Club ownership | Senior management team talk

Clueless aren't they? can't sell for shit and looking for cheap deals all over the place while talking about winning the league within two years. If Carrick fails, Berrada and Wilcox should get sacked alongside him.
 
acnumber9 said:
Yes. Raising capital for infrastructure was stated as one of the reasons they were looking to sell a stake in the club in an official club statement.
Click to expand...

Firstly, that's not what it said. It said they were looking at new investment, sale, or other transaction. It then goes on to say they will look at several initiatives to improve the club, including stadium & infrastructure, and improving its commercial operations, and a bunch of other things. It doesnt say the sale was (in part) for capital infrastructure. The most you can say is that all options were on the table.

But more importantly - that was a generic press release. They could hardly openly say they're looking for ways to line their own pockets, but we all know that's what they wanted. I've said before that no-one should consider Ineos sugar daddies, but trying to make out the Glazers were doing us a good turn instead is hard to stomach.
 
croadyman said:
Yeah that's just never gonna happen, leeching scum have absolutely milked us completely dry now. Bet they cannot wait for the new cow when the new stadium is gonna be pouring in more revenue
Click to expand...
They tried to buy one of the Indian Premiere League Cricket franchise (a sporting event which has highest viewers), but luckily someone else outbid them so they were out of the race. One of the reason they sold 25% stake to INEOS so they could fund other ventures.

I wish they find something else and leave us for good.

Why cant fans completely stop renewing season tickets, cancelling SKY/TNT memberships and not purchasing any official kits, if we can do this for an year at least they wont have choice but sell it off.
 
quadrant said:
So you think the Glazers wanted them to invest in the club, rather than, say, pocketing the £300M by bumping up the share price a little more? That doesn’t seem to ring true to me.



Why would they be forced to sell the club?
Click to expand...
The Glazers found themselves in a situation where the club had effectively run out of cash flow. That forced them into two options: either sell the club or inject their own money—which was never something they were willing to do.


That's why INEOS came along at the perfect time. The Glazers got cash that went straight into their own pockets, while INEOS, as part of the deal, invested £300 million into the club. It's not like INEOS paid £1.2 billion and only then realised, "Oh, the club has no money." The negotiations lasted an entire year, and every party involved knew every financial detail about the club.


So INEOS didn't really have a choice if they wanted a stake in the club. Either they paid the Glazers £1.2 billion and injected another £300 million into the club, or they got nothing. Even if they had paid the Glazers £1.5 billion instead, the club would still have been missing that £300 million.


If it hadn't been for fecking INEOS—whose track record of running football clubs is, at best, mediocre—the Glazers would have been forced to lower their asking price, and a buyer would eventually have emerged. The lack of buyers wasn't because there was no interest; it was because the Glazers' initial valuation was absurdly high.


As for the club's financial stability, we're talking about a club that generates £800 million in annual revenue. If you lower your ambitions from competing for the title to simply fighting for fifth place, you automatically reduce spending on transfers and wages. Once you do that, it's not exactly difficult to make the club look financially stable.


I've said it before: the way INEOS sold this narrative and convinced a section of the fanbase is genuinely world-class PR.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
The Glazers found themselves in a situation where the club had effectively run out of cash flow. That forced them into two options: either sell the club or inject their own money—which was never something they were willing to do.


That's why INEOS came along at the perfect time. The Glazers got cash that went straight into their own pockets, while INEOS, as part of the deal, invested £300 million into the club. It's not like INEOS paid £1.2 billion and only then realised, "Oh, the club has no money." The negotiations lasted an entire year, and every party involved knew every financial detail about the club.


So INEOS didn't really have a choice if they wanted a stake in the club. Either they paid the Glazers £1.2 billion and injected another £300 million into the club, or they got nothing. Even if they had paid the Glazers £1.5 billion instead, the club would still have been missing that £300 million.


If it hadn't been for fecking INEOS—whose track record of running football clubs is, at best, mediocre—the Glazers would have been forced to lower their asking price, and a buyer would eventually have emerged. The lack of buyers wasn't because there was no interest; it was because the Glazers' initial valuation was absurdly high.


As for the club's financial stability, we're talking about a club that generates £800 million in annual revenue. If you lower your ambitions from competing for the title to simply fighting for fifth place, you automatically reduce spending on transfers and wages. Once you do that, it's not exactly difficult to make the club look financially stable.


I've said it before: the way INEOS sold this narrative and convinced a section of the fanbase is genuinely world-class PR.
Click to expand...

The £300M was for infrastructure for the training ground, none of it went to day to day running. Ineos money coming in didn't allow the operation to continue. So the entire premise here is wrong.
 
morree said:
Clueless aren't they? can't sell for shit and looking for cheap deals all over the place while talking about winning the league within two years. If Carrick fails, Berrada and Wilcox should get sacked alongside him.
Click to expand...
Quite the opposite. Recruitment has been smart while recovering from the previous regimes shambles. Much better team than they inherited, while refurbishing Carrington. Smart investment in youth players also.

People think we are going to sell Zirkzee who's scored about 5 goals in 2 years. Another mistake signing from previous. Vitek sale was as good as we could expect.

We still need to sign players this summer and I expect a minimum of another 2, we'll see.
 
Bobby_2024 said:
They tried to buy one of the Indian Premiere League Cricket franchise (a sporting event which has highest viewers), but luckily someone else outbid them so they were out of the race. One of the reason they sold 25% stake to INEOS so they could fund other ventures.

I wish they find something else and leave us for good.

Why cant fans completely stop renewing season tickets, cancelling SKY/TNT memberships and not purchasing any official kits, if we can do this for a year at least they wont have choice but sell it off.
Click to expand...
Most of our fans don’t give a toss about it sadly.

If there haven’t been angry protests regularly inside the ground by this stage there never will.

Most of our fan base are glory hunters. Look at how the problems are ignored once we win an occasional trophy to paper over the cracks.
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
Most of our fans don’t give a toss about it sadly.

If there haven’t been angry protests regularly inside the ground by this stage there never will.

Most of our fan base are glory hunters. Look at how the problems are ignored once we win an occasional trophy to paper over the cracks.
Click to expand...

There's been continuous protest against the owners with escalations at times, and small breaks at others since 2005 ffs
 
quadrant said:
Firstly, that's not what it said. It said they were looking at new investment, sale, or other transaction. It then goes on to say they will look at several initiatives to improve the club, including stadium & infrastructure, and improving its commercial operations, and a bunch of other things. It doesnt say the sale was (in part) for capital infrastructure. The most you can say is that all options were on the table.

But more importantly - that was a generic press release. They could hardly openly say they're looking for ways to line their own pockets, but we all know that's what they wanted. I've said before that no-one should consider Ineos sugar daddies, but trying to make out the Glazers were doing us a good turn instead is hard to stomach.
Click to expand...
It’s literally what it says. It could’ve been a full sale in which case it would be up to the new owners but any partial sale was always intended to include money for infrastructure.

There’s no doubt they wanted to profit, just like INEOS, that doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t Ratcliffe’s idea to put money into infrastructure and had the Glazers wanted their full share he’d have give them it. He just wanted his finger in the pie. Just like he wanted it at Chelsea first.
 
JJ12 said:
Quite the opposite. Recruitment has been smart while recovering from the previous regimes shambles. Much better team than they inherited, while refurbishing Carrington. Smart investment in youth players also.

People think we are going to sell Zirkzee who's scored about 5 goals in 2 years. Another mistake signing from previous. Vitek sale was as good as we could expect.

We still need to sign players this summer and I expect a minimum of another 2, we'll see.
Click to expand...
Zirkzee was an Ineos signing along with ugarte
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
Most of our fans don’t give a toss about it sadly.

If there haven’t been angry protests regularly inside the ground by this stage there never will.

Most of our fan base are glory hunters. Look at how the problems are ignored once we win an occasional trophy to paper over the cracks.
Click to expand...
If they were glory Hunters they would be kicking off a lot more, we have no glory. They may be humiliation hunters. Too many fans aren't bothered about success or glory, couple of decent games and a top 5 finish is enough for a big chunk
 
Yakuza_devils said:
I think there is nothing much we can do to force ownership change to kick out Glazers and SJR apart from: -

1) Protests.
2) Boycotts
3) Public campaign to garner supports to influence the owners to sell.

Unfortunately, we have tried all of the above and it seems Glazers don't care at all as long as they can still milk us. They have been ruining us for more than a decade but it seems that it's all legal. We can't do anything as this is a private owned assets. The owner can do whatever they want with Man Utd and the fans have no say.

I think it's time for a football revolution?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately our fans don’t have the bollocks to hit the powers that be where it hurts like that mate, all that would happen is casual fans and tourists snapping up the tickets and merchandise because we’re a global brand.

As I live the other side of the country and due to work and family I couldn’t get to go up to watch games much as I’d like to but I wouldn’t anyway simply because it’s enabling the problem, I stopped buying shirts and merchandise years ago too but you’re right as the only way to force change is for us to unite and stop giving the club our money.
 
acnumber9 said:
It’s literally what it says. It could’ve been a full sale in which case it would be up to the new owners but any partial sale was always intended to include money for infrastructure.

There’s no doubt they wanted to profit, just like INEOS, that doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t Ratcliffe’s idea to put money into infrastructure and had the Glazers wanted their full share he’d have give them it. He just wanted his finger in the pie. Just like he wanted it at Chelsea first.
Click to expand...

Im not going to argue semantics since that would be dull, other than to say I disagree with your reading (here's the link for anyone interested).

But more importantly, how is this press release proof that Ineos didn't want to invest but the Glazers did?
 
ron86 said:
Zirkzee was an Ineos signing along with ugarte
Click to expand...
Only good signings count as INEOS signings. 100 mil worth Ugarte and Zirkzee somehow are not their signing. Same as how people ignore complete clusterfeck which INEOS did with managers so far.

I swear, i sometimes really think that some posters on CAF are INEOS bots.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
Only good signings count as INEOS signings. 100 mil worth Ugarte and Zirkzee somehow are not their signing. Same as how people ignore complete clusterfeck which INEOS did with managers so far.

I swear, i sometimes really think that some posters on CAF are INEOS bots.
Click to expand...
I've suggested that before, whether theres Ineos employees or bots at work.
 
ron86 said:
I've suggested that before, whether theres Ineos employees or bots at work.
Click to expand...
Ineos are on their third summer transfer window so far and only one of them has been good.

If anything, this summer suggests they got very lucky last year and normal service is resumed.

We got rinsed by Bayern buying two of their injury prone squad players off them in Mazrouei the homophobe and De Ligt.

Lenny Yoro was awful last year too and we were frothing at the mouth with excitement at paying north of 50m for an unproven teenager because his agent pretended a Madrid were in for him.
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
Lenny Yoro was awful last year too and we were frothing at the mouth with excitement at paying north of 50m for an unproven teenager because his agent pretended a Madrid were in for him.
Click to expand...
But then saying 60m for a pl proven Lewis Hall is far too much
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
Ineos are on their third summer transfer window so far and only one of them has been good.

If anything, this summer suggests they got very lucky last year and normal service is resumed.

We got rinsed by Bayern buying two of their injury prone squad players off them in Mazrouei the homophobe and De Ligt.

Lenny Yoro was awful last year too and we were frothing at the mouth with excitement at paying north of 50m for an unproven teenager because his agent pretended a Madrid were in for him.
Click to expand...

There's so much wrong with this I don't know where to start
 
quadrant said:
Im not going to argue semantics since that would be dull, other than to say I disagree with your reading (here's the link for anyone interested).

But more importantly, how is this press release proof that Ineos didn't want to invest but the Glazers did?
Click to expand...
The evidence the Glazers wanted investment is because that was what they said they wanted and is what happened. I didn’t say INEOS wouldn’t want some of their money to go on the infrastructure. To them that is upside. I said their history shows they just wanted to own a big football club. We can also look at the facts that they haven’t put any money in outside of acquisition of shares.
 
quadrant said:
Firstly, that's not what it said. It said they were looking at new investment, sale, or other transaction. It then goes on to say they will look at several initiatives to improve the club, including stadium & infrastructure, and improving its commercial operations, and a bunch of other things. It doesnt say the sale was (in part) for capital infrastructure. The most you can say is that all options were on the table.

But more importantly - that was a generic press release. They could hardly openly say they're looking for ways to line their own pockets, but we all know that's what they wanted. I've said before that no-one should consider Ineos sugar daddies, but trying to make out the Glazers were doing us a good turn instead is hard to stomach.
Click to expand...
"The Board of Directors (1) determined that it was in the best interests of Manchester United, its shareholders and of the football club’s fans to engage in an evaluation of potential strategic alternatives available to Manchester United (“Strategic Alternatives Review Process”), including, but not limited to, an assessment of potential growth initiatives, including stadium and infrastructure redevelopment, expansion of Manchester United’s commercial operations and further development of Manchester United’s global opportunities, a capital raising transaction, including but not limited to a primary investment in Manchester United, and/or a sale, merger or other transaction involving the business, assets or securities of Manchester United or other strategic transaction involving Manchester United; each in the context of enhancing Manchester United’s shareholder value and serving the best interests of the football club’s fans"

This was the purpose of the review as stated in https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1549107/000110465924004290/tm2333645-6_sc14d9.htm

It explicitly considers infrastructure redevelopment and a capital raising transaction.

There shouldn't be any confusion.
JR had to be encourage to make a primary investment- "the board representatives conveyed to Offeror that to move the July 2023 Proposal forward, Offeror would need to commit to a substantial primary investment as well"
 
Redjazz said:
"The Board of Directors (1) determined that it was in the best interests of Manchester United, its shareholders and of the football club’s fans to engage in an evaluation of potential strategic alternatives available to Manchester United (“Strategic Alternatives Review Process”), including, but not limited to, an assessment of potential growth initiatives, including stadium and infrastructure redevelopment, expansion of Manchester United’s commercial operations and further development of Manchester United’s global opportunities, a capital raising transaction, including but not limited to a primary investment in Manchester United, and/or a sale, merger or other transaction involving the business, assets or securities of Manchester United or other strategic transaction involving Manchester United; each in the context of enhancing Manchester United’s shareholder value and serving the best interests of the football club’s fans"

This was the purpose of the review as stated in https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1549107/000110465924004290/tm2333645-6_sc14d9.htm

It explicitly considers infrastructure redevelopment and a capital raising transaction.

There shouldn't be any confusion.
JR had to be encourage to make a primary investment- "the board representatives conveyed to Offeror that to move the July 2023 Proposal forward, Offeror would need to commit to a substantial primary investment as well"
Click to expand...

Im not going to explain what the word "or" means.

JR had to be encourage to make a primary investment
Click to expand...

Yeah fair enough I take your point that this was floated by the Glazers. However reading that doc in full, that discussion was done at the point when a full/majority takeover had been dismissed for various reasons, and this was at the beginning of a new conversation about a minority investment. So it's not like the Glazers looked at the Ineos initial proposal and said "Fine, but you need to add in a primary investment". That suggestion was part of a completely different proposal to the original Ineos one.

And there's certainly nothing in there about Ineos having to be “encouraged" to make the investment. Just the opposite, there's a long section in there about all the disagreements the Glazers and Ineos had during the negotiations (which makes for interesting reading) but there's nothing in that section about the primary investment. That part of the negotiation wasn't noteworthy enough to end up in there. Most of the pushback was on share price and gaining control of the running of the club.
 
quadrant said:
Im not going to explain what the word "or" means.



Yeah fair enough I take your point that this was floated by the Glazers. However reading that doc in full, that discussion was done at the point when a full/majority takeover had been dismissed for various reasons, and this was at the beginning of a new conversation about a minority investment. So it's not like the Glazers looked at the Ineos initial proposal and said "Fine, but you need to add in a primary investment". That suggestion was part of a completely different proposal to the original Ineos one.

And there's certainly nothing in there about Ineos having to be “encouraged" to make the investment. Just the opposite, there's a long section in there about all the disagreements the Glazers and Ineos had during the negotiations (which makes for interesting reading) but there's nothing in that section about the primary investment. That part of the negotiation wasn't noteworthy enough to end up in there. Most of the pushback was on share price and gaining control of the running of the club.
Click to expand...
Well obviously if it was a full sale then it would be up to the new owners whether they invested in infrastructure or not. The point is that anything less than a full sale required investment in infrastructure. Jim didn’t offer it.

It’s ok to admit you were wrong in the face of insurmountable evidence.
 
acnumber9 said:
Well obviously if it was a full sale then it would be up to the new owners whether they invested in infrastructure or not. The point is that anything less than a full sale required investment in infrastructure. Jim didn’t offer it.

It’s ok to admit you were wrong in the face of insurmountable evidence.
Click to expand...

Thanks, and you'll notice I did admit I was wrong on the point about who raised it in the first place. It would be cool if you said the same about the point about SJR having to be encouraged, which is not in the document you linked, but I won't hold my breath.
 
croadyman said:
Well why didn't they change the rules before 2005
Click to expand...
Because they probably thought it would never happen to an English PL club, whilst it was and still is a common business practice, as far as I'm aware it had never happened to a sporting club in Britain before
 
quadrant said:
Thanks, and you'll notice I did admit I was wrong on the point about who raised it in the first place. It would be cool if you said the same about the point about SJR having to be encouraged, which is not in the document you linked, but I won't hold my breath.
Click to expand...
I didn’t say anything about him having to be encouraged or link anything. When I replied to you, you were dismissing the idea that the Glazers wouldn’t have just pocketed the £300m for themselves. Thats demonstrably untrue.
 
acnumber9 said:
I didn’t say anything about him having to be encouraged or link anything. When I replied to you, you were dismissing the idea that the Glazers wouldn’t have just pocketed the £300m for themselves. Thats demonstrably untrue.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that was the other guy I was talking to. Just ignore me.
 
So we got CL and a manager that seemed to work well with the group and this is what they cook up for him. They should be hold accountable for it when Carrick gets booted out.
 
Either we have to be the new genius in football transfer or to be very lucky as we seems to be only looking for cheap deals and hope they become world class.

At the very least, we should have at least a marque signing every year. I don't believe we can close the gap with the top team if all we signed are cheap deals of players with potential.
 
quadrant said:
Im not going to explain what the word "or" means.



Yeah fair enough I take your point that this was floated by the Glazers. However reading that doc in full, that discussion was done at the point when a full/majority takeover had been dismissed for various reasons, and this was at the beginning of a new conversation about a minority investment. So it's not like the Glazers looked at the Ineos initial proposal and said "Fine, but you need to add in a primary investment". That suggestion was part of a completely different proposal to the original Ineos one.

And there's certainly nothing in there about Ineos having to be “encouraged" to make the investment. Just the opposite, there's a long section in there about all the disagreements the Glazers and Ineos had during the negotiations (which makes for interesting reading) but there's nothing in that section about the primary investment. That part of the negotiation wasn't noteworthy enough to end up in there. Most of the pushback was on share price and gaining control of the running of the club.
Click to expand...
Why would they? And who is making that argument apart from you.
What is demonstrably true is that the Glazers looked at the minority proposal from July and said that as well as paying A shareholders the same, "you need to add in a primary investment".
In short, JR had to be encouraged to both treat A shareholders the same and include a minority investment. He did both and the bid was eventually accepted.
You object to the phrase "had to be encouraged" , presumably because it implies, to you at any rate, that JR was being strong-armed into doing something that he found disagreeable. Again, no one is making that point. It's immaterial to the main point and that is: The idea of a primary investment originated with the Glazers.
 
Redjazz said:
Why would they? And who is making that argument apart from you.
What is demonstrably true is that the Glazers looked at the minority proposal from July and said that as well as paying A shareholders the same, "you need to add in a primary investment".
In short, JR had to be encouraged to both treat A shareholders the same and include a minority investment. He did both and the bid was eventually accepted.
You object to the phrase "had to be encouraged" , presumably because it implies, to you at any rate, that JR was being strong-armed into doing something that he found disagreeable. Again, no one is making that point. It's immaterial to the main point and that is: The idea of a primary investment originated with the Glazers.
Click to expand...

I made that point to try and flesh out the conversation a little, talk about the context, and just kind of keep it interesting since there's so much to talk about on this topic.

If you really want to drill down and hyper focus on specifics. I concur the idea was the Glazers, I never said "strong arm", you did indeed say "encourage", and no that was not in the document. I think that boringly ends the conversation.
 
quadrant said:
The £300M was for infrastructure for the training ground, none of it went to day to day running. Ineos money coming in didn't allow the operation to continue. So the entire premise here is wrong.
Click to expand...
They havent spent £300m on the training ground, do you have a link ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.