"Felt like an agent selling memberships": United Supporter Club president

Interval · Oct 16, 2020

https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/felt...st-official-man-u-club-steps-down-7206681.htm

The president of India’s first official Manchester United Supporters Club (MUSC) has quit after accusing the English football club of stifling his opinion about the way the team is run and of mistreating fans.

Restaurateur Sunil Thakur took to Twitter last week to announce his resignation from the position of MUSC Mumbai, which started 15 years ago as an informal screening for fans in the basement of a Dadar hotel.

The club, which screens the Manchester United matches at Thakur’s 3 Wise Monkeys pub, has grown to more than 300 members over the years. But along the way, it has had to put up with seeing the Red Devils failing to match the dizzying heights reached during the era of their illustrious coach Sir Alex Ferguson.

A membership with the MUSC, which could cost roughly Rs 2,000 for a season, comes with discounts on various merchandise and match tickets, besides the added perk of bragging rights. Many members from the Mumbai club have travelled to Manchester, UK, to watch the team’s matches at the Old Trafford.

Thakur, however, said that he felt reduced to an “agent selling memberships”, because the fans were not allowed to voice their views.

It all started when the MUSC Mumbai handle in June put out a tweet complaining about the lack of improvement in the team’s performance and called for the sacking of club chief executive Ed Woodwards.

Over the years, Woodward has been facing criticism from fans for not getting the right players on board. As executive vice-chairman of Manchester United, he oversees the club’s operation including transfers of new players.

Thakur said he was asked by the club to take down the viral tweet and their access to ticketing was revoked till this was done.

“I felt like an agent who can only ask people to become a member but not express their opinions,” Thakur told CNBC-TV18, soon after quitting.

In his mail to the club, Thakur wrote: “I haven’t been happy with the way our great club has been run. I don’t think we have been doing enough to remain competitive. I don’t want to continue being an agent for the club and help them sell One United memberships”.

The club in its reply was rather curt: "I’ve removed you from the website as you mention you don’t want to continue to be an ‘agent’ which we take to mean your voluntary role connected to Mumbai MUSC."

The club added that it had never heard the word ‘agent’ in connection with a voluntary fan group. "We don’t see supporters’ club organisers as agents, we see them as fans, who for the love of the club have chosen to bring fellow fans together through good times and bad," it said.

Thakur said that for a fan who had given 15 years of his life in running the supporters club, he was disappointed by the club's reaction. He said it was "synonymous with how the club thinks/handles the displeasure of the fans."

"Although the head of ticketing and membership apologized for the incident in a very carefully scripted damage control email, my disillusionment for the club has only grown,” he said.

.... Click on link to read rest

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Jeppers7 · Oct 16, 2020

The distain the club has for the fans

crossy1686 · Oct 16, 2020

This guy is an idiot.

You can say what you like about how the club treats fans but when you're a club affiliate you lose your rights to criticise someone who's essentially doing you a favour.

Classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. At least he can be safe in the knowledge that he can Tweet as much about Woodward as he wants now and United will certainly listen to him...

ROFLUTION · Oct 16, 2020

crossy1686 said:
This guy is an idiot.

You can say what you like about how the club treats fans but when you're a club affiliate you lose your rights to criticise someone who's essentially doing you a favour.

Classic case of biting the hand that feeds you. At least he can be safe in the knowledge that he can Tweet as much about Woodward as he wants now and United will certainly listen to him...

What? "The hand that feeds you"? He gives United something. He makes events to create a more passionate fanbase, which in return take trips to Manchester, buy merch and everything. Actually people like him feeds the United commercial machine, even though that's not why they usually do it.

It's not a one way street you know.

cyberman · Oct 16, 2020

ROFLUTION said:
What? "The hand that feeds you"? He gives United something. He makes events to create a more passionate fanbase, which in return take trips to Manchester, buy merch and everything. Actually people like him feeds the United commercial machine, even though that's not why they usually do it.

It's not a one way street you know.

You cant use an official arm of the club to call for sackings. Its a stupid level of self importance on show here.

AngeloHenriquez · Oct 16, 2020

Interval said:
“I felt like an agent who can only ask people to become a member but not express their opinions,” Thakur told CNBC-TV18, soon after quitting.

In his mail to the club, Thakur wrote: “I haven’t been happy with the way our great club has been run. I don’t think we have been doing enough to remain competitive. I don’t want to continue being an agent for the club and help them sell One United memberships”.

So, he brought 300 fans and enticed them and made it easier to buy merchandise and travel to Manchester and he's quitting because United haven't done enough to remain competitive/ he doesn't like how the club has been run. That just reads as though "because you don't want a lot anymore...."

Also, they have opinions, they can take to social media like other fans, he isn't a direct adviser to Ed Woodward, what does he want; a sit down lunch?

Club could have dealt with it better with the whole "So sorry you feel like this, we value all our fans..." but it reads to me as though he believes himself overly important, referring to himself as an "Agent" rather than running a fan club for a few hundred, @Niall in that case is a far bigger agent for facilitating thousands of fans right here?

Shiva87 · Oct 16, 2020

I've met Sunil a few times during screenings in Mumbai. Passionate guy, and a lot of his 'affiliation' with the club came because it's not easy for a United fan here to get tickets to games.

His work and position gave him the opportunity / access to watch the club live. I've watched one game and had to pay over 350 pounds for that ticket.

It's not fair to say that he loses his right to criticise the club if he choses to.affiliate with the club in the capacity as a leader of a supporters group.

cyberman · Oct 16, 2020

Shiva87 said:
I've met Sunil a few times during screenings in Mumbai. Passionate guy, and a lot of his 'affiliation' with the club came because it's not easy for a United fan here to get tickets to games.

His work and position gave him the opportunity / access to watch the club live. I've watched one game and had to pay over 350 pounds for that ticket.

It's not fair to say that he loses his right to criticise the club if he choses to.affiliate with the club in the capacity as a leader of a supporters group.

Does he have the right to demand sackings through a fan club without contacting said fans before doing so?

ROFLUTION · Oct 16, 2020

cyberman said:
You cant use an official arm of the club to call for sackings. Its a stupid level of self importance on show here.

I mostly have an issue with adressing the situation as "the hand that feeds you". It's not like Woodward and the Glazer stands for Manchester United, just because they are in charge. The real people carrying the club is mostly us, the fans and the team. Woodward is just a stupid distributor of the money we all put into United.

So all in all it just feels annoying that after this many years of disarray, it's not okay to express content for how the club is run. Could have done it in other ways too, I guess. But if he's okay with quitting, this is probably the maximum attention you can get while doing it. I would very much doubt that he don't speak on behalf of a majority of the fanbase, as basically every united fan is pissed at Woodward.

He might have self-importance, I don't know. But should Neville, Giggs, Scholes, etc also then not be able to speak their minds? They're participating in reunion matches, do stuff that promotes the United brand, etc.

VP89 · Oct 16, 2020

Correct me if I'm wrong, the club voluntarily helped him and his members with ticket access. The club can easily take that away.

Of course one can argue the club was never legally obligated to help. But from a marketing perspective it's a disaster, because they're basically saying "don't tell the world we have shit owners or we will exclude you, even if you do represent a subcontinent where material profits come from".

The club appear to look daft here, it looks like they tried to make amends but no luck:

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Interval · Oct 16, 2020

It's not about what the club voluntarily helped him with and whether he sought preferential treatment. It's about the tone and the general demeanour of the club.

United as a football club obviously have seen multiple phases of fans and fan groups being unhappy with situations. Doesn't mean they go around acting like children over it prohibiting fans of the said club from getting access to tickets until they tow the party line. This is precisely the corporatised nonsense that a company can enforce on its employees but a club can't on its fans

TommiHelm · Oct 16, 2020

Not that I don't agree with his personal opinion on the CEO (although I'm not convinced sacking him would change anything). But I'm 100% with the club on this one.

He's using his position in an official affiliate group as a channel to voice strong personal opinions. He should voice these opinions on his personal twitter, or on places such as RedCafe, like the rest of us.

Not really worth a news report in my honest opinion, but people seem to be clutching at any straw and twisting anything and everything for an opportunity to be negative at the moment.

amolbhatia50k · Oct 16, 2020

Seems to have a inflated sense of entitlement and self importance to me.Of course the club could I suppose have been nicer but I'd like to know how anybody's employers would react if one called them out for doing a poor job. In the end, he may be passionate but he's affiliated with Manchester United and his whole project stands on the brand the club have built. It's one thing for individual fans to criticise but someone running a supporters group is part of the chain and he surely knows what a small piece of that chain he is?

And I'm surprised this group has a measly 300 supporters signed up? That's really.. nothing.

Shiva87 · Oct 16, 2020

cyberman said:
Does he have the right to demand sackings through a fan club without contacting said fans before doing so?

I'm not a member of said fan club so can't comment. But any independent supporters group should have the ability to criticise the club/ demand sackings when it's representative of a larger sentiment of the fanbase.

amolbhatia50k said:
And I'm surprised this group has a measly 300 supporters signed up? That's really.. nothing.

This simple reason for this is that there is no real benefit to signing up. Ticket acess is only relevant for the people who can afford the travel costs to Manchester.

For all other stuff (match screenings, discount on merchandise etc.) - there are a number of unofficial screenings which happen across the city and the 5% disc. on merch is blah.

Also, like most have noted here - he does come across as someone who 'is doing you a favour', so people don't really bother. His membership was at around 500-600 in 2017 I think but has fallen.

Lash · Oct 16, 2020

Yeah, why would an employer/affiliate continue to help you out when you publically call them out on social media. If I went on a tirade against the shite work my company has been doing or my local football team, they'd be well within their rights to cut ties with me.

Grande · Oct 16, 2020

Lash said:
Yeah, why would an employer/affiliate continue to help you out when you publically call them out on social media. If I went on a tirade against the shite work my company has been doing or my local football team, they'd be well within their rights to cut ties with me.

If you are talking about work, there is a big differnce to me wether you are talking about a small group/ firm of 20-30 employees or a large one of several hundreds or thousands. In the latter, individuals have little sway over how things are done, and they often dominate job markeds in a way that it makes little sense to say ‘just go find work some other place’. Thus whistleblowing and room for open public critque of important stuff should be accepted at large companies, even if it ‘hurts the brand’. Whereas at a small firm it’s more relevant to say that if you feel badly treated and can’t affect matters concerning yourself, it makes more sense that you can’t expect to both take critique to the public sphere and still continue working there afterwards.

this isn’t a job, though, it’s voluntary efforts for a club that itself voluntarily supports that effort through collaboration about pricing and access etc. I‘d say that if someone wants to support a club, she/he should do her best to do things that help the club. Publicly saying ‘I’d rather City win the league’ obviously falls outside that, while saying ‘Our fans should unite to rid the club of Woodward or Glazers’ doesn’t. It can becriticized and debated, but to say it should be censore would be strange.

The people who now run the club should also be expected to have the clubs best interest in mind, and chosing which fangroups to assist with the run of the mill things the club assist fan clubs with, based on their vocal support for specific persons at the club, is not a good way of doing that in my opinion.

Web of Bissaka · Oct 16, 2020

If only Ed would do his job responsibly and try to be competent, then none of this will happen.

This is similar to our affiliated legends club ambassadors eg Yorke, being reminded not to say bad things about ~~the club~~ Ed and Glazers. Ambassadors are being paid by the club I believe to do the promo works things. After that, the likes of Yorke no longer said anything about it in interviews.

Once you're affiliated, the club managed by Ed will have the "rights" to remove your privileges/benefits even if it's classless.

That's the thing, it's a two way streets. Instead of voicing out your partners/affilaites in the public domain, the club president could have had a direct discussion with Ed himself about it.

Try to look at it the other way around, - if United tweeter account tweets a post criticising India's MUSC, then their president and fans have the "rights" to detach themselves from United.

cyberman · Oct 16, 2020

aka380 said:
Just because he is a member of a club affiliated fan club doesnt mean he must lose the right to criticize the club publicly. This is just blatant arm twisting to stop supporters from voicing their discontent. Dont stadium going fans (season ticket holders) openly criticize and at times even verbally abuse club management and players during games?

Can he use the official club twitter to voice his personal opinion as if he is speaking for the rest of the fan club? Did he canvas their thoughts on it? Run a poll? because nothing here says he did.
Imagine Redcafe started tweeting Ole out when its 50/50 and pretend its the stance of the platform. Would you be happy with that?

Lash · Oct 16, 2020

Grande said:
If you are talking about work, there is a big differnce to me wether you are talking about a small group/ firm of 20-30 employees or a large one of several hundreds or thousands. In the latter, individuals have little sway over how things are done, and they often dominate job markeds in a way that it makes little sense to say ‘just go find work some other place’. Thus whistleblowing and room for open public critque of important stuff should be accepted at large companies, even if it ‘hurts the brand’. Whereas at a small firm it’s more relevant to say that if you feel badly treated and can’t affect matters concerning yourself, it makes more sense that you can’t expect to both take critique to the public sphere and still continue working there afterwards.

this isn’t a job, though, it’s voluntary efforts for a club that itself voluntarily supports that effort through collaboration about pricing and access etc. I‘d say that if someone wants to support a club, she/he should do her best to do things that help the club. Publicly saying ‘I’d rather City win the league’ obviously falls outside that, while saying ‘Our fans should unite to rid the club of Woodward or Glazers’ doesn’t. It can becriticized and debated, but to say it should be censore would be strange.

The people who now run the club should also be expected to have the clubs best interest in mind, and chosing which fangroups to assist with the run of the mill things the club assist fan clubs with, based on their vocal support for specific persons at the club, is not a good way of doing that in my opinion.

Social media is not the way to do it though. I doubt he ever voiced his grievances appropriately prior anyway - plus who are a supporters club to call for the sacking of someone? I'm not sure why people think the public sphere is the appropriate medium straight away and get miffed when the person you have a go at tells you to piss off. It's not whistleblowing, because they have no inside knowledge and it's not debating because they're calling for someone to be sacked. It's hardly open for discussion.

golden_blunder · Oct 16, 2020

He and his group are small fry to the club. Whilst I agree with his view on Ed he mistakenly thought his little gang had more sway than it does. They are all just numbers

stevoc · Oct 16, 2020

aka380 said:
Just because he is a member of a club affiliated fan club doesnt mean he must lose the right to criticize the club publicly. This is just blatant arm twisting to stop supporters from voicing their discontent. Dont stadium going fans (season ticket holders) openly criticize and at times even verbally abuse club management and players during games?

Of course but he should have done so using his own personal Twitter account, not the one representing an official Manchester United supporters club. That was only ever going to lead to one outcome.

tomaldinho1 · Oct 16, 2020

Nothing to see here in honesty. All he needed to do was voice his opinions outside of official club channels but the club doesn't really have a choice on this one.

Pexbo · Oct 16, 2020

ROFLUTION said:
What? "The hand that feeds you"? He gives United something. He makes events to create a more passionate fanbase, which in return take trips to Manchester, buy merch and everything. Actually people like him feeds the United commercial machine, even though that's not why they usually do it.

It's not a one way street you know.

And you think that’s a legitimate reason for the club to listen to him when he says performances aren’t good enough and the CEO should be sacked? Get a grip for feck sake, it’s a supporters club with 300 members half way across the globe. No club in their right mind is going to put up with hearing public comments like that from an organisation they have a very loose affiliation with.

Grande · Oct 16, 2020

Lash said:
Social media is not the way to do it though. I doubt he ever voiced his grievances appropriately prior anyway - plus who are a supporters club to call for the sacking of someone? I'm not sure why people think the public sphere is the appropriate medium straight away and get miffed when the person you have a go at tells you to piss off. It's not whistleblowing, because they have no inside knowledge and it's not debating because they're calling for someone to be sacked. It's hardly open for discussion.

I agree it’s not whistleblowing. Neither do I think going straight to the public sphere is a good idea. I have no idea myself what he has said about Woodward before or not, I would be surprised it was the first time he took up dissatisfaction with Woodward. Looking at this forum, I would guesstimate he might have had this grievance for everything up to seven years.

A supporter’s club is a club of for public support of another club, and if they are pretty much convinced that calling for someone’s head publicly is the best way to support the club they support, I would find that quite natural.

If it would be, say, calling for a manager to get sacked after four months, I would find it ludicrous and very much doubt how univocal and thought through it was. If it’s about the CEO after seven years, or the owners after 15 years, I would assume it wasn’t such a spur of the moment thing.

Cypriot · Oct 16, 2020

300 members :lol:

Easy there, tiger!

crossy1686 · Oct 16, 2020

ROFLUTION said:
What? "The hand that feeds you"? He gives United something. He makes events to create a more passionate fanbase, which in return take trips to Manchester, buy merch and everything. Actually people like him feeds the United commercial machine, even though that's not why they usually do it.

It's not a one way street you know.

He has people coming to his restaurant and coming to events that he's hosting to watch United games because they know he can get them cheap merch and reduced matchday tickets if they sign up to the United club. Do you think he doesn't charge these people to consume goods on his premises or ticket these events?

This is a two-way street that has been doing him more favours than it's been doing United. For the 300 fans United stand to lose I would imagine it's not a big deal, for him that could be his whole business.

To have everything this rosy and then call out the club is just moronic.

The Irish Connection · Oct 16, 2020

Fair play to him, acting as a bit of a whistleblower. The club clearly took notice. The more groups of fans take action like this the more pressure gets added on Woodward and glazers to change or go.

Smores · Oct 16, 2020

I'm not sure the club should be looking to try and censure any groups that express discontent with how things are going. The guy has clearly inflated his own importance but i don't like this from the club.

Do all supporters groups and any other affiliation have to act like MUTV in being ridiculously bias now?

reelworld · Oct 16, 2020

If this Mumbai Supporter Clubs is so small fry, then why do United even bother to respond to his tweet criticizing the Glazers and Woodward?
This makes United look small time and pathetic.
And I don't know if United ever trained their customer service on how to response email. The snide and and belittlement is appalling.

CG1010 · Oct 16, 2020

Official supporter group is not equal to a branch of the club (as far as I understand). The club shouldn't be specifically forcing the group to take down a tweet, especially as harmless as the one above (if it was offensive or something then it's a different story). It's not like Man United twitter account posted something like this.

However, they are more aggreived by it than necessary.

OverratedOpinion · Oct 16, 2020

People having a pop at him and mocking him for what exactly?

He willingly gave up a role that clearly came with some benefits and one he put work into so that he could send a message (no matter how small) regarding the mismanagement of the club.

Reading some of the replies in here you would think he came out and said "I have started a fan club and therefore I should be CEO immediately!".

I think it's fair to expect the club to be a little more polite with fans. I also think Woodward should be sacked immediately, I don't see having an opinion as self importance.

Fair play to the guy.

stevoc · Oct 16, 2020

aka380 said:
Is that how it is supposed to work? dont supporter clubs organise walkouts during games, and pay for banners asking to sack managers? are their season tickets revoked?

I think we have to remember with this story that it was this guys choice to end his Supporters clubs association with the club of his own volition (i wonder did he ask all his members before deciding this for them). All the club asked him to do was to remove a tweet and his tickets access would be restored, which i don't think was too unreasonable from the clubs point of view.

Tom Cato · Oct 16, 2020

OK let me just use the principle of free speech here since there appears to be some confusion:

1. You have the RIGHT to free speech
2. You don't have the right to NO CONSEQUENCES for your speech

1.a. You can criticize the company you work/volounteer for online
2.a You can't expect to be able to still work/volounteer for the company once you do.

If you represent a local supporter group that has a official affiliate with the company you are criticizing publicly, that's OBVIOUSLY going to have consequences. You cease to be "just a supporter" the moment you represent the club in any capacity or affiliation. You have among other things, a responsbility to act in accordance with company policy and public perception.

You can disagree with that ALL you want, that is completely fine. But if you want it some other way, start a football club and make your own reality because this one is taken.

RedChisel · Oct 16, 2020

Some fans are really struggling to come to terms with United not being top dog anymore and not having the deflected glory to bask in. How would some of these fans cope with supporting a lower league team? No fans have a divine right to support the best team and all this entitled whinging doesn't make them look like good fans despite what they might think.

"Felt like an agent selling memberships": United Supporter Club president

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