Never understood the hate for the Glazers since 2013

[Deery]

A lot of money is invested into squad.

Money has been invested yeah but not to the extent that a Barca or Real invest to maintain top of the league and in champions league contention every year.

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Not seen a Glazer thread for ages!

im going to let this unravel.

to be honest, I’m indifferent.

United sold its soul when we listed on the stock exchange. It’s then a business to the owners. Most clubs are the same these days.

they aren’t the worst owners a club could have.

The plc move was controversial but the club was still in the hands of people the loved the club and want it to be a successful as possible. Yes the plc was a money motivated decision, but just look at who ran the club in the 90s and early 2000s, still football people who'd generally had a long history with the club.

The Glazer's don't care what happens to United in a football sense, just as long as Woody balances the books.

 

[Sky1981]

Even if we won 3 treble people would say ronaldo money would get us 4

 

[Flying high]

'We could have worse ownership'

I'm not sure that's true. As it is there's a huge amount of resentment towards them, and they know it. How much resentment there is going forward will be carefully calculated and managed like everything else, to be just low enough for there not to be an uprising. They spend as much money as they feel they have to, while removing as much as they think they can get away with.

 

[Denis' cuff]

Wum thread

feck off

 

[downunder red]

Glazers/Woodward/432JuanMata OUT !!

 

[Maticmaker]

For most (if not all) United fans, we still see it as 'our club' when in truth it never was, unless you happen to be one of the shareowner/fans (ousted by the Glazers), or one of the Edwards family who owned it previously.

The reality is that Manchester United, especially under SAF, wasn't just a football club it was, as a quoted company, an under invested/valued asset, with a potential to become a large 'Cash Cow'.

That's what the Glazers have done, they paid (borrowed money) £0.8B, then 'grew the asset' to around £3.1B now. Ed Woodward was their golden boy, and upped the sponsorship side of the business, being tremendously successful world wide.

Football 'success' is a means to an end for the owners; half the Glazer clan seems to have thrown in the towel/cashed out their chips, whichever way you want to look at it, but the remaining three Glazer owners do seem to have some interest in the clubs football future, as well as its profitability.

Perhaps the biggest mistake the Glazers have made was in not recognising the clubs success(in 90's/00's) was virtually down to one man SAF, he was in fact the main 'asset' the Glazers bought and because they didn't recognise (at least sufficiently) his intrinsic value to the running of Manchester United, they let him go without having a properly thought out succession plan.

The rest as they say is history and they are still playing catch up!

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

The plc move was controversial but the club was still in the hands of people the loved the club and want it to be a successful as possible. Yes the plc was a money motivated decision, but just look at who ran the club in the 90s and early 2000s, still football people who'd generally had a long history with the club.

The Glazer's don't care what happens to United in a football sense, just as long as Woody balances the books.

agree to an extent. But as soon as you list, then you have no control in the future.

 

[Matt851]

This thread must be a piss take

No actual united fan would be confused about why people hate the glazers

If anything i think united fans havent hated them enough (conpared with liverpool fans for example )or have struggled to maintain momentum with coordinated protests

 

[stw2022]

The PLC allowed a man like Rupert Murdoch to buy the club, which was only stopped because of government intervention.

The manager was constantly talking about financial limitations imposed by that regime.

None of that nullifies legitimate arguments against how the club is run today but these rose-tinted glasses when talking about club stewardship in the 90s is ridiculous.

For as long as most people can reminder we have been run for the benefit of businessmen and investors. It’s just a lie to pretend otherwise

 

[Steve Bruce]

All I know for certain is they are miles better than the Liverpool owners, who seem to receive praise from all corners despite purely lucking out on Klopp. They aren’t even spending now despite winning the Chanpions League and League title. Can you imagine the uproar if the Glaziers did that?

Rubbish.....

Liverpool where about to go out of business after hicks & Gillette.

They took them over wiped their debt, they had a poor overpaid aging squad, a stadium that was undersized, training facilities that where beyond out of date, no medical department to talk of, they had very little income from sponsorship & advertising etc.

They literally came in & transformed their club from top to bottom. They've came in and improved every facet of the club & brought them into the 21st century.

We're still hundreds of millions in debt & we have fortunes to spend to get our stadium & other facilities up to scratch. Glazers are leaving us to rot. FSG are still looking to improve their club e.g. They're looking to improve Anfield further & have moved to their new training ground this season.

How anyone can defend the cretins that own united is beyond me

 

[Spoony]

They've also neglected the stadium. It's becoming a relic.

 

[Abusian]

Probably going to be murdered but I really don’t get it. I agree beforehand when they put the club into debt to purchase us and if it wasn’t for the greatness of SAF we probably would of won feck all during them years.

But since SAF has retired we have spend over 1 billion on transfers and during this time when it got bad all the fans turned on them and Ed. Now I understand Ed getting hated as he is the one negotiating in and outs but I doubt the Glazers even know half the players we bought over the last 7-8 years.

They bought the club(shouldn’t of been allowed put us into debt for it) and too them yes it is a business but they have invested heavily over the last few years not really their fault Ed and our previous bought crap.

Can someone fill me in why you dislike them especially in recent times ?

They’ve used our revenues to prop up their failing real estate projects in Florida. While other owners have invested in their clubs, the Glasers have stripped money out of ours at a time when major investment is needed, particularly at OT. A blogger called Swiss Ramble did a scathing piece on it, may be worth a read...

 

[ForeverRed1]

That is true but I got a scenario if we continued to spend money like we have a sign a RW a CB and a ST in the summer then went on too win the league and say SF of the CL and we were 400m in debt would you care ?

yes! We are the wealthiest self sufficient club in the world pretty much (take away oil rich clubs) how can you justify the club being that much in debt?

the glazers line their own pockets and use the club as a cash cow for other business and endeavours.
We shouldn’t be in debt, full stop.

The money they have spent from the club, could of been used for the stadium, which is in massive need of renovation. Better training facilities. We’re behind a fair few clubs in this respect now. Go look at city, Tottenham, arsenal for example.

the clubs has nothing to show for the debt it’s in.

 

[macheda14]

There are worse owners out there and we do see quite major investment in the squad. BUT they saddled our club with significant debt that we have to pay every year and they take out quite a big chunk of change. Our revenues mean we should be able to spend far more than we do.

 

[RonaldoVII]

Imagine how much money we'd have to spend each season without them leeches sucking it out

 

[GoldTrafford99]

I think people feel we should be a super power like Real or Barca and a lot more money should be invested in the squad to purchase better players and managers.

Well then they don't understand that we turnover more money than them... and they only reason Barca and Real have big money, is because they get an unfair slice of teh TV money. Whereas the Premier League TV is shared equally among clubs. In Spain, the more you're shown, the more you get paid. Barca and Real are shown more than any other club...

United turnover a lot and a fair per centage of that turnover is invested back into the squad.

I don't think anyone can blame the Glazers for their efforts in investing in the first team.

What they can blame the Glazers for is putting Ed Woodward in charge of our football club. He goddamn nearly ruined it with his 'Chelsea' approach of buying big name players and hiring big name managers. Now, thankfully, he has learned from his mistakes and is overseeing a long-term project with a young fantastic manager... and buying young, promising players.

 

[0le]

I thought the club spent its own money and the Glazers just took out profits.

 

[Tom Cato]

The Glazers have done a few things that no other club in the Premier League (That I know of, if Im mistaken please do correct me and throw me a source, I'd like to read up) - Saddled the club with debt, which puts the club at a calculated risk.

The Glazer family take share dividends out of the club, being the only owners in the Premier League that does this.

Both the enormous payable loan interests and the dividends take money OUT of the club. The Glazer family have not invested any of their own money into the club. We are strictly loan financed as per the takeover, and now during Covid a new loan has been taken out as a safety net. The Glazer family did have liability for the loans that funded the takeover of the club, but thats a non factor now.

The clubs finances are incredibly complex with several loans, interest structure and various creditlines issued over the years, so my reply to this is to put it bluntly: A answer that requires elaboration. But for example, about 10 years ago, Manchester United used £70m of the clubs finances to pay off the rest of the PIK loans that incurred a massive interest rate on the clubs debts.

And ever since, the clubs revenue has been used to pay off the annual interest on the loan, as well as pay the Glazers dividends to the tune of £20million or so per year.

In short: Manchester United is the only club in football that is being used as a dividend bank for its owners.

The money we are allowed to spend is generated by the club itself and financed throug its own operation. The owners do no invest a penny of their own money. So the quick answer to why they are shitty owners: Because they take more from the club than they give.

.

 

[Deery]

Well then they don't understand that we turnover more money than them... and they only reason Barca and Real have big money, is because they get an unfair slice of teh TV money. Whereas the Premier League TV is shared equally among clubs. In Spain, the more you're shown, the more you get paid. Barca and Real are shown more than any other club...

United turnover a lot and a fair per centage of that turnover is invested back into the squad.

I don't think anyone can blame the Glazers for their efforts in investing in the first team.

What they can blame the Glazers for is putting Ed Woodward in charge of our football club. He goddamn nearly ruined it with his 'Chelsea' approach of buying big name players and hiring big name managers. Now, thankfully, he has learned from his mistakes and is overseeing a long-term project with a young fantastic manager... and buying young, promising players.

Well if you think what we could have had if the Glazers would have invested the money on the best quality players to compete for the highest accolades instead of scrimping on the next best thing before realising it went tits up. There’s also the stadium that could be doing with a totally new revamp. I think to be one of the biggest clubs in the world and still be stuck in Europa League every year speaks volumes about the owners.

 

[Ali Dia]

They are horrible parasitic owners and while they pay themselves handsomely the least they could do is manage us correctly and reinvest the clubs money back into the club the academy and the fecking stadium.

 

[Lentwood]

I can understand it. The Glazers turned arguably the clear 2nd-best team in Europe over a 4/5 year period into also-rans and saddled a previously profitable club with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt in the process.

Whilst it's absolutely 100% true that the Glazers HAVE clearly been willing to spend money over the last 7/8 years, it is also absolutely 100% undeniable that the dangerous levels of debt taken on in PIK loans between 2005 and 2010 caused a level of penny-pinching in the transfer market which we have been paying for ever since.

By the time Moyes took over, the club was in major need of investment. The likes of Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Rooney, Giggs, RvP and Scholes had done admirably to win the title in 2013 but were all well, well past their prime and left the next man a huge rebuilding job.

I think if I were to taken a fair and unbiased view of it from the outside, I would say that the Glazers are now 'good' owners but they have been almost the sole cause of 6/7 years of suffering on the pitch, not to mention the continued negligence of Old Trafford.

 

[Crustanoid]

They only spend money on the which is made off the back of the United name and history.

And even then, they don’t spend all of it and trouser tens of millions for their own pockets yearly.

They are terrible owners and do not help the club reach its footballing potential one bit. Our current position is in spite of them, not because of them.

 

[GoldTrafford99]

Well if you think what we could have had if the Glazers would have invested the money on the best quality players to compete for the highest accolades instead of scrimping on the next best thing before realising it went tits up. There’s also the stadium that could be doing with a totally new revamp. I think to be one of the biggest clubs in the world and still be stuck in Europa League every year speaks volumes about the owners.

Sorry - you think our downfall is to do with theGlazers not spending on quality players?

Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Falcoa, Schweinsteiger, Di Maria, Mkhitaryan, Sanchez... the whole bloody philosophy since Fergie retired (and Moyes was sacked) was to sign quality players... that's why we went tits up. It was all short-termism bullshit... you can add messrs Van Gaal and Mouirnho to that list of big names. You can also add this fact: No other team in world football has spent more on transfer fees since 2014 than Manchester United.

So your argument falls flat on its face.

The philosophy was wrong after Sir Alex left; not the fact that the Glazers wouldn't spend.

The truth is they were too eager to spend, too eager driven by numbnuts Woodward who was DESPERATE to win a first league title. He was playing 'win me one now!' - Chelsea style. What we need is, build me a squad to not just win one. We are now doing that. We were doing the opposite for the first six years post Ferguson. We were spending silly money. On silly players. I mean, just look at that list of names above. It's grotesque.

 

[Ali Dia]

They only spend money on the which is made off the back of the United name and history.

And even then, they don’t spend all of it and trouser tens of millions for their own pockets yearly.

They are terrible owners and do not help the club reach its footballing potential one bit. Our current position is in spite of them, not because of them.

absolutely and ole seems the only manager since Fergie able to play the longer game and slowly put a team together despite the glazers meddling and dithering

 

[The Irish Connection]

some great replies that highlight the leeches.

they have 'owned' the club for 16 years and the debt has barely moved.

ole is perfect for them. a cheap option who has learned from fergie. if we win things it will be in spite of them and the fans will always see him as a legend.

what they have done with the club is exploitation of a grey area, but ethically it's criminal.

glazers /Woodward out!

 

[Deery]

Sorry - you think our downfall is to do with theGlazers not spending on quality players?

Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Falcoa, Schweinsteiger, Di Maria, Mkhitaryan, Sanchez... the whole bloody philosophy since Fergie retired (and Moyes was sacked) was to sign qiality players... that's why we went tits up. It was all short-termism bullshit... you can add messrs Van Gaal and Mouirnho to that list. You can also add this fact: No other team in world football has spent more on transfer fees since 2014 than Manchester United.

So your argument falls flat on its face.

The philosophy was wrong after Sir Alex left; not the fact that the Glazers wouldn't spend.

Buying a marquee player here and there to fix an entire squad is not investing in the squad more than half those players you mentioned were past there best.

We sold probably the best player in the world to start with and never replaced any of our star players with the best out there.

Barca and Real invest in the best of the best whenever they need to and we just didn’t do that and it’s why it has taken so long to get back to some form of stability.

Now to mention the way they bought the club and put us in massive amounts of debt and still take out millions upon millions every year.

And to still have money men in charge of football is just crazy.

As someone said how on earth do you take the best team in the world to Europa League standard for so long is beyond me.

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

Money has been invested yeah but not to the extent that a Barca or Real invest to maintain top of the league and in champions league contention every year.

We’ve invested more. Barca are a very poorly run club. Why do you think Messi was so annoyed last season? Real Madrid sign Galatico’s but cut corners on actually building a squad.

 

[GoldTrafford99]

Buying a marquee player here and there to fix an entire squad is not investing in the squad more than half those players you mentioned were past there best.

We sold probably the best player in the world to start with and never replaced any of our star players with the best out there.

Barca and Real invest in the best of the best whenever they need to and we just didn’t do that and it’s why it has taken so long to get back to some form of stability.

Now to mention the way they bought the club and put us in massive amounts of debt and still take out millions upon millions every year.

And to still have money men in charge of football is just crazy.

As someone said how on earth do you take the best team in the world to Europa League standard for so long is beyond me.

Eh, because the greatest manager that ever lived - who had spent 27 years at the club and defined it - retired.

Fergie practically ran the whole club - we all know he did.

And do you know who replaced him running the club?

Not David MOYES. But Ed Woodward.

And Ed Woodward didn't wanna play the long-game and got so desperate to win a title that he bought a mess of a squad. An absolute mess.

We are not in the Europa because the Glazers won't spend. We are in the Europa because Woodward detoured from everything Ferguson had built.

Most of you guys are arguing the wrong point. You can't argue the Glazers aren't investing enough in our squad when they have spent more than any other owners in the world on transfers. The argument is that they succeeded Fergie & Gill with Ed Woodward. It has only been since Ole came in that Woodward has realised where he went wrong/ He was desperately trying to buy a league title. Solskjaer on his first meeting with Woodward showed him a four year plan of where we should be by 2022 so that we could form long-term success and not a rushed title...

Blame the stragety; a strategy that went against everything Ferguson had built. DOn't blame the lack of spending on the first team, when that is a world record.

 

[Deery]

We’ve invested more. Barca are a very poorly run club. Why do you think Messi was so annoyed last season? Real Madrid sign Galatico’s but cut corners on actually building a squad.

But if we would have just done the job right in the first place we wouldn’t have needed to keep going back and trying to fix it.

 

[Dve]

Probably going to be murdered but I really don’t get it. I agree beforehand when they put the club into debt to purchase us and if it wasn’t for the greatness of SAF we probably would of won feck all during them years.

But since SAF has retired we have spend over 1 billion on transfers and during this time when it got bad all the fans turned on them and Ed. Now I understand Ed getting hated as he is the one negotiating in and outs but I doubt the Glazers even know half the players we bought over the last 7-8 years.

They bought the club(shouldn’t of been allowed put us into debt for it) and too them yes it is a business but they have invested heavily over the last few years not really their fault Ed and our previous bought crap.

Can someone fill me in why you dislike them especially in recent times ?

Because of lack of results, it´s simple as that, really. Just look around, and you´ll this is the most common thing in football: the fans hate the owners of their club.

 

[Deery]

Eh, because the greatest manager that ever lived - who had spent 27 years at the club and defined it.

Fergie practically ran the whole club - we all know he did.

And do you know who replaced him running the club?

Not David MOYES. But Ed Woodward.

And Ed Woodward didn't wanna play the long-game and got so desperate to win a title that he bought a mess of a squad. An absolute mess.

We are not in the Europa because the Glazers won't spend. We are in the Europa because Woodward detoured from everything Ferguson had built.

And that’s why I said to have money men in charge of football is just crazy, that surely lands a the owners door not Woodward but then again they make the Glazers tons of money and that matters more.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Wum thread

feck off

Enough said! This.

 

[Zen86]

But if we would have just done the job right in the first place we wouldn’t have needed to keep going back and trying to fix it.

I think this was a bit of naivety from Woodward.

United was a club where the manager (SAF) had complete autonomy to do what he pleases, and effectively control all football aspects of the club. It was all well and good when SAF were around, but Woodward’s problem was he continued this model with Moyes, LVG, and Mourinho. These managers were either not up to the task, or didn’t have the best interests of Manchester United in mind. Hence the calamitous transfer policy and degradation of our youth strategy.

 

[Deery]

I think this was a bit of naivety from Woodward.

United was a club where the manager (SAF) had complete autonomy to do what he pleases, and effectively control all football aspects of the club. It was all well and good when SAF were around, but Woodward’s problem was he continued this model with Moyes, LVG, and Mourinho. These managers were either not up to the task, or didn’t have the best interests of Manchester United in mind. Hence the calamitous transfer policy and degradation of our youth strategy.

There’s been so many bad decisions tbh the owners should know how to run a football club not just generate profits which they seem more interested in than success.

In saying that we’re actually in the most stable period we’ve been in for years so I guess they do some things right as well.

 

[Zen86]

There’s been so many bad decisions tbh the owners should know how to run a football club not just generate profits which they seem more interested in than success.

In saying that we’re actually in the most stable period we’ve been in for years so I guess they do some things right as well.

I doubt the Glazers have much to do with the running of the club. Fergie leaving was a massive blow to us as we expected, but Gill leaving at the same time compounded the problem many times over.

Woodward signed the wrong managers and then trusted them too much, but hopefully there’s lessons learned now. He’s not evil at the end of the day, nobody wants to go to work and do a shit job. He didn’t have any experience or know how of running a football club and obviously those he recruited weren’t much better.

 

[Water Melon]

The worst thing that could have happened to the club, happened unfortunately. Parasitic owners who put a massive debt on the club's shoulders with their puppet who knows feck all about football club management.

 

[Deery]

I doubt the Glazers have much to do with the running of the club. Fergie leaving was a massive blow to us as we expected, but Gill leaving at the same time compounded the problem many times over.

Woodward signed the wrong managers and then trusted them too much, but hopefully there’s lessons learned now. He’s not evil at the end of the day, nobody wants to go to work and do a shit job. He didn’t have any experience or know how of running a football club and obviously those he recruited weren’t much better.

Yeah I agree with you no one wants to fail and recruitment has been terrible, hopefully we keep going from strength to strength and all the business with debt and so on can be put to the back of the mind.

 

[KungPaoChicken]

Is the glazers perfect? No, but they are far from the worst there is either. What a lot of people seem to forget is that football in most cases are a business, not a charity. Most owners look at their football club as an investment, they want to get more money out of the club into their own pocket compared to what they put in. Some owners have a very short perspective, while others are in it more long term. Going to a supporter owned structure like bayern, real madrid and barcelone i do not think is feasible. Dont think a club easily can transition from a privatly owned club to a supported owned club especially at a club as large as manchester united. That leaves us with owners from teams like PSG, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal etc. I would pick Glazers over Joe Lewis/Daniel Levy, Sheikh Mansouri(abu dabi), Roman Abramovich, Kroenke, Nasser Al-Khelaif (quatar)

 

[Someone]

Saying the Glazers are better than others is like saying diabetes is better than cancer. You don't really want either. They don't interfere much but that's mainly because they don't care about football and let woody do whatever as long the club keeps making money.

We're still able to rebuild because the club still makes a ton of money.

I don't care if other clubs have worse owners, it doesn't have to be that bad. Clubs in Germany have a better ownership model.