Guardian: Manchester United lose £200m training kit deal over fans’ anti-Glazers campaign

[Sky1981]

You mean typical reporting by any newspaper with sources that they won't want to reveal, ever?

Given this amazing detective work you've just showcased, I'd consider a run for the position of Sherlock Holmes when it next becomes available.

You dont need Sherlock holmes for this.

1+1 = emc2

A blogspot or a fans post here could be that source. Read the wording carefully. It's not the existing sponsor cancelling. It's a potentials sponsor that may or may not be X decided to not going for us.

Aka unsubstantiated.

 

[He'sRaldo]

People are acting like we are Ipswich and Ed Sheeran has just cancelled his tour

If we intend to hurt the club until the big sponsors pull out, then eventually that analogy will be accurate.

 

[Valar Morghulis]

I'm not against what is happening here, to be clear. I'm just not on board with the viewpoint that this isn't a massive gamble that couldn't easily and spectacularly blow up in our faces and set our club back for a very long time. It might not, but it might.

Gary Neville used the term "War on English Football" after the ESL debacle.

This movement is heading towards a total war on the Glazers as things stand. The Glazers might be able to diffuse this bomb but I don't see them being willing to make the kind of concessions that are going to be necessary. These protests IMO are rapidly taking us towards a full on war of attrition with the owners of the football club. There will be a price to pay. How costly the price may prove to be is highly debateable.

I don't use the word 'revolution' lightly. Protesters definitely need to realise that this is going to come with some very high stakes. There will inevitably be some costs to pay in the short-term, maybe even the medium-term. You are totally correct that this is an extremely risky endeavour but it's now or never, and I really think we need to force the issue.

 

[Mindhunter]

I understand your reservations. The current state of affairs is at least familiar. Despite that, it's still worth remembering a few things...

Firstly, it's these shameless parasites who are lucky to have us and not vice versa. They're at the helm of the most popular club in world football and our allure would guarantee interested buyers.

Secondly, a few months of relative frugality wouldn't put a dent in how big we are globally. We're Manchester United for fecks sake.

Finally - Best case scenario, we get bought by a consortium / buyer who has witnessed the Glazers being driven out and does everything possible to keep the fans onside (like City and Chelsea's owners). The worst case scenario right now is that the Glazers have no choice but to radically alter their stance and fulfill some of the promises they made yesterday.

Either way, United aren't going anywhere in the long-term and they've done nothing but burden us.

Seriously, everything every poster has moaned about over the past 16 years relates in some way to their gross mismanagement of our club. Enjoy watching them feel the heat.

Is this really hurting them though? How much of their own money is tied up into United as percentage of their net worth? Minimal. Most of the debt they took on is on our balance sheet.

Therefore, hurting the business isn't really hurting them at all. It is hurting us. They take a dividend of 26m a year which would continue regardless as probably any PL club can support that outlay. What will happen is that we will fall behind the others?

The LBO was absolutely devastating for the club and started our demise. Trying to undo that wrong by harming our own self-interest will push us over the edge.

 

[Halftrack]

How do you know there are no interested buyers?

Because paying £3-4bn for a property that you're expected not to make any returns on is not a very attractive prospect, is it? The only people who would be willing to do that are human rights abusing billionaires who'd use the club as a propaganda piece.

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

I guess the transfer window is done for.

 

[noodlehair]

What's the actual realistic end game of this?

I mean aside from creating a war that will just destroy the club and, at best, end with it in the hands of someone worse than the Glazers?

I'm not against getting them out I just don't really understand what people think they are achieving with stuff like this. It's not going to make them sell the club and even if it did there's not exactly a wrath of people out there who can afford to buy it and would do so for any remotely good reason. The Glazers are a product of football's greed eating itself, not the cause.

Anymore protests like the one the other week and the sympathy will soon disappear as well. It'll inevitably turn more nasty as the plice get more heavy handed and the idiots among the crowd feel the need to outdo each other...and I'm sorry but no matter how much you love United, a game of football is never a justified reason to march around smashing stuff up or fighting police. Particularly not during a time when there are literally 100 causes more worthy of protesting about.

There's people living in poverty, millions of unemployed. Unprecedented cuts to public sector and pay including to front line emergency workers. Racism. Sexism. Climate change. The fact there are dangerous idiots running the country. Brexit nonsense. Covid related scandals that have caused thousands of deaths. Anti protesting/freedom laws. If the most worthy thing you can find to protest about as a good cause at the moment is who owns a football club, then you're either living under the world's biggest rock or are being massively dishonest about how righteous you think what you're doing is.

Using the ESL situation to put pressure on a review that changes ownership rules is surely the only way to go that offers any realistic hope of positive change, and that isn't achieved by marching about throwing flares at people and getting games cancelled. All that will do in the long run is undermine things in the favour of the owners.

 

[Stormpetrel]

I don't use the word 'revolution' lightly. Protesters definitely need to realise that this is going to come with some very high stakes. There will inevitably be some costs to pay in the short-term, maybe even the medium-term. You are totally correct that this is an extremely risky endeavour but it's now or never, and I really think we need to force the issue.

Is it a revolution if it's just to replace some parasites with other random parasites?

 

[Ali Dia]

If we intend to hurt the club until the big sponsors pull out, then eventually that analogy will be accurate.

20 million a year is one Sanchez. We are worth billions. People need to chill. Put the fans first over glory for a little while and everyone will end up doing ok out of this if the glazers do what they’ve promised. The only way to guarantee that is to put pressure on them and it seems to be working.

 

[Eckers99]

Because paying £4-5bn for a property that you're not expected to make any returns on is not a very attractive prospect, is it? The only people who would be willing to do that are human rights abusing billionaires who'd use the club as a propaganda piece.

These business types talk among themselves. United's availability isn't going to be broadcast on Sky Sports. If the Glazers start to question owning us they'll find takers, even at a value running into the billions. They've made their money and there are plenty richer than them.

Arsenal had no interested buyers a week ago but look at them now. And the most notable thing about that club is fecking Ty.

 

[JustinC00]

I guess the transfer window is done for.

the 20m per season this would be losing is less than we paid for each VDB and Diallo and almost assuredly there will be some company that might offer a little bit less that won't care about the boycotts.

 

[Eckers99]

Is this really hurting them though? How much of their own money is tied up into United as percentage of their net worth? Minimal. Most of the debt they took on is on our balance sheet.

Therefore, hurting the business isn't really hurting them at all. It is hurting us. They take a dividend of 26m a year which would continue regardless as probably any PL club can support that outlay. What will happen is that we will fall behind the others?

The LBO was absolutely devastating for the club and started our demise. Trying to undo that wrong by harming our own self-interest will push us over the edge.

I might be reading between the lines here but the answer is no, we might not sign Sancho.

 

[Mindhunter]

What's the actual realistic end game of this?

I mean aside from creating a war that will just destroy the club and, at best, end with it in the hands of someone worse than the Glazers?

I'm not against getting them out I just don't really understand what people think they are achieving with stuff like this. It's not going to make them sell the club and even if it did there's not exactly a wrath of people out there who can afford to buy it and would do so for any remotely good reason. The Glazers are a product of football's greed eating itself, not the cause.

Anymore protests like the one the other week and the sympathy will soon disappear as well. It'll inevitably turn more nasty as the plice get more heavy handed and the idiots among the crowd feel the need to outdo each other...and I'm sorry but no matter how much you love United, a game of football is never a justified reason to march around smashing stuff up or fighting police. Particularly not during a time when there are literally 100 causes more worthy of protesting about.

There's people living in poverty, millions of unemployed. Unprecedented cuts to public sector and pay including to front line emergency workers. Racism. Sexism. Climate change. The fact there are dangerous idiots running the country. Brexit nonsense. Covid related scandals that have caused thousands of deaths. Anti protesting/freedom laws. If the most worthy thing you can find to protest about as a good cause at the moment is who owns a football club, then you're either living under the world's biggest rock or are being massively dishonest about how righteous you think what you're doing is.

Using the ESL situation to put pressure on a review that changes ownership rules is surely the only way to go that offers any realistic hope of positive change, and that isn't achieved by marching about throwing flares at people and getting games cancelled. All that will do in the long run is undermine things in the favour of the owners.

You are making too much sense for the trigger happy folks here who believe they have landed a slap on the Glazer family faces by getting a game abandoned and forcing a sponsor out.

In reality they are cutting the very branch they sit on. In reality, we will lose a few games we should have won and then probably will lose the Sancho transfer too. So much pain isn't going to rid us of the Glazers as they have no reason to sell. They own 75% of the club without a lot of their own money on the line.

We will never win a war of attrition with them. In fact, the club will become less competitive. After languishing for years, we have a promising project and we are just pissing it away in trying to forcibly influence something we have very less control over. This should have happened while the takeover was being discussed, not now.

I can clearly see us not strengthening in the summer and losing our CL place if this madness continues. Some people will say that it is a price they are willing to pay to get rid of the Glazers. Instead they will get rid of Ole, Fernandez, etc. The Glazers will continue enjoying the warm weather in Florida and cashing checks of 25m a year.

 

[alexthelion]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Good.

Bad.
Very bad.

 

[Hansi Fick]

All I fear this will do is ruin our summer spending

You're the kind of fan this messaging was tailor--made for, then

 

[alexthelion]

Just waiting for alexthelion and a few others to come in and start going now look what you guys did…. Poor glazers can’t win with ungrateful fans like us

Don't need to say anything, the glee of posters in this thread sums it up beautifully

 

[sparx99]

Oh, any anyone saying this is 'only' £200m over 10 years. IIRC, one of our biggest (if not the biggest) sponsorship deals with Adidas is someting like £75m/year (based on my quick google search). This is around 25-30% of that and it is by no means insignificant.

We had a revenue of $710m (again quick google search, no sophisticated currency conversion) and a market capitalisation (i.e. company value) of $2.7bn (based on the share price on Friday). That's around 4x multiple which is not unusual in valuing companies. Profit or EBITDA (basically cashflow generation) multiples are also key here but I don't have the desire to go that deep and you'd have to make a lot of assumptions based on how much of that £20m/year goes to the bottom line.

So if we assume we've lost $28m/year in revenue, that's a hit to the valuation of about $100m. This is not big in and of itself but reputationally it might damage the club's ability and bargaining power to get another brand deal.

It’s only a loss in revenue until they announce the replacement deal.

 

[Eckers99]

Bad.
Very bad.

 

[alexthelion]

What’s your desired outcome here?

You hate the Glazers, yeah we all do. Except there are no suitable buyers positioned to purchase us and not seek a big return on that investment, though extracting more money than the Glazers do already.

In the meantime decimating our transfer business and in turn our ability to compete in the league and Europe will be potentially devastating to our club, regardless of who the owners may be in the future.

Not to mention that if we were to take a nosedive due to lack of investment and lost further sponsors it would make us far less appealing to the very few potential owners you long for.

Don't waste your time, they'll never pay attention.

 

[ivaldo]

A lot of people in this thread seem like they want to swim in the pool but never get wet aka wanting your cake and eating it.

You have to take risks in life to get the big win. And sometimes you won't. But getting the Glazers out OR at least forcing them to run this club properly won't happen by singing, dancing and hashtagging.

I like how you used an analogy to explain an analogy.

 

[alexthelion]

FreddieTHEReddie here now but nothing from AlexTHELion. Hmmmm..

Hello, how ya doin?

 

[Devil may care]

Yeah, why bother to think about consequences

Yeah, lets ignore that they've plunged our club into hundreds of million pounds of debt, let our legendary stadium fall apart, failed to put a footballing infrastructure in place so the on pitch side of things fell apart when Fergie retired and their incompetent puppet was left in charge, leeched well over a billion out of the club and tried to piss on football and put us in some garbage super league, lets just keep eating a shit sandwich.

 

[alexthelion]

What's the actual realistic end game of this?

I mean aside from creating a war that will just destroy the club and, at best, end with it in the hands of someone worse than the Glazers?

I'm not against getting them out I just don't really understand what people think they are achieving with stuff like this. It's not going to make them sell the club and even if it did there's not exactly a wrath of people out there who can afford to buy it and would do so for any remotely good reason. The Glazers are a product of football's greed eating itself, not the cause.

Anymore protests like the one the other week and the sympathy will soon disappear as well. It'll inevitably turn more nasty as the plice get more heavy handed and the idiots among the crowd feel the need to outdo each other...and I'm sorry but no matter how much you love United, a game of football is never a justified reason to march around smashing stuff up or fighting police. Particularly not during a time when there are literally 100 causes more worthy of protesting about.

There's people living in poverty, millions of unemployed. Unprecedented cuts to public sector and pay including to front line emergency workers. Racism. Sexism. Climate change. The fact there are dangerous idiots running the country. Brexit nonsense. Covid related scandals that have caused thousands of deaths. Anti protesting/freedom laws. If the most worthy thing you can find to protest about as a good cause at the moment is who owns a football club, then you're either living under the world's biggest rock or are being massively dishonest about how righteous you think what you're doing is.

Using the ESL situation to put pressure on a review that changes ownership rules is surely the only way to go that offers any realistic hope of positive change, and that isn't achieved by marching about throwing flares at people and getting games cancelled. All that will do in the long run is undermine things in the favour of the owners.

Stop being so sensible, you shill, you.

 

[sglowrider]

People thinking this is good is horrible. This will ensure we go further behind the oil and oligarch clubs.

United fans will never win a war of attrition with the Glazers. It’s totally one sided.

What’s next? People saying good we didn’t qualify for the CL as that would mean more money for the Glazers?

Ole and the team are already facing the brunt of the previous protest by having to play 4 games in 8 days but that’s just a temporary pain.

Do fans really want to create permanent pain by going behind the oil clubs in market power?

Plus it's not like this hurts the Glazers financially or their bank account.

This is money out of United's bank account and their ability to spend. The club will either need to find £20million or cut £20million.

 

[Bastian]

Bad.
Very bad.

 

[Mickeza]

Plus it's not like this hurts the Glazers financially or their bank account.

This is money out of United's bank account and their ability to spend. The club will either need to find £20million or cut £20million.

We’ll get a sponsor so it won’t be a 20m reduction but if it was they could just not pay out dividends...wild suggestion I know.

 

[Champ]

Of course it hurts them! In the last week the biggest game in England has been called off and a 200m sponsorship deal has been cancelled all because of the fans. 3 weeks ago they thought they could just join a super league destroying European and English football without so much as even letting the fans know - the entire balance of power in this relationship has completely changed - we know that because Joel Glazer is actually going to speak after spending the last 16 years saying feck all.

You really think this will hurt them??
A continued stream of this will, but a singular will not.
Also find it strange how no other publications are coming forward with this information.

All this does is publicise the fact that United need a sponsor, of which there are hundreds, of not thousands that will take the opportunity.

It's needs to be a continued effort if it is to be successful, trust me, they are not going anywhere fast.

 

[Tarrou]

This is absolutely incredible news

Didn’t expect to get such a quick result!

Sending a huge message to the other sponsors too

Starting to look possible now

 

[mancsarered]

Expectation:

"We put enough pressure on the sponsors that the Glazers lose money and decide to sell the club!"

Reality:

*Maguire partners with new signing Gary Cahill*

 

[Shane88]

It's only the Saudis that can afford to buy us, yeah?

 

[ForeverRed1]

Question: if their worth 4billion, why can’t they just pay off the debt with their own money ?

 

[Eckers99]

"I don't understand this club, there's just no forward planning. Since Fergie, the managers chosen by the board have been completely random, we've wasted hundreds of millions on a hodgepodge of players and treated old players as depreciating assets rather than failing parts of a broken system. The stadium is rotting, we never uncover unknown talent, we're half a billion in debt and the youth system is only just recovering from years of neglect. We're terrible at transfer negotiations, haven't won a major trophy in 8 years and our owners, the only ones in our league to take an annual dividend, have spent almost half of our current total value on interest payments because of a debt they alone created.

And yet, I hope we don't do anything to make them pack up and leave. You just don't know what else is out there, do you?"

 

[Sultan]

They own 78% of the club. 150 years of history means absolutely nothing.

We can get rid of them by getting better as a business that enables them to exit. Reducing the cost of their asset via protests and intimidation of sponsors isn’t going to get them a buyer who can afford to buy the club from them.

All it does is destroys our chances to remain competitive. For example, forget about buying Sancho now while all other clubs around us strengthen. We are cutting the very branch we are sitting on.

I fully understand where you're coming from with your concern about losing sponsorship deals. It does weaken us in the transfer market. However, on the flip side, if the club's value tumbles due to lack of footballing and financial success, we could likely see a new buyer who could then be willing to invest in the ground and players. The point is would any new buyer similar to Glazers would want to see returns on their investment.

It would be rare to have owners who are in the business to promote their brand like City with Abu Dhabi or football-mad Roman who is not concerned about profits. Where are we going to find such owners?

 

[alexthelion]

Question: if their worth 4billion, why can’t they just pay off the debt with their own money ?

How much do you really think will be cash?

 

[NicolaSacco]

You dont need Sherlock holmes for this.

1+1 = emc2

A blogspot or a fans post here could be that source. Read the wording carefully. It's not the existing sponsor cancelling. It's a potentials sponsor that may or may not be X decided to not going for us.

Aka unsubstantiated.

The cynic in me suggests this is some pretty good press without having to spend a penny.

 

[alexthelion]

I fully understand where you're coming from with your concern about losing sponsorship deals. It does weaken us in the transfer market. However, on the flip side, if the club's value tumbles due to lack of footballing and financial success, we could likely see a new buyer who could then be willing to invest in the ground and players. The point is would any new buyer similar to Glazers would want to see returns on their investment.

It would be rare to have owners who are in the business to promote their brand like City with Abu Dhabi or football-mad Roman who is not concerned about profits. Where are we going to such owners?

There's always the Saudi Murderer.

Nobody else would cough up £3bn or £4bn and not want their cut.

 

[acolyte]

Question: if their worth 4billion, why can’t they just pay off the debt with their own money ?

That doesn't mean they have 4 billion in the bank. Most of that is the value of Manchester United and the Buccaneers. They'd have to sell their stake in those teams to actually turn that "net worth" into cash.

 

[GreenFieldsGoldenBarley]

Well that’s Haaland out the window, probably Pogba leaving as well.

Haaland's great and I love Pogba, but I'd prefer the Glazers to leave

 

[Sultan]

So it’s their club and theirs alone and we as fans shouldn’t have any problems with screwing things up for them?

Or, we as fans should accept that while it’s no longer our club and is most definitely theirs, we should just accept that and hope that in spite of their parasitic administration, we somehow become competitive again and live in pure ignorant bliss feeding on scraps of joy from any success we might have?

To be fair, a vast majority of fans will have been heartened by what happened last week. We just have to keep our own counsel for obvious reasons. It's a catch 22 situation. We want them out but at what cost?

 

[Mickeza]

You really think this will hurt them??
A continued stream of this will, but a singular will not.
Also find it strange how no other publications are coming forward with this information.

All this does is publicise the fact that United need a sponsor, of which there are hundreds, of not thousands that will take the opportunity.

It's needs to be a continued effort if it is to be successful, trust me, they are not going anywhere fast.

I don’t think anything will “hurt them” per se - even if they sold they’ll make billions without having spent a penny. I do think there will be concessions that will be announced at the fan forum this month - some sort of gesture around investment, fan representation at board level and selling of class B shares to fan groups over x years - and I do think long term their control will dwindle. I’m also fully expecting a football person to be appointed CEO. Maybe I’m naive but I really think the balance of power has shifted the last few weeks.