Fans who were against today's protests

dove

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Unfortunately, those yellow and green (assuming they organised this) would rather harm our staff and players, and perhaps even gift 3 points to Liverpool. When they made the claim to oust the Glazers, show us the money, Find 4B and they are happy to sell.
You got anything to back up this ridiculous claim? Nobody wants to harm the staff or the players... at the same time nobody gives a shit about gifting 3 points to Liverpool (not happening anyway), it's more than that which some people completely fail to understand.
 

Paula

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Bayern themselves can be counted as exception, RB Leipzig are another one
Why do you think bayern are an exception ?
Actually they are not. Only Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Leipzig and Hoffenheim actually are.
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

You'd better not kill Giroud
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You invented your own plan, then sarcastically dismissed it. No one is saying that every game has to be postponed. Yesterday's game did, though. And we will continue to pick our battles. You should show some support.
Pick you battles? You mean fake victories you can celebrate. Awesome.

The plan is TV viewership.
 

Dan_F

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Certain objective has been achieved. The game will be re-scheduled, rumour said this Tues. Which means that our Best 11 will have to play 2 games in 2 days, advantage to Roma, or we will have to send our U21 to be slaughtered by Liverpool, great news to Liverpool. I think we have too many Liverpool lovers pretending to be Utd fan
I doubt it’ll be tomorrow, and if it is, we have a 4 goal lead. Just for the sake of argument, even though this isn’t the topic of the thread.

Henderson
AWB
Lindelof
Maguire
Shaw
Mcfred
Bruno
Rashford
Pogba (65 minutes)
Cavani

DDG
Williams
Lindelof
Bailly
Telles
Matic
Pogba (45 mins)
James
DvB
Mata
Greenwood

Two almost completely different 11s. We have a massive squad, not to mention there’s 5 subs in Europe.
 

Dans

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Find someone that they actually like willing to put together £3bn or so to buy the club, or any other viable solution to the problem.

It’s quite clear Glazers will not just write off a £3bn+ assets because of a few hundred people storming the stadium.

I just struggle to understand what the actual message and expectation is. With every protest there is supposed to be a clear expectation of a certain action, I fail to see what it is here. It’s ‘we hate you and we want you out’ but without really presenting how this is supposed to happen and what is the end product. Would us being taken over by Saudis be fine? By any other ownership group?
I agree, but therein lies the problem - there's really no alternative at all which leads to the helpless feeling that they no longer have any input into much to do with the club at all. Even if something is set up to provide a forum or platform to discuss with the owners, it'd be for show. The fans are treated with disdain. Unfortunately, some of the actions from yesterday will mean more sympathy for that disdain, but really, what can a fan do if not sit back and take it continually up the arris from Malcolm's offspring?
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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One thing about the reaction to the protest that stuck out to me is that a lot of our international fan base don’t love the club the same way our domestic fan base do.

“they ruined my afternoon entertainment”

Well the glazers have ruined our last 16 years, so respectfully feck off.
 

NK86

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Why don't you? If the protest group confirmed that was the plan then for sure that's action I'll get behind. Instead they bought flairs and broke into the stadium.
I didn't suggest an idea of "stop watching football". You did so I assumed you were fine with it.
There are plenty who have stopped watching United since the Glazers took over. Think that's made an iota of difference to them? And to do make that successful at a large scale, do you think it's feasible?

Ever tried getting 10 of your mates together on time for an event successfully? If you get that, you will understand how insane it is to suggest to pull off a large scale agitation to stop watching United games.

As for your last line about fans being the worst part of football, I agree with it after reading your posts.
 

b20times

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The problem we have is nobody will pay the market price for the club. Same reason Spotify bloke won’t buy Arsenal. Look at the history of PL clubs being bought. Only ever happens for a knock-down price. The one and only exception being Manchester United and the Glazers couldn’t afford to pay for it up front.

It’s a depressing thought but there’s no cnut anywhere that would dream of paying the Glazers the several billion the club is currently valued at. Then invest another few hundred million on players/the stadium. Absolutely no chance of any rational business man having that much spare cash swilling around.

Maybe just maybe a gulf state like Saudi Arabia would be prepared to take that sort of risk but does anyone really want that to happen?
We need someone like the Man City owners. Yes we laugh at their oil money and the baggage they bring with them but who else out there, who is filthy rich, can afford to buy the club, wipe the debt AND pay out the glazers?
Middle East investment is the only option in my opinion and we'll have to take sportswashing, human rights abusers and financial doping on the chin as that's what will get slung at us.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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We paid £30m for Berbatov, £24m for van Persie, £22m for Nani and about the same for Anderson in the same window, we were prepared to pay the £50m to buy out Tevez's loan. We have spent plenty under the Glazers. Some people just don't want to acknowledge it.
It’s very strange how a United fan can be this pro glazer.
 

Von Mistelroum

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I think that what people are against is the element that breaks into the stadium, breaks equipment and attacks police. The Glazers don’t suffer because the game is postponed, they only suffer if they’re not making money and that was not achieved.
 

shahzy

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Definitely not against the protest. Just wish no one was injured and there was no damage. Keep it peaceful lads but do it though.
 

Sarni

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I agree, but therein lies the problem - there's really no alternative at all which leads to the helpless feeling that they no longer have any input into much to do with the club at all. Even if something is set up to provide a forum or platform to discuss with the owners, it'd be for show. The fans are treated with disdain. Unfortunately, some of the actions from yesterday will mean more sympathy for that disdain, but really, what can a fan do if not sit back and take it continually up the arris from Malcolm's offspring?
I fully understand what they are against. I struggle to understand what they stand for though I.e. what solution is proposed. I think the group should come out with a clear statement of ‘we expect you to’, it’s not even that it will make the message stronger, it will ensure there’s actually a message behind all of this.
 

Galactic

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Find someone that they actually like willing to put together £3bn or so to buy the club, or any other viable solution to the problem.

It’s quite clear Glazers will not just write off a £3bn+ assets because of a few hundred people storming the stadium.

I just struggle to understand what the actual message and expectation is. With every protest there is supposed to be a clear expectation of a certain action, I fail to see what it is here. It’s ‘we hate you and we want you out’ but without really presenting how this is supposed to happen and what is the end product. Would us being taken over by Saudis be fine? By any other ownership group?
This is a great post IMO. Well said.

When we got listed, that’s when the problem started. This is all inevitable.
 

12OunceEpilogue

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I guess we have a fundamental difference of opinion on what a football club actually is. To me, it's a business that serves entertainment to its customers (fans) and in parallel serves the fans as a product to its other customers (advertisers, sponsors, etc.). As a business, a football club can definitely be bought with a leveraged buy-out. Fans aren't happy with the debt, that's cool but it is a business decision and it hasn't stopped the club from investing massive amounts into the squad.
Definitely. I don't doubt you're correct that that's what football clubs have been allowed to become but I truly believe now is the time for fans to try to somehow roll back the commodification of football and fight to put checks and balances in place that may at least partially save the soul of the game we all love. It for sure sounds naive and utopian but I think if we don't take this opportunity now we'll regret it for the rest of our lives that we stood by and watched these events through pragmatic eyes.
 

Gasolin

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So. In a nutshell. We're looking for

1. Rich billionaire with 4bn cold cash to spare
2. Stupid Billionaire who invest 4bn of his own money, with no possible dividend*(See no.3)
3. Profit is relatife, if you spend a summer window buying no one, you'd be guaranteed profit. If you sell your youth prospect you're in the green. Most teams that spends are usually in the red for that specific window
4. You can't forbid LBO. On what ground? That would need to revamp the whole European banking system. Even if you can get that in practice, that's discriminatory and opens up cans of worms. Legal aren't exclusive to footballing issue.
5. Veto right for fans? This is not realistic. Who are the fans? You? me? if I say no and you say yes, who would they listen to?
6. Fans representative? What if they represent the sell Martial Sack Ole brigade? Or Keep martial Ole forever brigade?
7. No clubs would be profitable if they're expected to spend 300M every season. Even for Manchester United that number is pipeline.
I am merely just thinking out loud. In your opinion, what could the authorities do then? I don't think "nothing" is the right answer in the current context of frustration.

There are some elements to consider though: should the FC be considered a business, then businesses don't allow any dividends if there's no profit.
Or in the context of banking, you need what you call a capital ratio, and with a stress test over multiple years and different scenarios, in order to qualify for a dividend distribution.
If that's what they want, we can put a capital ratio calculation for football clubs. Whatever it is, as a minimum, you need the budget to be balanced.

LBO and sports teams are not compatible for me, again, it's a decision to take whether this is a business, or a sports team.
A sports team cannot make profit usually. If that's the case, LBO should be forbidden.
We can forbid short selling in stocks in specific situations and legislation. Why wouldn't we be able to forbid LBOs for sports team? For me, it makes sense.
If we allow LBOs, then we should allow the dividend structure highlighted above, like every other business.

When I talked about the Veto right, it was basically just a vote. Like when the socios have to vote for their club. You can vote no and I can vote yes, and someone else may vote no and the no can win as long as it's the majority: that would be considered the fans' voice. On what topic do they vote is something I am open to. But I guess as a minimum, the budget and competitions to participate should be in that agenda.

Either way, we need to find a working model.
 

Gasolin

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If dividends are not allowed while with debt (which is standard business practice), what is the incentive of being owner of a football club? Please, for the sake of this argument, do not tell me billionaires are willing to spend money because the love the club. I do not believe smart business people spend obscene amounts of money to lock them away in assets that cannot bring profits until being sold (and that is risky in itself as although FCs in general appreciate in value, it isn't guaranteed, especially with our precocious fanbase).

Let me explore a hypothetical scenario if I were a billionaire who buys the club without a LBO.
  • I would take dividends, surely.
  • I would also make partnership and sponsorship deals to benefit my other businesses (basically leveraging Man Utd's brand value and most likely underselling it so I can extract profit from my other businesses).
  • I would probably allow the club to invest in facilities to maintain them and keep competitive levels.
  • Same for staff and squad. I don't see any business reason in overspending.
  • I would estimate the financial impact of winning the league, the CL and every other trophy, compare them to the financial impact of finishing top 4, getting to the knockout rounds, exiting in the groups, dropping to the EL, etc. And I would make staff and players planning decisions based on that. If top 4 and knockout rounds means overall earning more net revenues and profits, guess what I'd choose to do. Because this is business.

And if I'm not allowed to do these things, why would I even consider buying a football club? Why would any business person consider it?
Then maybe that's reason enough to get rid of the club and find a way out, even at a loss? Again, I am just thinking out loud.
If you have ideas that could be interesting, please share.
 

Pickle85

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I fully understand what they are against. I struggle to understand what they stand for though I.e. what solution is proposed. I think the group should come out with a clear statement of ‘we expect you to’, it’s not even that it will make the message stronger, it will ensure there’s actually a message behind all of this.
I'm not sure that every protest needs a 'we expect X, Y and Z' type list of demands, does it? Particularly not when there are a variety of possible outcomes. Maybe the Glazers sell. Maybe they decide to invest heavily (VERY unlikely, granted, but a possibility) Why risk narrowing the owners' choices down to one potentially beneficial outcome?

I think registering the utter contempt in which we hold those leeches sends a message. I'm quite surprised you seem to imply that there's no message behind it already.
 

Dans

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
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I fully understand what they are against. I struggle to understand what they stand for though I.e. what solution is proposed. I think the group should come out with a clear statement of ‘we expect you to’, it’s not even that it will make the message stronger, it will ensure there’s actually a message behind all of this.
That's my point though, they want something that is almost impossible to achieve. But they are fed up and don't want to sit back as the likes of them destroy first our club and then football (if they have their way and I do think eventually they will).
 

gerdm07

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One thing about the reaction to the protest that stuck out to me is that a lot of our international fan base don’t love the club the same way our domestic fan base do.

“they ruined my afternoon entertainment”

Well the glazers have ruined our last 16 years, so respectfully feck off.
The problem with that argument is that SAF was in charge for at least half of those years and I don't remember him saying bad things about the Glazers. Furthermore, one would think he would let loose after he left and speak the truth if the owners were that bad.

Eight years were ruined because of poor manager selections and poor transfers. Maybe the Glazers are at fault for some of that, not all of it though.
 

diarm

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I think we should spend another 15 years being clever and sarcastic on internet forums to see if that works. Even if it doesn't work, it will allow us to feel superior and look down our noses at people who care too much.
 

georgipep

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Why do you think bayern are an exception ?
Actually they are not. Only Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Leipzig and Hoffenheim actually are.
I was referring to the Audi, Adidas and Allianz holdings but you're right, they aren't an exception, the FC Bayern Munchen company does own 75%.
 

Offsideagain

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It’s ok to protest, but like Greta Thunberg, they are protesting in the wrong place. She and her mates should be in China and the USA who contribute over 50% of the pollution on the planet, not the UK. So go and protest in the States outside the NYSE and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Form an alliance with reds in the States and Tampa fans that want them away from their club too. The Glazers own 83% of voting shares so they ain’t going to vote themselves off the board. The only option is for them to get so pissed off as they will sell and that can only be done by boycotting the games and take merchandise which will put pressure from the sponsors onto the Glazers. Then the £4bn question is who they hell will buy the club, or half the club and how many fans would it take to stump up £2bn ?
 

gza the genius

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Just from reading the initial thread it seemed like most people against the protest were more concerned that they weren't going to be able to watch the game that day...
 

georgipep

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Then maybe that's reason enough to get rid of the club and find a way out, even at a loss? Again, I am just thinking out loud.
If you have ideas that could be interesting, please share.
Any business person worth their salt is going to try to avoid losing money. So, finding a way out even at a loss doesn't seem plausible to me. Also, there is another important factor at play with the current protest. If the Glazers succumb to pressure, or any institution forces their hand (PL, FA, UK government, etc.) it would set a very dangerous precedent where a "handful" of aggressive protesters can challenge private property ownership.

The only model where a protest could work in a meaningful way, for me, is by protesting with your wallet. Don't buy, don't watch, don't follow, don't comment. These are the actions that make Manchester United brand so strong. And if enough fans stop doing these things, it will be felt strong enough to make changes. I know people don't want to do that but for me, that's reality.

I, personally, prefer the devil we know and strongly believe the Glazers are above average in terms of football club ownership. Most opinions I've read in the last few days are coming from people with zero knowledge and romantic ideas of how things should be.

I don't want a Saudi prince/Chinese tycoon/ex-USSR petrorubla billionaire type of owner. And I don't want 50%+1 model either. Neither of these options are superior to the Glazers ownership, in my opinion.
 

JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo

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Yesterday was monumental for so many reasons but I am afraid it won't make a blind bit of difference and I cannot figure out what the next move will be.
 

JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo

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I genuinely think we should make a huge effort to not buy club merchandise this season. If they had horrible sales for long enough it would hit our sponsors where it hurts and in turn hit the owners
 

glazed

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And would you be willing to give up all the trophies we've won under the Glazers if it meant getting a decent owner?
I disagree with you completely.
Why would I have to give up trophies we've already won? No sense do you make.
 

Sky1981

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I am merely just thinking out loud. In your opinion, what could the authorities do then? I don't think "nothing" is the right answer in the current context of frustration.

There are some elements to consider though: should the FC be considered a business, then businesses don't allow any dividends if there's no profit.
Or in the context of banking, you need what you call a capital ratio, and with a stress test over multiple years and different scenarios, in order to qualify for a dividend distribution.
If that's what they want, we can put a capital ratio calculation for football clubs. Whatever it is, as a minimum, you need the budget to be balanced.

LBO and sports teams are not compatible for me, again, it's a decision to take whether this is a business, or a sports team.
A sports team cannot make profit usually. If that's the case, LBO should be forbidden.
We can forbid short selling in stocks in specific situations and legislation. Why wouldn't we be able to forbid LBOs for sports team? For me, it makes sense.
If we allow LBOs, then we should allow the dividend structure highlighted above, like every other business.

When I talked about the Veto right, it was basically just a vote. Like when the socios have to vote for their club. You can vote no and I can vote yes, and someone else may vote no and the no can win as long as it's the majority: that would be considered the fans' voice. On what topic do they vote is something I am open to. But I guess as a minimum, the budget and competitions to participate should be in that agenda.

Either way, we need to find a working model.
Nothing

You can't really ask foreign investor to sell their stake, that's extortion. For us football is religion, way of life etc but in the grand scheme of things they're just business. You can't intervene and ask investor to sell their stake, that's banana republic level. At best they can make regulation for future dealing, but the current dealing is as solid as it is. You really can't ask Boris to invite Glazer over some tea on downing 10 and ask them to sell United.

And yes they're a business, we are a business the day we float ourselves as PLC. You can't reap the funds during sunny days and take them back whenever you don't feel you like the owner. We don't complain when that business brought us domination in the 90s, but now we complain because the same free market mechanism doesn't make us the biggest guns in the block. Some of us are bending our backside backwards expecting the Saudi's to buy us, if they indeed buy us nobody would mentioned "football being used as a business" and unfair oil money.

As much as we loathe the owner, business wise they've done nothing wrong. Leveraged buy outs aren't a crime, and it's not as if they're stripping our assets dry, they've managed the debts into manageable level. At the heart of it is that the Glazer borrow the bank, and used United as the collateral, but whatever penny they paid the bank comes from their earning. It's literally like you're taking a mortgage to buy a car and use it to drive Uber, you're using your skill as entepreneur to pay off your car. That's just it.

And regarding voting, what makes me eligible to vote? I support United, but I'm not from UK. Who decides who's United enough and who doesn't? WE have like 200M supporters around the world, does each of us vote? who represents me? I never give anyone consent for my vote. And as much as they're fans, at most time I prefer a real professional made that decision instead of some angry fans yelling "sack fergie sell giggs" brigade.

99 out of 100 alternatives given on this forum is unrealistic as it gets.
 

thepolice123

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Please stop the nonsense of it being our ( the supporters") club. As far as i know In the history of Manchester United the general supporters have never owned the club. The peddled idea from idiots on TV and Radio that supporters are the most important part of any football club is plain rubbish.
All those connected with club owners, staff, players and the fans are equally important. I started supporting United because of the Babes in 1957, I became hooked for life watching Charlton, Law then Best in 60's so players and to a lesser extent Sir Matt sucked me in to love the club, it was not fellow supporters!. It was the entity as a whole that kept me supporting during the years that our biggest rival won everything, I went to OT regularly for many years, lots of travel time, watching not particularly successful sides but always a magic about the club and always an unpredictability that excited. The ownership of the club never entered my head all this time in fact not until we became a PLC when my limited knowledge knew we were vulnerable to market trends. That was the time us supporters could/should have taken a large stake in club but we didn't. Then along came the Glazers I like many others abought a few shares, then joined MUST all to little to late.
We have had a number of owners since United was born, the Glazers just the latest. Are they the worst? to be honest I don't know, they are certainly the most disliked in my lifetime. I would like them gone but not to the extent of dragging the club through the gutter to get rid. Love the protest but hate the 'rent a mob' that always accompanies such action and for me badly hurting the club to get rid of owners is just not worth it. Those cries of happily see the club relegated or play in non league to get rid seem stupid to me ( I thought FC Manchester came into being for them). Do you really want to see the club fall like that just to get rid of bad owners hoping desperately a supporters trust with a few benevolent cash investors take over. Because it is far more likely the club would be sold with the worry we could be jumping out of frying pan into the fire and get worse owners and the cycle starts again. Our best hope is Government and PL coming together to enforce some supporter involvement in every club.
Great post.
 

Sarni

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I'm not sure that every protest needs a 'we expect X, Y and Z' type list of demands, does it? Particularly not when there are a variety of possible outcomes. Maybe the Glazers sell. Maybe they decide to invest heavily (VERY unlikely, granted, but a possibility) Why risk narrowing the owners' choices down to one potentially beneficial outcome?

I think registering the utter contempt in which we hold those leeches sends a message. I'm quite surprised you seem to imply that there's no message behind it already.
Well perhaps you can protest without really making it clear what your expectation is but it is less likely to have any effect.

Even as a fan I struggle to really figure out what an acceptable way out of our current situation would be for fans. Would investing $500m in facilities and another $500m in the squad be fine? Would transferring the debt to personal assets rather than club assets be sufficient? Would selling the club to Saudis for $4bn resolve this mess? I understand the unhappiness, know where it’s coming from and get this part of the message. I just think this isn’t enough.
 

DoomSlayer

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A rare voice of reason, I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing the obvious flaws in the current situation and people's frenzy. I see the protesting fanbase is generally split in two camps:
a) A benevolent billionaire to take over the Glazers and make us the highest spending club in the world. This implies either the new owner would pump their own money into the club, beyond the price of acquiring it, which I imagine fans won't be happy with a leveraged buy-out, like the Glazers did, or they don't take dividends, which is the other huge gripe with the current owners. It just begs the question, why would any billionaire spend £4-5bn of their money in buying a huge asset that won't make them any money unless they decide to sell it? Some would say "for the brand power and recognition" and I would answer that if a person is able to spend £4bn on a football club, they have enough power. The only other legitimate reason I could think of is to legitimise their business and persona. Like a Saudi crown prince, Chinese tycoon or some ex-USSR fossil fuels magnate.
b) The 50%+1 ownership model where the club would be "owned" by its supporters. I think people haven't really thought about this one at all. First of all, in order for the ownership to change from Glazers to XXXXX amount of supporters, the latter need to come up with the money to buy the 50%+1 share off the Glazer family and partners. I really, really, really doubt people could come up with that kind of money. Let's make a mental math exercise:
  • Let's say 50% of the club are currently worth £2bn
  • Let's assume willing supporters organise and are willing to attempt buying off that 50% share and the total amount of those is 100,000 (this is being very, very, very optimistic)
  • 2,000,000,000 divided by 100,000 = £20,000 per supporter
I don't know about other people but I believe saying that a 100k supporters would come out with £20k each to basically donate so that "the people" could own the club is.....naive, to put it nicely.

But ok, let's assume even that actually happens. What then? The club is 50%+1 owned by the supporters. That means club management need to be elected on mandates. So, we enter the world of politics, populism, promises and consequences beyond the end of the current mandate. I urge people to read more on the reasons why Real Madrid and Barcelona are in dire financial state right now. It has a lot to do with the key words I underlined in the previous sentence.

Then some point to the German ownership model and more specifically to Bayern Munchen. Again, I suggest people do some reading on the topic and also understand that such a model exists in specific circumstances where it is the norm with very few exceptions (Bayern themselves can be counted as exception, RB Leipzig are another one) and to even consider it possible in the UK, it would mean ALL clubs must transition to a 50%+1 ownership model. I don't want to say that's impossible but it's damn close to it.

So, what does that leave us with? Violent, angry and loud protesters who are such a small fraction of the club's fanbase that if they weren't violent nobody would even notice them. Other are Social Media heroes who post angry messages with hashtags and support to ideas they generally do not understand.

I believe the owners, the staff, the players and the PL will all want this to end very soon because it is, at best, an unnecessary nuissance, or at worst, an attempt to set a very dangerous precedent where private property ownership is challenged by rioting consumers and is the football's equivalent of the Capitol Hill insurrection. What's next? Overthrow the Coca-Cola Company management because Coke consumers do not like their advertising model?

What do I think is going to happen? The club will invite several protester representatives to "constructive dialogue talks" which will take place for a while and then they will create a new structure within the club for something like "supporter stakeholder supervision" which will be sold as a reasonable compromise as the owners have listened to fans and have taken actions to ensure their voice continues to be heard and is part of the club going forward.
Spoken like a true boot licker. Or someone that stamps the boot on others.
 

Pickle85

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Well perhaps you can protest without really making it clear what your expectation is but it is less likely to have any effect. Even as a fan I struggle to really figure out what an acceptable way out of our current situation would be for fans. Would investing $500m in facilities and another $500m in the squad be fine? Would transferring the debt to personal assets rather than club assets be sufficient? Would selling the club to Saudis for $4bn resolve this mess?
I take your point, for sure, but I don't think putting those kinds of definitive KPIs (for want of a better term) on it is necessarily helpful. I do agree that more clarity/unity of vision among supporters would be useful though.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
Dec 21, 2014
Messages
11,420
Location
Manchester
The problem with that argument is that SAF was in charge for at least half of those years and I don't remember him saying bad things about the Glazers. Furthermore, one would think he would let loose after he left and speak the truth if the owners were that bad.

Eight years were ruined because of poor manager selections and poor transfers. Maybe the Glazers are at fault for some of that, not all of it though.
The glazers have taken 2 billion pounds out of the club.