General Glazer Discussion | To receive the majority of £11m stakeholder dividend today

Loon

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Why are some folk having a hard time understanding how much money the club should have to spend (or waste) as opposed to how much money the club actually has to spend (waste) under the Glazers?
 
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Gator Nate

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I think the real problem is that they left Woodward in charge for so long when was obvious things were going downhill. Either they weren't really aware or they just didn't care - the results are the same. As a Bucs fan, I don't think Jason Licht would still have a job except for the fact that he hired Bruce Arians and then lucked into Tom Brady. He was consistently missing more than hitting until those two things happened. Woodward never did really hit on anything, but then the club stayed just at a high-enough level to keep the axe from falling.

Whatever happened behind the scenes this time must have been different - the Glazers did not have to listen to anyone's advice but changes are obviously being made.

As for the money spent on the team (as opposed to other facets of the club), it's undeniable that they've allowed money to be spent like drunken sailors. That they weren't paying attention to the results is still a sign of bad team ownership.
 

Lecland07

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People complain about them using leverage to buyout the club, but a lot of people don't know that it probably would have been more expensive had they bought it without a loan. Had the Glazers bought the club with no use of leverage, do you think they would be happy with only £20m dividends per year? Not a chance; they would want to pay back their investment in a fairly quick period of time.

They would have paid about £800m for Manchester United. That would take 40 years to cover with only £20m dividends, and that is ignoring tax on dividends so it will take even longer than that. You would be looking at much higher dividends as they would want to make a profit. Also, you would have to remember that they would have had to sell shares in another company to raise these funds, so they would have lost potential revenue from those. That would put an even bigger onus on dividend and value generation on Manchester United.

All of this would be true for most owners, unless you want a Qatar-like owner that will plough money into the club. No other owner is going to put that much money in and not expect a large return. The reason why the dividends of the Glazers is low is because they bought the club using leverage.
 

clarkydaz

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I think the real problem is that they left Woodward in charge for so long when was obvious things were going downhill. Either they weren't really aware or they just didn't care - the results are the same. As a Bucs fan, I don't think Jason Licht would still have a job except for the fact that he hired Bruce Arians and then lucked into Tom Brady. He was consistently missing more than hitting until those two things happened. Woodward never did really hit on anything, but then the club stayed just at a high-enough level to keep the axe from falling.

Whatever happened behind the scenes this time must have been different - the Glazers did not have to listen to anyone's advice but changes are obviously being made.
Surely this revolves around woodward leaving though. If Glazers had their way he would still be in charge. Same with this 'overhaul' of the squad, is down to players leaving the club not a statement of intent.
 

Tyrion

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The quote itself isn't really wrong, we have one of the highest net spends in the entire Europe imever since Fergie left.

If anything im more spite that they didn't spend when Fergie was around, we could have possibly won 7 straight and maybe another ucl title to our names.
Exactly. They've spent since LVG was appointed. During the Fergie era, I think they were happy to do things as cheaply as possible.
 

Thoms

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Spent more cnuts. Time for ETH to win a title. 120M won’t cut it.
 

Bwuk

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They’ve spent less of their own personal money than anyone on here who’s bought a ticket to go to a match has.
 

Abraxas

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Avram: "We've always spent the [minimum] money needed to buy [mediocre] new players"
We've spent a vast sum on players and wages over the Glazer years.

Let's separate the truth from fiction. Poor owners, certainly a valid opinion. Presiding over incompetence, definitely. Indirectly contributing to poor signings through their ineptitude, quite possibly. But to say they've spent the minimum is ludicrous, if we've spent the minimum god knows what scraps other clubs must be operating with.
 

Ronaldo's ego

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We've spent a vast sum on players and wages over the Glazer years.

Let's separate the truth from fiction. Poor owners, certainly a valid opinion. Presiding over incompetence, definitely. Indirectly contributing to poor signings through their ineptitude, quite possibly. But to say they've spent the minimum is ludicrous, if we've spent the minimum god knows what scraps other clubs must be operating with.
Was gonna post my own response to this thread but your post sums it up for me.
 

BlueHaze

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We've spent a vast sum on players and wages over the Glazer years.

Let's separate the truth from fiction. Poor owners, certainly a valid opinion. Presiding over incompetence, definitely. Indirectly contributing to poor signings through their ineptitude, quite possibly. But to say they've spent the minimum is ludicrous, if we've spent the minimum god knows what scraps other clubs must be operating with.
That's the entire point of their abyssmall ownership it's spending big amounts without even sorting out the most important positions at the top of the club first. Having sheer incompetent people in charge of transfers and managerial hirings with not a shred of planning put in place. Knee jerk decisions, contract extensions to players who was never good enough. Contract extension for Jose after he started flirting with PSG and extension with Ole after he achieved nothing.

I think we are top 3 biggest spenders without a single thing to show for it.
 

Edwards6

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What sane businessman would put their OWN Money into a business like it's nothing. To run a successful business you use the profit money that the business makes. It's how business works.

We (as in the CAF) slate the Glazers for NOT doing this but at the same time criticise Chelsea for 'buying' their way to the top through the owners money buying players. We can't have it both ways.

You either want them or don't want them to do it.

That being said, now Chelsea, if I'm reading reports correctly are BILLIONS in debt to Roman. Not a measly 4-500M. BILLIONS.

So what is it you want? Owners aren't going to put their own money into the business for FREE are they.
We don't need an owner using there own money for transfers like Abramovic but we should expect the clubs revenue be re-invested into the club.
The Glazers have taken out over £1b for loan repayments and its still nowhere near being payed off!
 

Abraxas

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That's the entire point of their abyssmall ownership it's spending big amounts without even sorting out the most important positions at the top of the club first. Having sheer incompetent people in charge of transfers and managerial hirings with not a shred of planning put in place. Knee jerk decisions, contract extensions to players who was never good enough. Contract extension for Jose after he started flirting with PSG and extension with Ole after he achieved nothing.

I think we are top 3 biggest spenders without a single thing to show for it.
Agreed.

However, clearly it's not ridiculous what Avram Glazer says here. We can dispute the use of the term "we" considering the nature of their ownership, but I think that's neither here nor there, the bottom line is to identify whether money has been made available.

The fact is he was asked a pretty silly question considering we have spent plenty of money and we've just hired a new manager that will expect backing, it is already implied that money will be spent this summer.

It would have been more useful to put a more difficult question to him, but he probably wouldn't have answered. The whole transfer money argument is just a complete falsehood that distracts from the real issue of the ownership and makes our fans seem like spoilt brats.
 

Edwards6

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So they bought the club using £550m loans, they've taken out over £1b and the debt is still over £500m.
And people are defending them because they let us spend some of our revenue
 
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Lemoor

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People complain about them using leverage to buyout the club, but a lot of people don't know that it probably would have been more expensive had they bought it without a loan. Had the Glazers bought the club with no use of leverage, do you think they would be happy with only £20m dividends per year? Not a chance; they would want to pay back their investment in a fairly quick period of time.

They would have paid about £800m for Manchester United. That would take 40 years to cover with only £20m dividends, and that is ignoring tax on dividends so it will take even longer than that. You would be looking at much higher dividends as they would want to make a profit. Also, you would have to remember that they would have had to sell shares in another company to raise these funds, so they would have lost potential revenue from those. That would put an even bigger onus on dividend and value generation on Manchester United.

All of this would be true for most owners, unless you want a Qatar-like owner that will plough money into the club. No other owner is going to put that much money in and not expect a large return. The reason why the dividends of the Glazers is low is because they bought the club using leverage.
As far as I know United is the only club to pay regular dividends in premier league. At least it was the case a year ago.
Also, you're completely missing the fact that they own the club. Buying an asset worth 800 million for 800 million doesn't mean that you lost any money and United gained a ton in valuation since 2005 despite the fact that they were taking the dividends, saddled the club with ridiculous amounts of debt and despite of how incompetent they are as owners.


It would have been more useful to put a more difficult question to him, but he probably wouldn't have answered. The whole transfer money argument is just a complete falsehood that distracts from the real issue of the ownership and makes our fans seem like spoilt brats.
Did anyone manage to get any subtantive answer from any of the Glazers since the takeover? To be honest, I was kind of surprised that he has a voice at all.
 

Leftback99

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We're going to be left behind by the top 4 this summer with Newcastle and others catching up. The usual £100m ish, will be nowhere near enough to get this squad up to a competive level.
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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He's right. As others have said, more often than not, the money has unfortunately been spent on the wrong players without any real plan behind it.

Hopefully, ten Hag has a plan in place, thus knowing what type of players he needs to bring in.

All it takes is one or two good windows and we're back on track.
 

Abraxas

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As far as I know United is the only club to pay regular dividends in premier league. At least it was the case a year ago.
Also, you're completely missing the fact that they own the club. Buying an asset worth 800 million for 800 million doesn't mean that you lost any money and United gained a ton in valuation since 2005 despite the fact that they were taking the dividends, saddled the club with ridiculous amounts of debt and despite of how incompetent they are as owners.



Did anyone manage to get any subtantive answer from any of the Glazers since the takeover? To be honest, I was kind of surprised that he has a voice at all.
It looked like he felt compelled to answer more than anything!
 

lex talionis

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Let's work it out (excluding youth/free transfers), googled for fees

2013/14
Fellaini - £27.5m
Mata - £37.1M

Running total - £64.6m

2014/15
Shaw - £30m
Herrera - ~£30m
Rojo - £16m
Di Maria - £59.7m
Blind - £14m

RT - £214.3m

2015/16
Depay - £25m
Darmian - £10.8m
Schweinsteiger - £9m
Schneiderlin - £31.5m
Martial - £36m (base)

RT - £326.6m

2016/17
Bailly - £34.2m
Mkhitaryan - £26.3m
Pogba - £89m

RT - £476.1m

2017/18
Lindelof - £31m
Lukaku - £75m
Matic - £40m
Sanchez - £30.6m

RT - £652.7m

2018/19
Dalot - £19m
Fred - £52m
Grant - £1.5m

RT - £725.2m

2019/20
James - £16m
Wan-Bissaka - £50m
Maguire - £80m
Bruno - £47m (base)

RT - £918.2m

2020/21
VdB - £35m
Telles - £15.4m
Pellistri - £9m
Amad - £37.2m

RT - £1.104b

2021/22
Sancho - £73m
Varane - £34m
Ronaldo - £13m (base)

RT - £1.1348b

So, yeah...

Plus signing on fees and wages
£1.1348b

Incredible
 

cyril C

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The statement is correct and there is nothing wrong with it. We just spent it on the wrong players. Diaz instead of maguire, Robertson instead of AWB or Dalot or Telles, Ferdnandino or Rodri instead of Fred, Mane instead of Valencia. Laporte instead of Lindelof. The list can go on and on. When you have 99% failure on recruitment, we should have saved the money and promote academy players.
 

Yakuza_devils

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People complain about them using leverage to buyout the club, but a lot of people don't know that it probably would have been more expensive had they bought it without a loan. Had the Glazers bought the club with no use of leverage, do you think they would be happy with only £20m dividends per year? Not a chance; they would want to pay back their investment in a fairly quick period of time.

They would have paid about £800m for Manchester United. That would take 40 years to cover with only £20m dividends, and that is ignoring tax on dividends so it will take even longer than that. You would be looking at much higher dividends as they would want to make a profit. Also, you would have to remember that they would have had to sell shares in another company to raise these funds, so they would have lost potential revenue from those. That would put an even bigger onus on dividend and value generation on Manchester United.

All of this would be true for most owners, unless you want a Qatar-like owner that will plough money into the club. No other owner is going to put that much money in and not expect a large return. The reason why the dividends of the Glazers is low is because they bought the club using leverage.
The question is why the UK government allowed such kind of ownership for a football club? The Glazers could have easily bankrupted the club without SAF magic. And the infamous no value in the market. Really we could be Leeds United playing in Championship or lower.

And when the club was not bankrup the fans get fecked over and over again paying their debts all these years while watching them totally neglecting football side. Only the Glazers family are reaping the benefits.

Many still have doubts on how they run the club. Ed to his pal Arnold, Murtough and Fletcher (now I think Rangnick is out of the picture) are tasked to transform one of the biggest club in the world where they have no experience of doing it, appointed wrong interim manager without any support or plan whatsoever to make it work. Hope the board learn fast and support ETH properly.

We are not asking for Qatar, Saudi or Abu Dhabi type of owners, we are asking for a more competent owner with a plan to run the club and who are also willing to invest more of the club OWN money back to the club. Not someone taking 1 to 2 billions out of the club while running the club like a clown. If they were successful, many fans maybe appeased even though the Glazers are bleeding the club of billions of pounds.

After all these shits and when they plan to sell the club and feck off they still stand to profit billions of pounds. I understand that this maybe normal for business world but we are talking about a football club here. The Glazers as an "investor" in UK bring zero value instead saddled the club with debts.

UK government can act decisively on Chelsea's ownership and why not setting up a new ownership law across the FA? To give the fans more power? The fans are paying for everything and yet being treated like shit.
 
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432JuanMata

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Avram: "We've always spent the [minimum] money needed to buy [mediocre] new players"
You be right if this was 2009 but since Pep has been at city we have spent the same as them. The Glazers main problem now is them hiring people on the board that are all about getting commercial deals and know nothing about football.

These changes this summer hopefully change this
 

babablue

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Thanks.

I can not comprehend how they bought us. Leveraged a loan against us to buy us.
In simplistic terms, think of it like a mortgage. You are buying a house, the bank pays the previous owners, and you pay the bank in installments, with the house itself as collateral. Pretty much what they did.
 

babablue

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My only problem with the Glazers is that they don't seem to care for sporting success. Leaving aside the debts and dividend, if it's true that we've spent as much as City, then City's success in that time is proof that it's enough.

Instead of talking about money spent, the question that should have been asked is if they understand why United fans were cheering another teams result, while their own team was losing.
 

babablue

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Except they don't pay it,United do and after 17 years of high interest payments I would my mortgage was getting paid off.
The PL seems to have banned this type of buyout now,obviously there are concerns
Except that they own the club, so they are the ones paying it. To take the mortgage analogy further, imagine that instead of buying a house to live in, you instead bought an office complex to rent out instead. In that case, the most likely plan would be to use the proceeds from rent to pay the mortgage, again similar to what is happening with the club.

Also, as an aside, even though the debt amount seems to have not gone down, the increase in revenue of the club means that the repayments are less of a burden over time.
 

ROFLUTION

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I just hate the argument that they own the club so they can do whatever they want.

Feck no, football is for the fans and players and lastly the owners. It's not like the club/company would earn money without the fans watching, so clearly it's a symbiosis
 

Yakuza_devils

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Except that they own the club, so they are the ones paying it. To take the mortgage analogy further, imagine that instead of buying a house to live in, you instead bought an office complex to rent out instead. In that case, the most likely plan would be to use the proceeds from rent to pay the mortgage, again similar to what is happening with the club.

Also, as an aside, even though the debt amount seems to have not gone down, the increase in revenue of the club means that the repayments are less of a burden over time.
If u want to take a huge mortgage on a property with high risks of making yourself bankrupt it's your own personal matter.

It's a different matter altogether owning a football club where you have 600 millions fans. Football clubs are more than businesses. That's why you have some passionate football fans as owners putting their own money into the club. At the very least you must be competent to run the club and be accountable to a few hundred millions people that are paying your debts. The same few hundred millions people could also make you 10 billions richer in the end if u decided to feck off.

Don't you think the fans deserve better? Initially we are served with no value in the market year in year out. Then a decade of unprecedented mismanagement by the board. Then the super league protest. The Glazers was forced to engage the fans and nothing being done since then
 

roonster09

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Yup. We signed Fellaini over Thiago who Moyes rejected and Schneiderlin/Schweinsteiger over Kroos who LVG rejected. Before later moaning he failed due to the club being too commercial and not signing him fecking Neymar.
Yeah, our planning and execution was so bad, no wonder we are so shit all these years. Van Gaal asked for players like Di Maria to play 4-3-3, we signed Di Maria and then he moans about players like Di Maria. He wanted to sign Muller which is just impossible and he moans about club for not signing Muller.
 

babablue

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If u want to take a huge mortgage on a property with high risks of making yourself bankrupt it's your own personal matter.

It's a different matter altogether owning a football club where you have 600 millions fans. Football clubs are more than businesses. That's why you have some passionate football fans as owners putting their own money into the club. At the very least you must be competent to run the club and be accountable to a few hundred millions people that are paying your debts. The same few hundred millions people could also make you 10 billions richer in the end if u decided to feck off.

Don't you think the fans deserve better? Initially we are served with no value in the market year in year out. Then a decade of unprecedented mismanagement by the board. Then the super league protest. The Glazers was forced to engage the fans and nothing being done since then
I definitely think we do, that's why I previously said the below

My only problem with the Glazers is that they don't seem to care for sporting success. Leaving aside the debts and dividend, if it's true that we've spent as much as City, then City's success in that time is proof that it's enough.

Instead of talking about money spent, the question that should have been asked is if they understand why United fans were cheering another teams result, while their own team was losing.
The difference between us and city is not financial, it's owner's intent. If the Glazers kept everything else the same, but hired the best people they can find, and let them know that they would pay with their jobs if the team wasn't successful, we would see a very rapid improvement.