Were United the biggest PL spender pre-Roman at Chelsea? Gross, net, wages?

Sky1981

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If the fans had bought the majority of the shares. I'm pretty sure the board would have been able to agree issues with the manager. As it wasn't fans holding the majority of the shares, there was probably issues. Fans owning the majority of the club is the holy grail. The PLC could have seen this achieved had people invested their hard earned into the club.

As for being better off under the Glazer's I can think of a BILLION reasons why that'd be very subjective. I cannot see how anyone can justify how much the debt has taken out of the club.

As for fans making the decisions, they don't it's a board, we wouldn't have meetings with 600k fans rocking up and all getting a say.
I wouldn't trust fans on redcafe to make a decision regarding United. I wouldn't even trust myself making that decision.

It's like saying you don't trust a surgeon because you think your cousin joe can do a better job.
 

Red_toad

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I wouldn't trust fans on redcafe to make a decision regarding United. I wouldn't even trust myself making that decision.

It's like saying you don't trust a surgeon because you think your cousin joe can do a better job.
The fans do not make decisions, they'd get voting rights and a board to come up with an agenda. Do you think it'd be like the Caf with random threads created and people commenting on them to make decisions on running the club :lol:
Elected board members would be making the big calls, not the average Joe. Seems to work well at other clubs, but obviously you're going down the road of mob rule, which it wouldn't be.

I don't exactly get where you're coming from with the whole 'Glazer' are our best option as owners? But as you've made your mind up, I'd doubt you'll ever think otherwise.
 

Sky1981

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The fans do not make decisions, they'd get voting rights and a board to come up with an agenda. Do you think it'd be like the Caf with random threads created and people commenting on them to make decisions on running the club :lol:
Elected board members would be making the big calls, not the average Joe. Seems to work well at other clubs, but obviously you're going down the road of mob rule, which it wouldn't be.

I don't exactly get where you're coming from with the whole 'Glazer' are our best option as owners? But as you've made your mind up, I'd doubt you'll ever think otherwise.
Ok. if Glazer floats 100% of United, and we collectively buy 100% of United.

Who consists of the boards?
Who chooses the CEO?
Who decides whether the CEO is doing a good job or that he needs to be sacked?

If the club is owned by fans, the fans will ultimately decide the livelihood of the club. Even if they don't make silly daily decisions, their decisions decided who's the person making that decision.

You seems to think the board simply comes out of nowhere, they don't. They're there because they are Shareholders.

And god forbid the redcafe posters own 100% of United, we'd still be torn 50/50 on whether we should sack/keep Ole, and god forbid the CEO fires Ole, the other 50 would veto that decision.
 

Red_toad

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Ok. if Glazer floats 100% of United, and we collectively buy 100% of United.

Who consists of the boards?
Who chooses the CEO?
Who decides whether the CEO is doing a good job or that he needs to be sacked?

If the club is owned by fans, the fans will ultimately decide the livelihood of the club. Even if they don't make silly daily decisions, their decisions decided who's the person making that decision.

You seems to think the board simply comes out of nowhere, they don't. They're there because they are Shareholders.

And god forbid the redcafe posters own 100% of United, we'd still be torn 50/50 on whether we should sack/keep Ole, and god forbid the CEO fires Ole, the other 50 would veto that decision.
Yeah yeah Joel and co are the best option, you've decided and aren't open to other methods of ownership. Shame the fans will bring down the parasites for the likes of yourself.
 

stevoc

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net transfer spend past 5 & 10 years
https://www.transfermarkt.us/premier-league/fuenfjahresvergleich/wettbewerb/GB1

2003 to today
https://www.transferleague.co.uk/pr...ague-tables/premier-league-table-1992-to-date
Man City and Chelsea needed to spend more to play the catch up game from where they were. The difference of net spend between Man united and Chelsea is minimal.

I can't find data before 2003 and i do not know the accuracy on the data post above either. I highly doubt any numbers mentioned in the internet are adjusted for inflation, so don't take it seriously.
Thanks for the links mate, genuinely. Yeah it's best to take all these numbers you find on the internet with a pinch of salt but they are a rough guide at least.

Question though if you can't find any data from before 2003 what makes/made you think United were the biggest spenders on fees/wages before then?

For the 92 to present net spend table you'd have to take into account United have spent an absolute shitload (poorly) post Fergie which greatly skews that table. The only point I've been trying to make is that United didn't buy success in the 90's in the same way Chelsea or City have. According to any information available United weren't even close to being the biggest spenders in the 90's. We spent money sometimes big money, but usually only on one or two players and if you look at United's transfer strategy to buy a Roy Keane for a record fee in 1993, we didn't spend big again for another 2 years until Cole. Then after Cole in 1995 we didn't spend much until 1998 etc. as Martin Edwards was very frugal relative to United' wealth. And that pattern follows until 2001-2002 when Edwards stepped down as Chairman the wage structure was removed and we started spending £20-30m on the likes of Van Nistelrooy, Veron and Ferdinand. In that period we were finally spending like the richest club in the country, though it didn't last long as Abramovich arrived in 2003 and blew anything United could afford out of the water.
 

stevoc

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If the fans had bought the majority of the shares. I'm pretty sure the board would have been able to agree issues with the manager. As it wasn't fans holding the majority of the shares, there was probably issues. Fans owning the majority of the club is the holy grail. The PLC could have seen this achieved had people invested their hard earned into the club.

As for being better off under the Glazer's I can think of a BILLION reasons why that'd be very subjective. I cannot see how anyone can justify how much the debt has taken out of the club.

As for fans making the decisions, they don't it's a board, we wouldn't have meetings with 600k fans rocking up and all getting a say.
I agree but even 20 years ago when the club was worth a lot less, fans buying up most of the shares seemed like a bit of pipe dream. If the club would have cost £600,000,000 to buy the club even with 50,000 fans all chipping in it would have still been £12,000 each. How many Die hard United fans with 12 grand to spare were knocking about?

I owned some shares, every few months I bought a few more in the hope one day I would own a small but respectable stake in the club. But not enough fans were doing that it seems.
 

Red_toad

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I agree but even 20 years ago when the club was worth a lot less, fans buying up most of the shares seemed like a bit of pipe dream. If the club would have cost £600,000,000 to buy the club even with 50,000 fans all chipping in it would have still been £12,000 each. How many Die hard United fans with 12 grand to spare were knocking about?

I owned some shares, every few months I bought a few more in the hope one day I would own a small but respectable stake in the club. But not enough fans were doing that it seems.
In the current era it's far easier to buy shares, even portions of shares. The current 3 or 4 billion valuation is just staggering. So we'll continue to leak funds and see under investment in the stadium and odd transfer dealings that no one seems to be accountable for. I loved how they announced they'd invest 11 million per season into infrastructure, when if you average it out it'll just remain the same. Our 46 million expansion in 2006 is almost half of the total outlay since 2005 and that was all planned and agreed under the plc.
 

wolvored

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Look at the first 3-4 years of Fergies tenure and the transfers he bought in. Looks stupid amounts compared to today but £1 mill would probably be the same as £30/35 mill spending today.
 

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Ok something I see coming up again and again on here recently is this idea that United spent as much in the 90's as Chelsea and City have done over the last 20 years to achieve success.



Claims like these, are they accurate?

Were United the biggest PL spenders on fees and wages before Roman and are they still the biggest spenders on fees and wages now?
I did this thread ages ago which compared what we were spending with what Chelsea, Liverpool and City were spending. I didn't even mention what Blackburn, Newcastle and Arsenal were spending, but it's obvious that we weren't the biggest spenders with just the figures I did include: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the-official-transfer-comparison-thread.311572/
 

Cassidy

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Do you have data to back your claim?

United did spend big in the 90's even breaking transfer record fee twice, Roy Keane for 3.75M in 1993 and Andy Cole for 7M in 1995, BUT we were far from the biggest spender because (1) we spend money more sporadically, record breaking fee for Andy Cole in January 1995 was followed by 3 years of underinvestment, (2) we're balancing the book by selling our highly valued players, for example selling Mark Robins to Norwich City for 800K in 1992, or selling Mark Hughes, Paul Ince, and Andrei Kanchelskies for combined fees of 12M in summer 1995.
Multiple british transfers records
 

GueRed

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In england we were up there.

In europe for supposedly one of 'the richest clubs' we couldnt compete with the player purchasing power of the Serie A clubs.
 
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decorativeed

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Off course we are.

"Not the highest net spend during our rival year" is playing on technicalities.

We bought well back in those days, we were also blessed with saf and the co92 as well as decent academy players like john oshea making sure we have squad backup for years.

But we are taking advantage of the premier league and our financial muscles.

Let's not kid ourselves.
We're not kidding ourselves, we're talking facts. No, we weren't. People forget seasons when we spent nothing. They also forget things like Manchester City spending £11m in the first two seasons of the Premier League on crap nobody could name, while we spent half that on Keane and Cantona.
 

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United were the biggest spenders in the EPL but that didn't say much. Up until Veron's signing we lagged massively behind other top continental clubs in terms of finances. We couldn't afford to match Batistuta's salary at FIORENTINA.
Due to our relatively low wage ceiling at the time.

It wasnt until Keane broke that ceiling by signing a contract renewal in December 1999 at around £52k a week we were able to compete with the big clubs on the continent.
 

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Excellent article thanks for posting it.

Playing football and watching United as a Canadian in the 90's it was harder back than to get a full media reports, and I was too young to care about finances.

I knew that the owner of the Blackburn Rovers was rich, and than the money moved to Newcastle, interesting enough I always thought Arsenal were the big spenders, but it makes sense that it was Chelsea.

Although I could be mistaken. This confirms my view that United's wealth was built organically because of Alex Ferguson's brilliance. Yes they've always been a wealthy big club, but financial success came as a result of consistent success on the pitch....not as a result of super rich owners buying it. (City, Chelsea, PSG)
Success on the pitch and capitalising off it.

Commercially we were by far the best in england.
 

stevoc

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I did this thread ages ago which compared what we were spending with what Chelsea, Liverpool and City were spending. I didn't even mention what Blackburn, Newcastle and Arsenal were spending, but it's obvious that we weren't the biggest spenders with just the figures I did include: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the-official-transfer-comparison-thread.311572/
That's brilliant mate cheers. Some interesting reading, I'll be bookmarking that.

Confirms what I've been thinking. United weren't buying success in the 90's.
 

Sky1981

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decorativeed

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Multiple british transfers records
We broke the transfer record a few times yes. But we weren't the only club to do so. Blackburn, Newcastle and Liverpool all did so too.

Also, even if we bought a player for a record fee, we'd be outspent by other clubs buying two or three players for more in combined fees. The season when we signed Cole, Liverpool spent £9m on Phill Babb, John Scales and Mark Kennedy, for example. When we signed Roy Keane in 1993/94 for a record £3.75m, that was the entirety of our spending. That season Liverpool spent over £6m on Nigel Clough, Neil Ruddock and Julian Dicks, while Manchester City spent £7.2 million on a pile of shite nobody remembers with the possible exception of Uwe Rossler.

Us buying Andy Cole for £6m (plus Keith Gillespie) didn't stop Arsenal spending £7.5m on Dennis Bergkamp a few months later. Nor did it stop Liverpool signing Stan Collymore for £8m days after that. It didn't prevent Newcastle spending £15m on Alan Shearer the following year.

People seem to have a selective memory for the fees United paid, while forgetting all the others - often, I suspect because they did not result in success (Bergkamp being the obvious exception, but you rarely hear people mention him when talking about fees).
 

GueRed

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Probably on wages, but not on transfers. People jump to that conclusion because United tended to go big on individual players like Veron, Ferdinand etc. They forget the seasons where we only signed players like Tony Coton or Quinton Fortune.

We also didn’t generally sell many players which is what happens when you get transfers right so net spend is probably higher.
I remember the summer after the Treble season we were linked to the likes of Buffon, Thuram, Cannavaro, Campbell..

the club settled for the likes of the mighty Fortune (£1.5m), Silvestre (£4m), Bosnich (Free) and Taibi (4.5m).
 

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lysglimt

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Do you have data to back your claim?

United did spend big in the 90's even breaking transfer record fee twice, Roy Keane for 3.75M in 1993 and Andy Cole for 7M in 1995, BUT we were far from the biggest spender because (1) we spend money more sporadically, record breaking fee for Andy Cole in January 1995 was followed by 3 years of underinvestment, (2) we're balancing the book by selling our highly valued players, for example selling Mark Robins to Norwich City for 800K in 1992, or selling Mark Hughes, Paul Ince, and Andrei Kanchelskies for combined fees of 12M in summer 1995.
To only look at the Premier League alone gives a wrong picture - because when we entered the 92/93 season - we basically had out entire team in place, so there was no need for us to make a lot of signings. From 86-92 we made the following signings who all started the 92/93 season

Schmeichel at £550.000 - Irwin at £625.000 - Bruce at £850.000 - Pallister at £2.3m, Ince at £2m, Webb at £1.5m, Phelan at £750.000, Wallace at £1.2m, McClair at £825.000, Kanchelskis at £600.000, Sharpe £175.000, Parker £2m and Dublin £1m

So we started the P.L-season with players signed for £15M - that was a huge amount of money back then.
 

acnumber9

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To only look at the Premier League alone gives a wrong picture - because when we entered the 92/93 season - we basically had out entire team in place, so there was no need for us to make a lot of signings. From 86-92 we made the following signings who all started the 92/93 season

Schmeichel at £550.000 - Irwin at £625.000 - Bruce at £850.000 - Pallister at £2.3m, Ince at £2m, Webb at £1.5m, Phelan at £750.000, Wallace at £1.2m, McClair at £825.000, Kanchelskis at £600.000, Sharpe £175.000, Parker £2m and Dublin £1m

So we started the P.L-season with players signed for £15M - that was a huge amount of money back then.
How much was the Liverpool squad in the same period?
 

decorativeed

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Poor united... we're out spent by arsenal... poor united.
I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you're wrong and have been proven so.

Live in denial if you like, and you can make stupid remarks like the above as much as you like too. You'll still be wrong.
 

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We're not kidding ourselves, we're talking facts. No, we weren't. People forget seasons when we spent nothing. They also forget things like Manchester City spending £11m in the first two seasons of the Premier League on crap nobody could name, while we spent half that on Keane and Cantona.
We spent on OT and Carrington. A frugal season usually followed stadium extension.
 

decorativeed

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To only look at the Premier League alone gives a wrong picture - because when we entered the 92/93 season - we basically had out entire team in place, so there was no need for us to make a lot of signings. From 86-92 we made the following signings who all started the 92/93 season

Schmeichel at £550.000 - Irwin at £625.000 - Bruce at £850.000 - Pallister at £2.3m, Ince at £2m, Webb at £1.5m, Phelan at £750.000, Wallace at £1.2m, McClair at £825.000, Kanchelskis at £600.000, Sharpe £175.000, Parker £2m and Dublin £1m

So we started the P.L-season with players signed for £15M - that was a huge amount of money back then.
You're right, you shouldnt look at the PL era alone. Which is why I made this post years ago: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the-official-transfer-comparison-thread.311572/post-8784440

In summary, we were out spent by Liverpool in the years between Ferguson taking over as manager and the start of the PL. Not by much, but we still spent less.
 

decorativeed

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We spent on OT and Carrington. A frugal season usually followed stadium extension.
We signed what we needed - in the middle of a season often, while the works on OT were planned in well in advance. Carrington didn't exist back in 1992/93.
 

Spoony

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We signed what we needed - in the middle of a season often, while the works on OT were planned in well in advance. Carrington didn't exist back in 1992/93.

It was more of a holistic approach. I didn't realise we were talking about 93.
 

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Blackburn were for a while, and also Newcastle. I think the summer we signed Yorkie was when we really stepped things up, but before that it wasn’t a huge difference between the big clubs. Liverpool we’re always up there too.
 

Spoony

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I think we spent more than Liverpool in 80s. But roles were reversed in the 90s. Says a lot.
 

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Cassidy

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We broke the transfer record a few times yes. But we weren't the only club to do so. Blackburn, Newcastle and Liverpool all did so too.

Also, even if we bought a player for a record fee, we'd be outspent by other clubs buying two or three players for more in combined fees. The season when we signed Cole, Liverpool spent £9m on Phill Babb, John Scales and Mark Kennedy, for example. When we signed Roy Keane in 1993/94 for a record £3.75m, that was the entirety of our spending. That season Liverpool spent over £6m on Nigel Clough, Neil Ruddock and Julian Dicks, while Manchester City spent £7.2 million on a pile of shite nobody remembers with the possible exception of Uwe Rossler.

Us buying Andy Cole for £6m (plus Keith Gillespie) didn't stop Arsenal spending £7.5m on Dennis Bergkamp a few months later. Nor did it stop Liverpool signing Stan Collymore for £8m days after that. It didn't prevent Newcastle spending £15m on Alan Shearer the following year.

People seem to have a selective memory for the fees United paid, while forgetting all the others - often, I suspect because they did not result in success (Bergkamp being the obvious exception, but you rarely hear people mention him when talking about fees).
I didn't say others didn't but we did it plenty and still do.

Add Rooney, and Rio. What we did in 1989 also was unprecedented
 

krentz

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To only look at the Premier League alone gives a wrong picture - because when we entered the 92/93 season - we basically had out entire team in place, so there was no need for us to make a lot of signings. From 86-92 we made the following signings who all started the 92/93 season

Schmeichel at £550.000 - Irwin at £625.000 - Bruce at £850.000 - Pallister at £2.3m, Ince at £2m, Webb at £1.5m, Phelan at £750.000, Wallace at £1.2m, McClair at £825.000, Kanchelskis at £600.000, Sharpe £175.000, Parker £2m and Dublin £1m

So we started the P.L-season with players signed for £15M - that was a huge amount of money back then.
If youre talking before PL then how about Liverpool? I'm pretty sure they were big spender too. For example: Ian Rush, John Barnes, Bruce Gobbelaar, and Peter Beardsley, those werent exactly cheap signings either.

Multiple british transfers records
Followed by years of under-investment. Like i've mentioned that after we broke transfer record for Andy Cole in January 1995, we had to wait for another 3 years before we spend big again (summer 1998) Also let's not forget that we broke British and world transfer records multiple times under The Glazers too. Di Maria was British record fee in 2014, Martial was world record fee for teenage player in 2015, Pogba was world record fee in 2016, and Maguire holds the record for the most expensive CB in the world, BUT we ARE NOT the biggest spender in the PL.
 

redrobed

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No, we had the likes of Becks, Scholesy, Giggsy, Keano who we didn’t pay for. The core of our squad came through our academy and then we’d add the occasional player if it was really necessary. It’s completely different to what the likes of City, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. Are doing in just trying to buy success - also we did and do generate our own revenue - not just funded by some sugar daddy.
 

stevoc

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Multiple british transfers records
One thing to bare in mind with United breaking transfer records was that clubs overvalued players and often demanded record fees when United came calling for their players as they knew United were the richest club. This still happens these days to a certain extent.

United Tax.
 

Oranges038

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For transfers Transfermarkt has this data and you can pick by time period. Seems like you can go back to the beginning of football time, but the data might be questionable.

10 years up to 03 - Utd were second to Chelsea

20 years up to 13 - Utd were 4th behind Chelsea, City and Liverpool

To date Utd are 3rd behind City and Chelsea.