HARRY Hogger last week issued a plea to Manchester United fans to at least give Malcolm Glazer a fair hearing as he takes over the running of their football club. On one thing at least Mr Hogger is right, Manchester United is indeed a public limited company, something fiercely opposed by their supporters in 1991. Furthermore United fans, in conjunction with the Labour government, were vocal in their opposition to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover attempt and were successful in stopping it. United supporters and many other football fans around the country are alarmed at the consequences of Glazer’s “business plan” – and so they should be.
Until now, Manchester United has been prudently run and in a recent Deloitte and Touche survey was confirmed as the world’s richest sports club. Glazer has borrowed extensively to fund his takeover attempt, acquiring £921 million of corporate and personal debt to buy United. Glazer therefore has not invested his own money in acquiring the club as Roman Abramovich did two summers ago at Stamford Bridge. The debt leveraged on United’s considerable assets could well spiral to over £700million in the six months following his purchase. Servicing the debt, interest and repayments will average out at £85 million per annum for the next seven years, increasing substantially after that. This form of deficit financing will cripple one of English football’s finest institutions, but sadly its impact will stretch far further than Manchester.
One of Glazer’s grand plans for putting United back into the black is to renegotiate the Premiership’s television deal which is worth £20 million to each of the top flights 20 clubs. Glazer wants to rip up the existing agreement, whereby the Premiership package is sold as a whole, and allow United to negotiate their own deal. This would give United ample opportunity to exploit their status as one of the Premiership’s big guns, and the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle and Liverpool are likely to want a piece of the action themselves. The division’s ‘lesser lights’ would receive substantially less than under the current deal, and the three relegated clubs would lose their £20 million of parachute payments, thereby destroying any semblance of a level playing field that is left today.
Contrary to Mr Hogger’s assertions, we also know more than enough about Malcolm Glazer as a man. The way he fulfils the so-called “American Dream” is to claim that the death of his father due to cancer left the family living in poverty. But Glazer was more than happy to wage a 24 year court battle against his sisters over the division of his mother’s estate. While they faced ever mounting legal fees Glazer moved into the world of property and American sport. Glazer built a £1billion property fortune and yet answered “I don’t remember” 250 times during a routine deposition. He took over the NFL side Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who might have won the 2003 Super Bowl, but finished bottom of their conference this season. When the local Major League Soccer franchise was scouring the area for a local owner two years ago, Glazer told them bluntly to ‘look elsewhere’. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the Norwegian striker who scored the goal that clinched United’s 1999 treble in Barcelona, was sufficiently motivated by the prospect of the Glazer takeover to join Shareholders’ United, the union of supporters still fighting the American, and publicly condemn his plans.
It is also far from a pipe dream to suggest that supporters can exert influence in modern football. Barcelona, one of the giants of Spanish football, is owned by their local community, with supporters electing the club’s President and approving his plans each year. Hammarby, the largest side in Stockholm, is owned by a co-operative of local business leaders and supporters. There are also important precedents in the English game. Charlton Athletic were in crisis back in the 1980s, groundsharing at both Upton Park and Selhurst Park in front of a dwindling band of supporters and plummeting towards the bottom of the old Second Division. It seemed as though they were heading for oblivion. They won the battle to return to the Valley in 1992, but the club was languishing in mid-table, the ground had three sides and the capacity of 8,000 was nowhere close to being tested. The supporters and the board worked together to increase the fanbase and slowly financial security was reached. The Addicks now stand in the middle of the Premiership, posting pre-tax profits and with a ground that will grow to 30,000 mark in years to come.
The spirit shown by Charlton’s dedicated band of fans can be found at AFC Wimbledon, founded just six weeks after the disgraceful decision of an FA Commission to allow the original Wimbledon to relocate 70 miles north to Milton Keynes. They now own Kingsmeadow, also the home of Kingstonian, have won two successive promotions, and are well on their way to being financially dependent. A few rungs up the ladder we find our own Exeter City, now owned by the Supporters’ Trust having been left in a dreadful state by Uri Geller and his colleagues, and aiming to bounce back into the Football League next season. The Supporters’ Trusts’ at Chesterfield and Brentford also own their clubs, whilst in the same league as United, Fulham’s supporters were instrumental in their return to their historic Craven Cottage home. More than half of the Football League’s 92 professional sides have supporters sitting on their boards.
Instead of running Manchester United on sensible financial grounds, it is entirely possible that the Glazer takeover could spell the end for one of the game’s greats. The knock-on effect for the rest of football could prove disastrous. Malcolm Glazer’s sister, Marcia Shapiro, says the only person to benefit from thetakeover will be her brother. “He’s interested in himself, not the club. It’s all about his ranking in Forbes’ rich list. Malcolm is not good for anyone, unless they are good for him.” Supporters of the beautiful game still have a role to play within their own clubs to ensure that nobody else should suffer the terrifying prospect of venture capitalists running amok.
