The Glazers.

[DanClancy]

Sheer delusion.

The Glazers made whatever money available that Fergie wanted. He has said this numerous times and this has been proven since, seeing as they have made money available to every manager we've had.

And to think they cost the club money when they have increased revenue from 150m a year to 550m a year is just downright ignorant. The Glazers have made United a multi-billionaire club. We can spend what we want. We are so lucky to have owners who are intent on building the brand through assisting the team win trophies. We are nobody's play-thing, we are not poor. Great owners.

Stop believing the propaganda.

Obvious wum, either that or a bit thick.

The £1B figure is grossly exaggerated. There's no support in the club's accounts for such a fantasy.

Since the Glazer takeover the club has been mainly financed by debt capital, which has extracted a return in yearly interest payments. During the PLC years there was no debt, and the club was financed by equity capital, which also took a return in yearly dividend payments. Whoever invests money in a business, whether banks through loans, or shareholders through the purchase of shares, will require a return on that investment - unless the business is being run as a hobby or a charity, or because its ownership confers some kind of prestige cf. Chelsea and Manchester City.

United has, at least in the PL years, been run as a business.

Doesn't mean us as fans have to like and praise them either?

 

[Sarni]

And in their second year or so, they spent a fortune in 2 players no-one ever heard before (Anderson and Nani), in addition to signing Hargreaves and making the most expensive loan on all time on Tevez. The following year, we broke our transfer record when we signed Berbatov.

After that, Fergie somehow decided to not sign players, otherwise Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher and Neville wouldn't have had a place on the team. But let us blame them, despite that Fergie said multiple times that they never said no when he wanted to sign a player (he always complained on the previous owners and CEO) and the evidence we have after Fergie retired, when we outspent any other club.

True. I think with Ronaldo's record transfer fee and the emergence of City who spent so much on players we may have also targeted made Fergie disillusioned with prices of players and he was just not going to go along with it. Hazard would have come here but we did not want to pay the agent fee for example.

 

[Sarni]

Obvious wum, either that or a bit thick.

Doesn't mean us as fans have to like and praise them either?

It doesn't mean you have to praise them but not making up stuff to slam them for something would be a good change.

 

[DanClancy]

And in their second year or so, they spent a fortune in 2 players no-one ever heard before (Anderson and Nani), in addition to signing Hargreaves and making the most expensive loan on all time on Tevez. The following year, we broke our transfer record when we signed Berbatov.

After that, Fergie somehow decided to not sign players, otherwise Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher and Neville wouldn't have had a place on the team. But let us blame them, despite that Fergie said multiple times that they never said no when he wanted to sign a player (he always complained on the previous owners and CEO) and the evidence we have after Fergie retired, when we outspent any other club.

Have you ever looked at the accounts from 2009 to 2011 because if you had its clearly obvious their was very little money to spend on transfers given the large % that was spent on interest repayments etc.

Fergie never ever had a problem breaking transfer records during his 26 years apart from those 3 year summers of 2009-2011. I hardly call it a coincidence.

 

[DanClancy]

It doesn't mean you have to praise them but not making up stuff to slam them for something would be a good change.

Who's making stuff up?

 

[TheBiggest]

Obvious wum, either that or a bit thick.

If you're gonna make a point, back it up.

Everything I said is accurate.

I fear it's you who is a bit thick, believing the propoganda thrown at you by MUST and other stupid fans.

And...just to let you know, I reported on the MUST/Green&Gold campaign for over 2-years at national newspapers. I'm qualified to talk about this.

 

[TheBiggest]

Who's making stuff up?

Back up your points. You are painfully losing any argument you think you are having, by just raising points but not raising evidence.

Your posts are a bit cringe-worthy to read. I think it's clear you don't know anything about this subject.

 

[Sarni]

Who's making stuff up?

Well all the nonsense about us not spending because of them for starters.

 

[whatwha]

Have you ever looked at the accounts from 2009 to 2011 because if you had its clearly obvious their was very little money to spend on transfers given the large % that was spent on interest repayments etc.

Fergie never ever had a problem breaking transfer records during his 26 years apart from those 3 year summers of 2009-2011. I hardly call it a coincidence.

Yep. Don't know how anyone can deny this. The debt was at a dangerous level for some time.

 

[Oscie]

Yep. Don't know how anyone can deny this. The debt was at a dangerous level for some time.

They can deny it by the fact we twice broke our own transfer record in that period.

Again difference between what people want to think happened and what actually happened.

 

[DanClancy]

Well all the nonsense about us not spending because of them for starters.

Feel free to expand on why its nonsense?

 

[whatwha]

They can deny it by the fact we twice broke our own transfer record in that period.

Again difference between what people want to think happened and what actually happened.

So no matter how much debt the club ever had, it never affected spending in any way whatsoever? Is that what you are saying?

 

[Oscie]

So no matter how much debt the club ever had, it never affected spending in any way whatsoever? Is that what you are saying?

I don't know I'm not an economist or expert in finance. But those who are never seemed to have had an issue with it. People who made money from convincing people the sky was falling down, did.

 

[DanClancy]

The Glazers are competent owners, they run the club well and don't interfere with the manager. They've done some excellent work with the commercial department although who's not to say this wouldn't have happened anyway, United for a long time prior them arriving where a well run club who's revenues were in the top 3 in world football although I agree United had started to stagnate in the commercial department.

This is not to say we can't criticise them for the way they ran the club previously and this has played a part in why we've had 4 poor seasons in the league since. Lack of investment allowed a great team to get old, no world class players were bought in the 3 summers of 09-11; The board were hoping Fergie could repeat the magic of buying Vidic, VDS & Evra on the cheap. If United had bought a top player in each of those summers we wouldn't have such a poor time of it in the league and the club wouldn't have had to spend over £500m on players since.

 

[Ferguson]

We bought David de Gea in 2011? He wasn't cheap and became world class within a few seasons. Valencia and Chicharito were brilliant buys during that period.

But it isn't all about buying world class players. Fergie wanted to bring in youth. If he had wanted to spend on a player, I think the Glazers would have sanctioned it. No evidence says otherwise.

I think we were always destined for a hangover after SAF left. Laying that on the Glazers' doorstep is unfair.

Moyes dithered and pursued Bale obsessively until it was too late to get someone else, LVG bought Dutch and left-footed players repeatedly, and both men fell out with SAF's players and got rid of players we should never have sold.

With Mourinho, our transfer policy has improved massively and that tells you where the problem was.

There is this reflexive effort to say that we were skint because of the Glazers, but there has never been solid evidence that this was ever the case. The interest was always manageable and I argued against the false prognostications of doom from the very beginning when it was very unpopular to do so on the caf. Time has proven me right.

The bigger issue, as Jose has alluded to, is that the league is different now with the rise of City and the overall financial strength of even the midtable clubs. SAF could play Scholes and Giggs and bring along youth while buying Tottenham or Arsenal's best player. Times changed and United's transfer policy didn't change with it. Losing Gill at the same time as Fergie was a bigger issue than the Glazers.

 

[thegregster]

They have spent very little.

The media go on about how much United have spent on transfers since 2014 but overall they have spent little.

On the capital side of things they have only spent around £68mil.

In the last seven years United have generated an incredible £1.25 billion of cash: £936 million from operating activities plus £318 million from share issues. Just over £400 million (32%) of this has been spent on player purchases and £68 million (5%) on capital expenditure, but the majority £671 million (54%) has been used to finance the Glazers’ loans: £424 million of interest payments and £247 million of debt repayments.

 

[Sarni]

Feel free to expand on why its nonsense?

Because a) Fergie said numerous times that they made money available and even proved this by getting van Persie or Berbatov for high fees despite advanced age, b) we started spending record amount of money immediately after Fergie left. It's difficult to comprehend that people actually think they refused to give money to Fergie but were happy enough to hand it over to Moyes, van Gaal and now Mourinho.

Fergie literally turned Hazard down because his agent wanted £4m commission. He was very careful with money, he even mentions this in his biography.

 

[DanClancy]

Because a) Fergie said numerous times that they made money available and even proved this by getting van Persie or Berbatov for high fees despite advanced age, b) we started spending record amount of money immediately after Fergie left. It's difficult to comprehend that people actually think they refused to give money to Fergie but were happy enough to hand it over to Moyes, van Gaal and now Mourinho.

Fergie literally turned Hazard down because his agent wanted £4m commission. He was very careful with money, he even mentions this in his biography.

The first mistake is believing everything Fergie ever said. Careful with money? Fergie always spent big going back to Ince & Pallister.

Have a look at United's account going back the last ten years, the evidence backs up my point that the money to buy top players wasn't there. At one stage 40% of the clubs turnover was been spent on interest payments and its like.

 

[Sarni]

The first mistake is believing everything Fergie ever said. Careful with money? Fergie always spent big going back to Ince & Pallister.

Have a look at United's account going back the last ten years, the evidence backs up my point that the money to buy top players wasn't there. At one stage 40% of the clubs turnover was been spent on interest payments and its like.

Can you point me to a year in which we spent £150m - £200m on interest payments? Would be interesting to see. Our minimum revenue during the last 10 years was probably around £350m. If we really spent £150m on interest payments then I'm inclined to actually go back and admit that Glazers are absolutely abysmal businessmen. Even if they had leveraged £1bn (they did not), it would be 15%, that's a terrible loan.

 

[DanClancy]

Can you point me to a year in which we spent £150m - £200m on interest payments? Would be interesting to see. Our minimum revenue during the last 10 years was probably around £350m. If we really spent £150m on interest payments then I'm inclined to actually go back and admit that Glazers are absolutely abysmal businessmen. Even if they had leveraged £1bn (they did not), it would be 15%, that's a terrible loan.

I never stated that, please go and have a look at the accounts the past 10 years and you'll be surprised.

 

[Sarni]

I never stated that, please go and have a look at the accounts the past 10 years and you'll be surprised.

You said we were spending 40% of our turnover on interests.

40% of our turnover would have been around £140m minimum and up to £200m if it's in our later years. I am just interested in which year we spent over £100m on interest.

 

[DanClancy]

You said we were spending 40% of our turnover on interests.

40% of our turnover would have been around £140m minimum and up to £200m if it's in our later years. I am just interested in which year we spent over £100m on interest.

You're right with your calculations but unfortunately you're way out on United's turnover.

United's turnover for 2006/07 was £245m and £256 in 07/08

 

[Sarni]

You're right with your calculations but unfortunately you're way out on United's turnover.

United's turnover for 2006/07 was £245m and £256 in 07/08

Ok, then we would have paid £100m of interest on that. That is still a massive amount to pay on ca. £700m loan. All I can find in our statements from that period are around £40m of interest paid which sort of makes sense. It might have gone up to £70m or so when we released bonds but back then our revenue also hit £300m or so.

I just struggle to understand how irresponsible Glazers were to agree to pay £100m+ interest on a ca. £700m loan. Always had them down as decent businessmen at the very least. Turns out they are absolute morons.

 

[Ferguson]

Any praise of the Glazers on here ignores the fantastic job Ferguson did. Imagine if we had any other manager at the helm who needed a lot more money to keep us at the same level.

They don't get no praise for that.

Coming from someone who understands debt and tax liability... Any remarks to the contrary can get shoved.

This was the excuse trotted out when none of the predictions of disaster came to fruition. Fergie allowed them to get away with it.

If things go well then the Glazers got lucky, and if things go badly it's the Glazer's fault.

The whole conversation about the Glazers is a waste of time because there has never been a falsifiable claim that could prove or disprove that they are good or bad owners.

 

[Revan]

Have you ever looked at the accounts from 2009 to 2011 because if you had its clearly obvious their was very little money to spend on transfers given the large % that was spent on interest repayments etc.

Fergie never ever had a problem breaking transfer records during his 26 years apart from those 3 year summers of 2009-2011. I hardly call it a coincidence.

We had our most expensive summer in 2007, we broke our transfer record in 2008 (in a position where we were well stocked), but suddenly we didn't have any money to spend the next summer? Despite that nothing suggests that (including Fergie mentioning that multiple times).

Unless you have inside info (you don't), I am going to stick to the official explanation.

True. I think with Ronaldo's record transfer fee and the emergence of City who spent so much on players we may have also targeted made Fergie disillusioned with prices of players and he was just not going to go along with it. Hazard would have come here but we did not want to pay the agent fee for example.

It is a bit like talking to flat-Earthers, to be fair.

 

[DanClancy]

We had our most expensive summer in 2007, we broke our transfer record in 2008 (in a position where we were well stocked), but suddenly we didn't have any money to spend the next summer? Despite that nothing suggests that (including Fergie mentioning that multiple times).

Unless you have inside info (you don't), I am going to stick to the official explanation.

It is a bit like talking to flat-Earthers, to be fair.

I'll stick the explanation in the accounts which you choose to ignore.

A manager who was never afraid to spend didn't buy a big name player for 3 years from 2009 to 2011.

Did Fergie ever lie?

 

[DanClancy]

Ok, then we would have paid £100m of interest on that. That is still a massive amount to pay on ca. £700m loan. All I can find in our statements from that period are around £40m of interest paid which sort of makes sense. It might have gone up to £70m or so when we released bonds but back then our revenue also hit £300m or so.

I just struggle to understand how irresponsible Glazers were to agree to pay £100m+ interest on a ca. £700m loan. Always had them down as decent businessmen at the very least. Turns out they are absolute morons.

Thats what I stated interest payments and its like.

There was a was the costs of terminating the swaps in the accounts around that period and it was about £40m taking the full years financing costs up to about 40% of the clubs turnover.

About £475 was spent by the club on interest payments and repaying debts etc from when the Glazers took over up to 2011. Imagine if a fraction just say £100m was spent by Fergie in the transfer market during that period.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Because of glazers we are in dept. Ok, i accept that as a flaw.
But in their reign we become world richest club. We spend huge money on players. We buy best players( who were available) and best manager.
Also we won champ league, were in two finals and won 5(?) PL.

My point is who knows what would happen if they didn't buy the club. Maybe we would be multiple euro champions and even richer. But maybe also we could end like arsenal and liverpool with they owners. So i am happy with them.

 

[NorthernAvengeR]

They're self-serving cnuts, but they're also good at running the club.

 

[Andycoleno9]

They're self-serving cnuts, but they're also good at running the club.

Spot on

 

[TheBiggest]

The delusion on here is astonishing.

I can't believe there are grown men who believe the propaganda handed down by MUST.

Cringe.

 

[vk20legend]

I'm not gonna get into the topic of whether they leached the club of money for their own use, but I'm glad they didn't interfere with the way the club has been run on the footballing side.

They've brought in a competent marketing team which has worked wonders for us. And currently they are getting whatever targets the manager wants at least till now.

I hope we're debt free at some point but I think it's at a manageable level. I was never worried about that debt as I knew even if the club ever got into trouble financially, there are several rich people around the world who wouldn't think twice to buy the global iconic club that is us.

As long as they support the manager on his targets and stay away from the footballing side, I'm ok with Glazers.

 

[VanGaalyTime]

When you buy a house you take a mortgage, right? Effectively, I'm buying something with little of my own money with the promise of paying the rest at a later date (from my earnings; in the case of MUFC, the clubs revenues).

I think the vast majority of your post is total tripe.

You don't understand finances. . Ok, the key difference here is it's YOUR earnings. United's earnings are not the Glazer's. What you're effectively saying is that any one of us can just buy Starbucks or Mcdonalds for $20,000 and then pay for the rest with the millions in food and drink we sell. Do you honestly not see the difference between that and buying a house and paying for it with your own money? Because I honestly don't believe you're that stupid. I think you do understand the vast difference.

 

[Sarni]

Thats what I stated interest payments and its like.

There was a was the costs of terminating the swaps in the accounts around that period and it was about £40m taking the full years financing costs up to about 40% of the clubs turnover.

About £475 was spent by the club on interest payments and repaying debts etc from when the Glazers took over up to 2011. Imagine if a fraction just say £100m was spent by Fergie in the transfer market during that period.

So basically there was never a time when our interest payments were at 40% except one time when they maybe got up to £70m because of one off swaps termination, and went slightly over 20% of our revenue, correct?

We would not have spent that money on transfers anyway under any scenario other than sugar daddy. If we were PLC, we would pay something close to that in dividends, probably, or just keep it in the club because stakeholders would not like spending £100m on transfers.

Fergie could have spent £100m in the market back then if he wanted. He got to spend something around £60m in 2007 when our revenue was smaller and we were in more debt. Everything we know (Fergie saying that, the fact that he spent heavily before 2008 and we spent heavily after 2013 etc.) points to the fact that he just did not want to spend much money. Maybe he knew he would soon retire and prefered to keep finances for the new manager, who knows.

 

[Sarni]

You don't understand finances. . Ok, the key difference here is it's YOUR earnings. United's earnings are not the Glazer's. What you're effectively saying is that any one of us can just buy Starbucks or Mcdonalds for $20,000 and then pay for the rest with the millions in food and drink we sell. Do you honestly not see the difference between that and buying a house and paying for it with your own money? Because I honestly don't believe you're that stupid. I think you do understand the vast difference.

It's their earnings since they own the club. If you have confidence that the business you are trying to run will generate enough earnings to cover your interest payments and pay off your initial investment, you can take out a loan and set up that business or buy that business if it already exists. It's literally how massive number of successful businesses start and it's also how a large number of takeovers happen.

It's basically like taking a $50k loan to set up a cafe because you are confident that cafe will be profitable for you and you will be able to make that back and more. People really, honestly do that stuff on a regular basis.

 

[Sarni]

I'll stick the explanation in the accounts which you choose to ignore.

A manager who was never afraid to spend didn't buy a big name player for 3 years from 2009 to 2011.

Did Fergie ever lie?

He bought Stam, Veron, Ferdinand and van Nistelrooy for record fees between 1998 and 2001. He then sold Beckham and Veron for £40m and spent that on Djemba-Djemba, Howard, Kleberson and 18-year old Ronaldo in 2003. He did not always go for expensive players if he did not like the value in them.

 

[DanClancy]

So basically there was never a time when our interest payments were at 40% except one time when they maybe got up to £70m because of one off swaps termination, and went slightly over 20% of our revenue, correct?

We would not have spent that money on transfers anyway under any scenario other than sugar daddy. If we were PLC, we would pay something close to that in dividends, probably, or just keep it in the club because stakeholders would not like spending £100m on transfers.

Fergie could have spent £100m in the market back then if he wanted. He got to spend something around £60m in 2007 when our revenue was smaller and we were in more debt. Everything we know (Fergie saying that, the fact that he spent heavily before 2008 and we spent heavily after 2013 etc.) points to the fact that he just did not want to spend much money. Maybe he knew he would soon retire and prefered to keep finances for the new manager, who knows.

I don't see where you've admitted that I was right and you were wrong?

I stated that that about 40% of the clubs turnover was spent on interest payments and its like and I was correct. Its there in the accounts.

 

[DanClancy]

He bought Stam, Veron, Ferdinand and van Nistelrooy for record fees between 1998 and 2001. He then sold Beckham and Veron for £40m and spent that on Djemba-Djemba, Howard, Kleberson and 18-year old Ronaldo in 2003. He did not always go for expensive players if he did not like the value in them.

You've picked one season which isn't a very good example.

Either side of that he bought Rio in 2002 for nearly £30m and in 2004 he bought Rooney for a similar amount.

 

[TheBiggest]

Can somebody order an uber for DanClancy?

And get him a calculator and some logic while you're at it.

 

[RoadTrip]

You don't understand finances. . Ok, the key difference here is it's YOUR earnings. United's earnings are not the Glazer's. What you're effectively saying is that any one of us can just buy Starbucks or Mcdonalds for $20,000 and then pay for the rest with the millions in food and drink we sell. Do you honestly not see the difference between that and buying a house and paying for it with your own money? Because I honestly don't believe you're that stupid. I think you do understand the vast difference.

They are their earnings. They are the owners of the club.