repaid for a more than a decade. If ever.
£325 million in interest repayments
The full extent of the Glazer’s leveraged buyout, revealed today in the latest club figures, is horrifying. Forget the official debt statement, which shows a ‘mere’ £260 million interest burden. Factor in rolled-up interest from the family’s Payment in King (PIK) loans and United could have gone on a Real Madrid-style mega spending spree. Twice over.
Doubling ticket prices
The 100% increase in ticket prices at Old Trafford since the family’s arrival in Manchester is hardly surprising but no less acceptable. The Stretford End is long since gone and football’s gentrification well established before Glazer waltzed into the club. But prices are now out of the reach of many – a generation of fans can no longer see the club live
The disgraceful way they use United’s heritage in their debt marketing literature
Duncan Edwards, George Best and Sir Matt Busby will be turning in their graves tonight. The Glazer family, seemingly without a hint of irony, used images from United’s glorious past to sell the club’s massively indebted future. Sickening.
Taking millions for themselves
If it wasn’t enough that the Glazer family indebted United to the hilt, the family’s glossy prospectus let the fans into a little known secret. Disgracefully, immorally but unfortunately not illegally, the family has taken £22.9m million out of the club in consulting fees and loans in the past two years. Talk about milking the club for all it’s worth.
Charging £6 million a season for ‘consultancy’
Don’t worry readers the pillage doesn’t stop with any refinancing package! Buried deep inside the Glazers’ 322 page Prospectus the family confirm that they will take £6 million a season for companies linked to the family. Laughably, United supporters, you will be paying for the family’s ‘consultancy’ and ‘management’ of the club’s huge debt.
Negative transfer spending
Lets talk about facts. During the family’s ownership of United, net transfer spending is negative. That is: United has made more money selling players than the club has spent on bringing new talent into the club in the past four and a half years. Those who still back the family’s ownership point to three Premier League titles and a European cup. For that, only Sir Alex Ferguson deserves thanks.
Selling the club’s best player and using it for their own debt repayment
Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure to Real Madrid was inevitable once the player had made up his mind but Sir Alex has not been backed in the transfer market. The Scot talks about value but few now believe that the claim is anything more than a ruse. Today’s prospectus revealed that £70 million of United’s reserves will now pay down the family’s own debt.
Trying to make the word franchise acceptable
Manchester United is a 132 year-old institution, one of the oldest and most venerable clubs on the planet, supported by millions, whose history has been central to the world’s most popular sport. One thing United is not is a FRANCHISE. McDonald’s, Domino’s, Starbucks – franchises bought and sold. Still, the family manages to call the club a franchise not once, not twice, but three times in their prospectus. Some never learn.
Malcom Glazer’s ginger beard
Spot on. Get the Glazers out, United belongs to us, the fans.
Disgusting!
It took a few years for most fans to realise but lets face it wev’e been screwed by the f*****g Glazer a**h**es – i can only see hard times ahead and if it takes 10 years to pay these debts off then our history is being ruined by some freak leprechaun who probably knows as little about football as he does trouser fashion – personally I’m totaly gutted – If we now sell Rooney what’s the damn point of even thinking UTD can maintain their recent standards
This ought to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back though
stop these amricans glazers there eating into manu profits n making the old instituion into a debt ridden fans should opposed with tickets money there are giving debts n making there own profit
Now’s the time to get involved with MUST and start building up funds for when this all goes pear shaped. It will be infuriating if we get another chance to take a stake in our club and we haven’t made some effort to raise the funds. I think we need to prepare for some baron years but with light at the end of the tunnel. Any of you that are complaining (quite rightly) about the Glazers, GET INVOLVED NOW!
What they have done is definitely wrong and is putting the club in a really bad position.
What exactly can we do to get these lot out?
The Glazer’s bought United with money they didn’t have, can’t afford the interest on it and are slowly dragging MU into the mud. Dispicable.
Must query one thing though – 100% increase in season ticket prices??? Sure it’s as much as that?
The Telegraph says “prices at Old Trafford have increased by up to 8.5 per cent since the Glazer’s bought the club in 2005”.
Aggregate ticket prices are nearly 100% up on 2005. Telegraph is talking about individual years. In the prospectus it talks about 16.5% one year, 8.5% another and so on… compound those (Year 1: 100 + 16.5% = 116.5, Year 2: 116.5 + 8.5% = 126) and so on…. to get your aggregate rise.
Not forgetting the highly unpopular ‘automatic cup scheme’. A scheme which borders on the illegal i.e. forcing people to pay for a service they might not want.
Love United Hate Glazer.
Glazers are pushing us to become FC United supporters.
We (MU) will soon be sharing their stadium, Milan-style.
Hopefully without mutual hate.
Ed will be discussing his views on this subject on BBC Radio Manchester’s United show “Red Wednesday” this evening between 6 & 7.
We’re also joined by Sean from M.U.S.T. and you can have your say too.
We’re available on 95.1FM in Manchester, or online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester everywhere.
More details on our Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/bbcredwednesday
Cheers, Steve
M****r F****R Glazer!! get out!! leave our club to the fans…
is there any thing we can do or how we kick out glazers from this club
At least the image of the prospectus could do a great wallpaper. Does anyone has the pic bigger? 😆
I can’t talk about this MoFos anymore. Let’s try to focus on the team.
We all agree that this needs to be sorted, we agree that we need to get rid of the Glazer’s, but more to the point what are we going to do about it?
First we need a game plan to work with, why not initiate a starting point here on this site to get things moving?
Certainly not up to our eyes in debt. We’d still have wont everything we won during the four years because the set up was already in place. The Glazers did nothing!!!
how the fuck do you want to kick them out?
just to remid you – they are the owners now.
we can literally do shit about it.
it surely is needed for some1 to react,
but i dont think there r many ppl now willing to buy united.
and i dont know whether i prefer Glazers or Arabs…
anyway, we moarn, cos it’s time to moarn but
hes any1 thought where we’d have been
if Glazers hadn’t buy United 4 years ago?
Read my comments ax1d. There is a solution. Take away the money and the Glazers will fold. FORCE them into liquidation.
United were DEBT FREE before the money hungry Glazer leeches decided to hitch a ride on the money train, now we, the real Manchester United folk are up to our eyes in debt, like £700 million and rising. They did not buy the club, their creditors did. WE did not sell the club, a few money hungry NONE Manchester United millionairs did. So it is all about MONEY.
Remove the source of Glazers funds and he will lose out and the club may just come back to the real fans.
Okay it will hurt, but the only solution is to hit the Glazers where it will hurt them most, their pockets.
STOP Attending ALL United’s matches. No fans = no income = NO GLAZERS.
Come on you United fans, stick it to the Glazer thieving bastards. You want rid of them, DON’T pay the bastards to continue to rape the club.
Better that the club go into receivership, that way they’ll get VERY LITTLE RETURN as their stupid financiers will get their money first leaving nothing for the glazers. The supports can eventually get the club back at a rock bottom price.
COME ON, stick it to the Yankee rip off merchants. BOYCOTT THE CLUB WE LOVE TO SAVE IT FROM BEING COMMITED TO AN INGLORIOUS DEATH!!!
Got to say – I think Brian G is right…
If it looked like fans were making a co-ordinated effort to boycott all things that generated revenue for the club, then perhaps it would force a position where they had to cut their losses..?
Obviously not all fans would do this, but if a significant number of match day fans committed to this for the long term, it would hurt them very hard, very quickly, particularly when it came round to season ticket renewals. The waiting list myth has already been exploded, they don’t have people sitting in the wings to take your places. I know, I gave mine up this year and was offered one again within weeks.
Get the c__ts out.
c.foley
It is heartening to see that other ManU real fans, and I’ve been one for as long as I can remember, (I’m 68+ years old)can see value in showing the Glazers the door.
They do not give a damn about United, all they want to do is rip off as much money as they can. Already £22.9m and definitely rising.
Get together, act as one, solidarity is what will get rid of these Yanks and give our team back to the people who made it one of the greatest football clubs in history. NUST & IMUSA must work together on this possible solution because I cannot, for the life of me, understand how a debt free club can be demolished by money hungry none United, none British thieves.
YES WE WERE DEBT FREE, not now.
Remember the angst aqnd tactics used by the Glazer mob to get control mof our club, even forcing shareholders to sell.
Never mind the proposed £500 MILLION bond. If tey are ser5ious FLOAT THE CLUB ON THE STOCK MARKET ALLOWING GENUINE FOOTBALL FANS TO INVEST IN THEIR TEAM, not pseudo fans like the a—h—s who sold out 4 years ago.
RISE UP, BECOME SOLID IN YOUR EFFORTS TO TAKE BACK OUR CLUB FROM DISHONEST AMERICANS. SHOW YOUR CONTEMPT FOR THESE MOGULS. KEEP YOUR MONEY IN YOUR POOCKETS AND NOT PUT IT INTO THE GLAZERS.
If we fight the good fight, like the Pheonix United will rise from the flames and be the fans club again, not a money making machine for Yankee imperialists.
GET REAL, ACT NOW.
He’s Gonna die,
He’s Gonna die,
Malcolm Glazer’s Gonna die,
How we kill him I don’t know,
Cut him up from head to toe,
All I know is Glazer’s Gonna die!
We want our club back!
Get the message Glazer’s and F*** off back to the U.S
I gave hi my season ticket when the new cup scheme came in. 6000 of us did so. Had that number been higher then we’d have stood a chance. True fans showed their teeth years ago. Now’s the time for the ones who thought it would all go away to stand with their brothers.
In the words of a famous salfords boy club members, song Hang the glaziers hang the glaziers hang the glaziers,hang the Glaziers!…………
Save the D J – Hang the Glaziers!
Copy write the Smiths.