Lebowski
Full Member
Yeah, it's an oddity of the Glazer takeover that being a United supporter can now mean trying to wrap your head around PIK loans, Cayman Island tax laws and corporate equity fundraising.Sh!t like this is what I was alluding to earlier.
1. These two posters are around 88% aligned.
2. To the average joe, this is all Greek to them.
And the Glazer/Woodward can and will take advantage of #2 if needs be.
At some point I'd love to write a small tome on each aspect of their ownership and why I think it's relatively unusual in comparison to other clubs to try and counter the idea that's popped up a few times in this thread of 'it's all fine, stop over reacting. You guys just don't understand corporate finance'. However ultimately I think it's common knowledge to most people that the Glazer's primary concern is extracting wealth for themselves and that our current economic system is set up so that wealthy people can do this through increasingly complex but perfectly legal means.
Whether you have a problem with it comes down to your politics and moral outlook I suppose. A radical free market adherent will have no issues with a foreign family buying a football club as a vehicle to increase their own wealth, whereas on the other end of the spectrum some people will consider the concept of United being the property of any small group of individuals as being deeply immoral.
Even parking the legality and morals, the Overton window on this stuff is interesting too. As our stagnation has continued, it seems to have become rarer to read a United fan argue that their ownership has been a net positive for the club. They've also been getting an absolute battering in the UK press over the last year or so, with a regularity and strength that I can't recall since back when the takeover was originally mooted.