Club Sale | It’s done!

[Adnan]

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[Dans]

So.. welcome to the sports washing club then. Most of you seem pleased. Interesting.

I couldn't be pleased, but then really, what can anyone do? It really feels like we can only accept it - once we win something some will make peace quickly with it if they weren't happy at the begining. Unfortunately though, foreign ownership is the norm in England now and even if not blatant sportwashing, having chinese or yank owners is not much better is it? The ones who seem to have got it right are Leicester's Thai owners, but they really are the exception.

 

[Berbaclass]

People discredit the stories but Simon Stone has pretty much confirmed the interest

 

[iamking]

Mate, I stopped judging when Forrest first paid a million quid for Trevor Francis. A little later when when keano asked and got 60k quid/week.

After that you just BOHICA.

Only thing I am asking if for united to be financially sustainable.

Morals is debatable in our cynical world. One man's freedom fighter is anothers terrorist.

Its not about the morals of the ME owners. I have no problems with them Sheikh owners, none whatsoever. It's the game in general. Pandemic/War and the current economic crisis - alarming real world crisis and then you have the alternate reality - football world. 100 million for Enzo/Pogba likes, 70 million for modern Andy Carrol, 160 million wage deals for CR7 etc, while ticket prices/tv subscriptions keep shooting up to infinity.

And the crazy part is, despite all my current day struggles, family barely meeting ends, deep down, in my own microcosmic petty tribalistic world I don't care. I love the club - I want us to win, I want us to crush Pool and City, I want us to hoard all the top players - Mbappe, Haaaland and the likes and if this goes through I feel heaven sent. And I don't know why? Dissonance

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see PSG binned off if the reported links are the same guys pulling the strings at PSG. PSG was their avenue of getting into the European game with a relatively big club. But once you acquire a bigger and better car, you normally sell off the older car or sell it on WeBuyAnyCar and then twerk down the drive singing “I sold my carrrr, to we buy any carrrrr, I sold my carrrr”

Wouldn't be surprised if they sold PSG. EPL is where you want to be. Saudi and UAE is already here. So for obvious reasons!

If they wanted to sell PSG, they'll have to pay off a lot of players, buy out contracts or sell them. Otherwise, no one else is paying those wages in the French league.

 

[Anders Agnalt]

Question for those against Qatar ownership.

If they come in, clear the debt, and simply allow the club to spend whatever they earn, without siphoning profits out of the club like the Glazers, would you celebrate any of our successes any less?

If that were to happen, it might be acceptable for most supporters in one way. However, we cannot and should not ignore the humanitarian and negative implications of such a deal! Isn't everything that Manchester United stands for and what they have built over the last 70 years all about the people? The club was the first to take action against hooligans, and in some sense, states like Qatar are like hooligans in the Middle East.

 

[bosskeano]

sad really how football has become more about business and not just football....the money they are talking about for the club and the people they are talking about buying the club has NOTHING to do with football but about business

these guys are nothing better than the Glazers just deeper pockets....they aren't football people

 

[Lastwolf]

How? FFP is still a thing.

It is but at % of revenue based.

Generally speaking they don't really matter as long as you don't currently (The new rules as of 2023/24 ) do the following, spend >90% of Revenue on player purchases + wages, make an operating loss of >60million over any rolling 3 year period.

We're nowhere close to 90%, the operating losses are pretty close, but once you remove dividends and debt repayments, that will sort itself out very quickly.

 

[Fridge chutney]

So.. welcome to the sports washing club then. Most of you seem pleased. Interesting.

I'm personally devastated. My association with the club will end if a state in any way purchases United. However it is a tough task to ask of fans to turn their back on the club they love and have supported for years/decades

 

[Chief123]

AND it seems we get to keep our genius baldy!! (since some people were worried if new owners would bring in someone of their own liking.)

It would be footballing suicide by the new owners if they sacked the best manager we’ve had in 10 years since Fergie left. He’s probably one of the most sought after managers and has dealt with virtually every incident this season to perfection. Most of the time when new owners come in, the manager isn’t always the primary choice for the vision going forward. Having ETH already in place is a problem already solved. There’s no one out there you would have instead of him at this moment in time.

 

[Adam-Utd]

People discredit the stories but Simon Stone has pretty much confirmed the interest

It's obvious a Qatari spokesperson has leaked the news to the press to drum up some favour.

Nobody else would know a bid was coming 'soon' apart from them. Just like Radcliffe went public, it seems this is the Qataris turn.

Why people think it's bogus? I think they're just being pessimistic

 

[Drizzle]

So.. welcome to the sports washing club then. Most of you seem pleased. Interesting.

Not pleased, but what are we supposed to do? I'm not giving up the club because of this, it's not my fault.

What I won't do is glory in it (hello City and Newcastle fans dressing as sheikhs), and I will absolutely riot if there's any hints of racism, sexism, antisemitism or homophobia creeping into the culture of the club because of the ownership. But I honestly doubt that will happen.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

Look, I had pictures of Martin Buchan, and Gordan McQueen on my walls as a kid.

I used to look forward in July/August for this:

Trust me, as I mentioned earlier, folks here seem to think that supporting a football club reflects on your morals. Your identity. It doesn't.

One grows out of this as one matures. I had the same moral outrage over the first Million-pound transfer or even Keano asking & getting 60k/week.

You come to compromises -- like when Cantona kungfu kicked a racist fan. But over time, I went back to loving Cantona.

This is life. Many of you will find this out in time.

Frankly, this all feels like a story you're telling yourself so you don't have to justify where you've decided to put your line in the sand. Debating where the line should be and questioning the logic of where people have set theirs is all well and good. Pretending the line doesn't exist is just dishonest.

 

[Grande]

According to who? Who told you that is their agenda? So what is the motivation for a Western country trying to get a World Cup, for instance? Is the immediate assumption that it could only possibly be to I dunno, deflect, away from any sort of negative perception of their country? Or are they immediately separated from each other because 'it's not the same thing' (obviously).

Qatar, like ANY other country, are using sports to advance their country in the same way that ANY other country would want to use it to advance theirs. The immediate surmising that any progressiveness from the ME is 'sportswashing' is ridiculous and xenophobic in and of itself to me. It's saying that the ME should be identified solely by their rightful position in the world as evil barbarians and shouldn't try and 'buy their way into the light'. My point is, your definition of them is likely not the same as their own of themselves. They are simply a sovereign state, with leaders who have the responsibility to do what they feel is best for their country. If your conclusion that Britain bidding for the Olympics in 2012 was not an effort to 'wash' away any stigma held about them from Iraqi invasion, then I see zero reason for Qatar hosting a World Cup or daring to try and do something good for their country being dismissed as such. I'm sure you took Iraqi invasion and Olympics 2012 to be totally disconnected.

Qatar would not be doing anything to 'repair a tarnished reputation', they would be making moves to grow their country just as anyone else would. What you choose to think of them is up to you. In the grand scheme of things, why would they give a shit about whether you agree with their policies or not anyway? The only way it would affect them is that you may choose to not go there on holiday and contribute to tourism. Which is a right that you still reserve whether or not they own United.

This sportswashing thing just says 'we have labelled you as the evil bad guys, stop trying to confuse things by doing anything good. We've already decided not to like you, please make it easy for us by only killing people'. Perhaps if they make a medicinal breakthrough you would be like 'there you go again trying to not accept who you are'. Even taking your statement at its most literal, clearly you have an issue with a nation wanting to repair its reputation.

They are telling you that there is more to their country to homophobia and anything else you don't like, but you have a problem with them being associated with anything other than that, clearly. Who are you to decide that is all they're good for? Do you think Arabs agree with a country where men wear makeup and tight dresses, change genders, get into drunken and drug fuelled debauchery? Probably not, but yet they still come here for the bits they like. They still engage in the sports, still do business. That is because clearly that is not all they associate with Western states. There is good and bad, and people need to accept that there is good and bad in Qatar and ME states. If you choose to not engage with them at all on the basis of the bits that you don't like, it is of course your own right - but they still have a country to run and develop, and there's no reason why they shouldn't look to do so without everything being done from the context of the things you don't agree with.

I've said before in this thread - Qatar just hosted a whole World Cup. They did NOTHING to conceal the fact that they despise homosexuality and drunkards, for example. In front of the cameras, they banned pro-LGBT displays and banned alcohol. They are not as invested in how you view their views on these things as you think. They simply said this is how we do things, now we'll get on with the business of hosting a great World Cup. Which they did. You could choose not to go, that's fine. But they didn't pretend that they were not anti-LGBT so that you could come and like them. But because they are not pro-LGBT also didn't mean that they should not get on with doing what is right for their country and putting on a great show.

The dismissal or simplification of ME sports projects as 'sportswashing' is just a western superiority position for me. Hosting the F1 would appeal to them for the exact same reasons it would appeal to Britain.

i don’t find this analysis very convincing. ‘Sportswashing’ is a no less descriptive term than ‘PR machine for tyrants’ would be. It’s self evident that it hinges on wether the deeds it covers up are evil, cruel, unrightful or bad or what you will. Just like whitewashing with respect to criminal income. And obviously the degree of cruelty defines the degree of atrociousness of it. Of course it is a big difference between helping a criminal to reform, and helping him to launder his money so he can continue doing criminal acts for it. Of course it is different posing with the qatari emir than with a qatari woman, a qatari journalist or a qatari homosexual in prison. To conflate all this is immoral, unethical or ‘evil’ if you prefer that. If you think the emir of Qatar is no worse than a British chemicals billionaire, you’re welcome to have your opinion and explain it too, but you don’t have any grounds to claim that any opinion should have the same moral value for others. If I see the qatari tyrants making actual change towards a more democratic and equal opportunities and less systematically cruel society, it will change things, but what I see is them hiring celebrities to do commercials for them so they can go on oppressing people in Qatar as well as from othe places. And not all oppression is the same oppression. I think doing PR for the Emir of Qatar, or ‘sportswash’ his image, is many levels worse than consorting with ruthless capitalists, which is bad enough.

 

[IncyWincySpider]

I won't be watching football anymore if this happens. A shame because I'm so excited for what Ten Hag is doing for us, but I've no interest in supporting a bigger version of Manchester City.

 

[Chief123]

One thing I don't understand is if someone is worth 300+ billion, is a big united fan and can/wants to buy United, why wait until 2023? Surely the club was in a much better position 10 or even 8 years ago.

Owners have always been resilient to selling the club. Their mindset has changed. No doubt they had the super league financial rewards in their roadmap. Since that fell apart I’d imagine their desire to own us diminished quickly.

Even though a filthy rich person was a fan of Man Utd, they are also businessmen. They would have had to pay ridiculously over the odds to buy from a seller who isn’t willing to sell.

 

[cyberman]

It's obvious a Qatari spokesperson has leaked the news to the press to drum up some favour.

Nobody else would know a bid was coming 'soon' apart from them. Just like Radcliffe went public, it seems this is the Qataris turn.

Why people think it's bogus? I think they're just being pessimistic

It’s preparing the fanbase for the takeover with the noise about fan interaction, war chests, and no problem in building a stadium and training ground.
In my mind it’s done now. It was always about if ME money came in or not and it looks like it has

 

[Rozay]

Some are of the opinion it was the worst world cup in their life time.

Which is their right. Many people do not share that view. It is what it is I guess.

 

[CallyRed]

Two words every man loves

War and Chest

 

[sglowrider]

sad really how football has become more about business and not just football....the money they are talking about for the club and the people they are talking about buying the club has NOTHING to do with football but about business

these guys are nothing better than the Glazers just deeper pockets....they aren't football people

Football really started being a busines since the Argentina world cup. That was the beginning of the end in terms of a
Pure sporting competition.
With the founding of the PL it went into steroids. The super League would have been or maybe the next iteration.

 

[always_hoping]

United don't need to do a Man City on it. Just need ownership with the best interests in the club and pulling in one direction. Has to be better options but it's those Glazers idiots doing the selling so I'd fear the worst

 

[Ali Dia]

All we really need is ETH with reasonably consistent backing. Add state of the art academy recruitment, training and stadium facilities. Back to being the best in class across the board. Then we can be self sufficient again. I don’t want mbappe and haaland. I just want a club that’s run smart and like the biggest club in the country again. Fresh investment and ideas are definitely necessary.

 

[Adisa]

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[sglowrider]

Two words every man loves

War and Chest

I much prefer the latter. I am a lover not a fighter

 

[Infra-red]

A decade? Doubtful

That assumes a new stadium, which I think is ultimately a more realistic outcome under new owners.

A decade(ish) would be in keeping with other projects of that size, from announcement to opening - Wembley Stadium (9 years), Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (11 years), Emirates Stadium (9 years). Everton's new stadium was announced in January 2017 and is due to open in August 2024.

Even if new mega rich owners launched into the planning phase immediately and threw significant funding behind it, a new OT would be unlikely to open before 2030.

 

[Adam-Utd]

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such a dumb view.

The fans have 0 input to who the new owner will be. Are they giving US the choice of a list of potential squeaky clean billionaires?

Jordan usually has some decent points, but this is a miss by miles.

 

[devilish]

The Qataris will probably put David Beckham as their front man and if they buy the club then they'll ask SAF to put a public good word with the fans. That will put the locals fans anxiety to bed.

 

[Real Name]

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Look at this dick tarring all United fans with the same brush.

 

[Chief123]

If they wanted to sell PSG, they'll have to pay off a lot of players, buy out contracts or sell them. Otherwise, no one else is paying those wages in the French league.

This PSG players will have their contracts transferred to Utd.

 

[Delano]

We're worth 5 billion. The "we want our club back" rhetoric doesn't wash when we have zero say over our owners.

Owners which need to have a bottomless pit of money to even consider a bid. This isn't Palace, Bournemouth or even Newcastle. The range of buyers is extremely limited.

 

[cyberman]

such a dumb view.

The fans have 0 input to who the new owner will be. Are they giving US the choice of a list of potential squeaky clean billionaires?

Jordan usually has some decent points, but this is a miss by miles.

If someone happens outside of our control then our opinions just change.
Ok, Simon. I’ll get right on that

 

[Van Piorsing]

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I hope City's next owners are Glazers so he can finally get it through his head.

 

[TheReligion]

That assumes a new stadium, which I think is ultimately a more realistic outcome under new owners.

A decade(ish) would be in keeping with other projects of that size, from announcement to opening - Wembley Stadium (9 years), Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (11 years), Emirates Stadium (9 years). Everton's new stadium was announced in January 2017 and is due to open in August 2024.

Even if new mega rich owners launched into the planning phase immediately and threw significant funding behind it, a new OT would be unlikely to open before 2030.

The club have already started the precess though from memory.

 

[cyberman]

That assumes a new stadium, which I think is ultimately a more realistic outcome under new owners.

A decade(ish) would be in keeping with other projects of that size, from announcement to opening - Wembley Stadium (9 years), Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (11 years), Emirates Stadium (9 years). Everton's new stadium was announced in January 2017 and is due to open in August 2024.

Even if new mega rich owners launched into the planning phase immediately and threw significant funding behind it, a new OT would be unlikely to open before 2030.

Fly a few workers over, snatch a few passports. It’ll be open by the start of the new season

 

[romufc]

I find it very difficult to believe that Simon Jordan is this naive. There are so many differences between the City case and United.

City needed to pay off books and make fake sponsors up to get to a big club status. United do not have that problem.

We can entice the best players to join, the best managers with our club because we are a big club, we have not bought the status, we have created it.

Manchester United is iconic because of its history, having Qatari owners will just mean have owners who not only care about the club but the CIty.

Ask any City fan, they will tell you what they have done to the City. They will improve the infrastructure, the stadium and get our standards back up.

The UK is a hub for Middle East investment, look around everywhere, they own alot in the UK.

Just because 1 ownership bought City and corrupted it, does not mean they are all the same. Thats called stereotyping.

 

[cyberman]

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[Rozay]

i don’t find this analysis very convincing. ‘Sportswashing’ is a no less descriptive term than ‘PR machine for tyrants’ would be. It’s self evident that it hinges on wether the deeds it covers up are evil, cruel, unrightful or bad or what you will. Just like whitewashing with respect to criminal income. And obviously the degree of cruelty defines the degree of atrociousness of it. Of course it is a big difference between helping a criminal to reform, and helping him to launder his money so he can continue doing criminal acts for it. Of course it is different posing with the qatari emir than with a qatari woman, a qatari journalist or a qatari homosexual in prison. To conflate all this is immoral, unethical or ‘evil’ if you prefer that. If you think the emir of Qatar is no worse than a British chemicals billionaire, you’re welcome to have your opinion and explain it too, but you don’t have any grounds to claim that any opinion should have the same moral value for others. If I see the qatari tyrants making actual change towards a more democratic and equal opportunities and less systematically cruel society, it will change things, but what I see is them hiring celebrities to do commercials for them so they can go on oppressing people in Qatar as well as from othe places. And not all oppression is the same oppression. I think doing PR for the Emir of Qatar, or ‘sportswash’ his image, is many levels worse than consorting with ruthless capitalists, which is bad enough.

But these are not simply 'tyrants' we are talking about. We are talking about a sovereign state. A recognised one, even if some would try their hardest to not acknowledge their validity.

I am not excusing the atrocities you speak of. I am refuting the insinuation that any subsequent act that is NOT an atrocity is merely an attempt to 'cover up' the atrocities in the first place. Again, this is a sovereign nation state. Not some celebrity or corporation. The complexity and amount of facets to their existence is being severely belittled in favour of a narrow and myopic definition of 'evil doers'. When you start to look at them as an actual nation, the way we look at nations in the West, their deeds do not necessarily have to define them in the same way. This is a country, a 'PR exercise' is massively simplistic, this isn't Mason Greenwood.

The issue I have is the throwing around of the term 'sportswashing' any time an ME state tries to do anything OTHER than behead someone or ban homosexuality is to not acknowledge their credibility as a nation. My argument is that many in the west are too lazy to see them as anything other than 'those barbarians who do x and y', and it would likely be more convenient when the mental imagery of such places were as depicted in movies like Delta Force, with little other than desert land and men in traditional attire in Land Cruisers wielding AK-47s. The fact that the imagery has changed to what would be considered more 'normal' things - leisure, tourism, world-class medicine, architecture and of course - sport is not simply because someone wants to trick everyone into not labelling them as homphobic. It is because all countries would like world class facilities, tourism revenue etc. Not just western ones. Only in Qatar they don't allow you to be gay or drunk while doing it. Which is a valid point to disagree with, my issue is that everything else doesn't start from that position. They are simply developing their countries in the same way Israel has done so post WW2, South Africa has been doing post-apartheid and many others. They are doing it for the betterment of their people. Not for western approval.

The US, for example, is probably the only western state that allows people to simply purchase guns and use them. Unlike the UK and most (all) other western states, their state also kills people. They have a death penalty which others don't. I could list so many more things that the rest of us don't approve of but their actions will never be perceived from the starting position of those things. Perhaps because we have agreed to recognise them as real people and a real country. So as much as I abhor their gun laws, I still go there at least once a year, and I don't view every new attraction in Las Vegas as no more than an attempt to distract from the fact that they have a death penalty. It's just one of their things I disagree with, and there are things that I like. All I am saying is that as a nation, Qatar has the right to be viewed the same. 'Sportswashing', in that respect, I find highly condescending because it would be never be used of a Western State in this day and age regardless of probably anything else they chose to do. So this is not me validating any Qatari practise, it is me taking an objection to the inference that any subsequent act is nothing more than PR. A nation can do both good and bad things. Most of them do.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Fly a few workers over, snatch a few passports. It’ll be open by the start of the new season

Equal parts distasteful & amusing.

 

[Marcus]

United don't need to do a Man City on it. Just need ownership with the best interests in the club and pulling in one direction. Has to be better options but it's those Glazers idiots doing the selling so I'd fear the worst

Clear our debt. Upgrade the facilities. Spend legally within our already massive commercial means. Done.

 

[El Zoido]

such a dumb view.

The fans have 0 input to who the new owner will be. Are they giving US the choice of a list of potential squeaky clean billionaires?

Jordan usually has some decent points, but this is a miss by miles.

No, he usually talks out of his rear end. He gets 1 in 20 right and the rest is unadulterated horse manure. The man has made a career out of being a clueless bellend, and so it remains.