I think irrespective of the figures the club needs a fresh start and the only way to achieve this is for the ownership to move on.
Saudi sports minister gives update on buying club from Glazers
- Thread starter Zlatattack
- Start date
The end game, realistically, is to sell - of course. Uncle Malc didn't acquire United because he admired Bobby Charlton. And his offspring don't care about football either.
Precisely when the moment to sell is considered opportune (enough) is an entirely different question, though. Can they boost the value of what they're holding further?
I hate the Glazers. And it's depressing watching United slide into the mid-table with such pizzazz. But to watch its ownership move over to pretty much the most evil government/ family on the planet? Don't think i could stomach that
American owners (Fenway Sports Group) have also shown they are good at football management. I’m not sure the nationality of our owners has any correlation to whether or not they will do a good job.
Not only that, I have no confidence in them actually being competent owners. Sure they'd fire Woodward, which would be amusing enough, but anything led by an egomaniac tyrant is to be treated with suspicion of the highest order.
Well it the current deal expires in 2021 and selling the club without one of the major revenue streams guaranteed will surely affect the value. In the summer we are likely to have no CL football and a shirt deal expiring in the summer in addition to dissatisfied fans who are in revolt - things arent as comfy as any of them would like to portray.
I think United will have difficulties in securing a shirt deal at a similar level and this could force their hand if there is an offer. Who is going to pay over £50m per year to be associated with a club that has descended to banter and meme levels which is also at war with its fan base? This is the time to escalate the protests and boycotts to sabotage their efforts aimed at securing a new deal.
Fair enough mate but even tanking may be overstating it a bit. Yes we are are not where we would like to be right now but very few clubs are competing at the level they would like to be. With United at least theres a very good chance we'll be back to winning things in the relative near future.
Save us Saudis!!
Yes but football goes in cycles and things can change very quickly. I’m not saying they will change for the better soon but it’s far from impossible either.
The Glazers aren’t great owners but they’re not the worst either. Everyone is currently lauding Liverpool’s owners but they similarly struggled until Klopp came along.
Even at was United under Edwards a great setup? Personally I feel it wasn’t yet it didn’t stop Ferguson achieving great things despite financial constraints. And even under the Glazers we had the most successful period in the clubs history.
So we may just need the right man in charge on the football side to turn things around.
Deary me indeed mate.
The phrase “a few years” is a subjective term. For you it might mean 2-3 years for me it might mean anything from 5-10 to 15 years which in the grand scheme of the clubs history is a few years.
I don't actually think the Glazers are bad either, just very passive. The problem is the guy they have running the club is not very good at doing it, at least on the football side of things. How many times have managers waited on Woodward to make a transfer? Look at how much our underperforming players a being paid aswell. No structure to it, no vision either. The way the club is set up currently, the manager does have a strong hand in identifying targets, but Woodward's role is to make sure those targets are gotten, at the right time for the right price and at the appropriate wage rate. This has not happened successfully during his run at the club. We have had issues selling inconsistent players ( which we are only now fixing) and replacing them when they need to be replaced. The Glazers gave him the money to spend on transfers, him squandering it time and time again on poor players and short term managers cannot be seen as their fault.
But if the Glazers let an unqualified man sink the club to embarassment and do nothing about it as long as they get paid, they are poor owners
Imagine the Saudis took over and decided to keep Woodward.
Fantastic analysis. You two guys should get a room.... and do a podcast.
The scenes, they would be something to behold.
Where the Glazers have been at fault is negligence when they have let Woodward get away with poor decisions for far too long without consequences. Failure was understandable on the Van Gaal and Moyes disasters but how he handled the post Mourinho transition was nothing short of disgraceful.
After Mourinho we had the chance to right the wrongs of the past past five seasons but he went on to prematurely appointing an unqualified manager who we are going to inevitably sack at a great cost and back tracked on putting a proper sports management structure above the manager. Now we have poor coaches, poor scouts and a ridiculously thin squad that's going to cost hundreds of millions to put right when we have just wasted a hundred odd million on a couple of incomplete defenders.
I agree with you on this. By any metric, Woodward has failed over a 5 year period, and his position at the club would normally come under review. If the Glazers were more proactive in the club's affairs, maybe Woodward would not have been able to perform as poorly as he has, at the same time It could be worse. We could also have owners that are too active and make poor decisions on issues they don't have sufficient knowledge about. Their passive behaviour was perfect under the Gill and Fergie regime, but has proven to be consequential now. The truth is, if woodward had set up a hierarchy that involved a director of football, we would still be dominant. We either need to get woodward pushed out or have him reform.
Just there to assure everyone that he will do his best in keeping Utd’s carbon footprint low by keeping them out of Europe.
I forgot to mention your post but very well put Simonhch. Totally share your view about the situation and Glazers possible next step.
As far as I can understand the owners has totally lost their belief and has at this moment no intentions to heavily or even moderate invest in new incoming players. The truth is right in front of us with January soon ending without any activities regarding strengthening an already thin squad.
I suspect that we will have two three years in front of us just trying to survive relegation if Ole continue to stays at the wheel. We will probably see two three senior players leaving every summer and being replaced with academy or cheaper options.
It can come down to a situation where the Glazers has to sell quite quick if they want some ROI on a decent level. Thats where I have my hopes. I have no problem with the Saudis as our new owners. If anything their presence will put the media spot light on them and their activities. I see that as a good thing because if we care about the Saudi Arabic region and their people any sort of tranparancy is good step in the right direction. Changes has to start somewhere. ,
I hate United that much at the moment that I’m starting to entertain the idea of these guys buying us out.
Think I need a break from football for a while...
Think I need a break from football for a while...
Don't want the Saudies never have.
The specific terms will be laid out in the credit agreement and they will vary from deal to deal. The standard market practice in a change of control of situation (i.e. if Glazers were to sell to another equity holder), would be for the credit facilities to come due and thus they have to be repaid. Whoever is buying the asset can arrange financing that takes out existing debt facilities with new ones (new terms, new pricing, new covenants, new Events of Default, new structure etc) or if they're paying cash then obviously will take out debt and pay the equity.
Source: 15 years in leveraged finance
Didn't want the Glazers never did.
Minority investors cannot be happy with returns:
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Manchester United Plc is the General Electric Co. of soccer.
Both are storied giants used to dominating their respective fields, who enjoyed their heyday in the 1990s. In Alex Ferguson and Jack Welch respectively, they had dominant leaders who set an all-but-impossible standard to follow (even if there are questions about what they left to their unfortunate successors). And in recent years, both have a track record of poor capital allocation that has seen them underperform their rivals.
Where Man Utd has spent hundreds of millions of pounds over the past eight years buying players such as French midfielder Paul Pogba and Belgian attacker Romelu Lukaku, GE went on a spending spree that included the 12.4 billion-euro ($13.8 billion) acquisition of Alstom SA’s power generation business. That deal’s entire value was ultimately written down.
When Jeff Immelt took over as GE’s chief executive officer in 2001, it was the biggest company in the S&P 500. Over his 16-year tenure, he spent some $200 billion buying companies, yet shareholders enjoyed annual returns of just 0.5%. In the same period, the S&P 500 was averaging returns of 7.4% a year.
Man Utd is much the same. After winning 12 English Premier League titles in 20 years, the club has won just one championship since its 2012 initial public offering. That’s even as it spent a net 740 million pounds ($965 million) through June 2019 buying new players. In the same period, its bitter rival Liverpool FC spent spent less than half that amount, yet was crowned European champion last year and is running away with the Premier League this season.
Soccer fans will argue all day that their club owners under-invest in the playing squad to milk the club for cash. Man Utd is owned by the American Glazer family and chants of “Glazers Out” are regularly heard at the team’s Old Trafford stadium. Fans accuse them of leveraging up the club and keeping the IPO proceeds for themselves.
The story for investors is just as grim. Since the IPO, Man Utd has returned 5.8% a year. Italy’s Juventus Football Club SpA, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund GmbH and AFC Ajax NV in the Netherlands, all publicly traded, have averaged returns of 22% in the same period.
Adding to the ignominy, the consulting firm Deloitte expects revenue at Man Utd, which has long challenged Spain’s Real Madrid and Barcelona for the title of the world’s most valuable soccer team, to fall as much as 11% this year, as failure to qualify for the European Champions League hurts sales. That could allow domestic rivals Manchester City FC and Liverpool to overtake it, knocking the Red Devils off the top spot in England for the first time since Deloitte began its Money League report on soccer 23 years ago.
The problem isn’t that Man Utd has skimped on player investment — the numbers show that it hasn’t, at least in recent years. But it has invested poorly. A useful point of comparison is Juventus, which occupies a similar status in Italy, having won more Italian championships, known as Scudettos, than any other team.
After the Turin-based club, run by the same Agnelli family that controls Fiat Chrysler Automotive NV, sold Pogba to Man Utd for 89 million pounds, it reinvested the proceeds in a string of players who subsequently led the team to the final of the Champions League, Europe’s top club competition. In the 12 months after Pogba’s departure, Juventus’s share price climbed 141%, although admittedly this was from a very low starting point.
Since the Italian team signed Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the world’s best player, for 100 million euros in 2018, stock increases have added almost 800 million euros to its market capitalization. That’s a very good return on investment, regardless of how Ronaldo plays.
The comforting news for Man Utd is that it differs from GE in one key respect: its problems are easier to solve. In aviation, power generation, and oil and gas equipment, GE makes products for markets that face an extremely uncertain future. The Manchester giant just needs to invest its capital more shrewdly. The best way to do that is to improve its long-term recruitment strategy, and for that it will need more effective management structures in place. Ed Woodward, the club’s executive vice-chairman, is the man in the firing line for increasingly angry fans. Immelt would no doubt commiserate.
--With assistance from Elaine He.
To contact the author of this story: Alex Webb at awebb25@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Manchester United Plc is the General Electric Co. of soccer.
Both are storied giants used to dominating their respective fields, who enjoyed their heyday in the 1990s. In Alex Ferguson and Jack Welch respectively, they had dominant leaders who set an all-but-impossible standard to follow (even if there are questions about what they left to their unfortunate successors). And in recent years, both have a track record of poor capital allocation that has seen them underperform their rivals.
Where Man Utd has spent hundreds of millions of pounds over the past eight years buying players such as French midfielder Paul Pogba and Belgian attacker Romelu Lukaku, GE went on a spending spree that included the 12.4 billion-euro ($13.8 billion) acquisition of Alstom SA’s power generation business. That deal’s entire value was ultimately written down.
When Jeff Immelt took over as GE’s chief executive officer in 2001, it was the biggest company in the S&P 500. Over his 16-year tenure, he spent some $200 billion buying companies, yet shareholders enjoyed annual returns of just 0.5%. In the same period, the S&P 500 was averaging returns of 7.4% a year.
Man Utd is much the same. After winning 12 English Premier League titles in 20 years, the club has won just one championship since its 2012 initial public offering. That’s even as it spent a net 740 million pounds ($965 million) through June 2019 buying new players. In the same period, its bitter rival Liverpool FC spent spent less than half that amount, yet was crowned European champion last year and is running away with the Premier League this season.
Soccer fans will argue all day that their club owners under-invest in the playing squad to milk the club for cash. Man Utd is owned by the American Glazer family and chants of “Glazers Out” are regularly heard at the team’s Old Trafford stadium. Fans accuse them of leveraging up the club and keeping the IPO proceeds for themselves.
The story for investors is just as grim. Since the IPO, Man Utd has returned 5.8% a year. Italy’s Juventus Football Club SpA, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund GmbH and AFC Ajax NV in the Netherlands, all publicly traded, have averaged returns of 22% in the same period.
Adding to the ignominy, the consulting firm Deloitte expects revenue at Man Utd, which has long challenged Spain’s Real Madrid and Barcelona for the title of the world’s most valuable soccer team, to fall as much as 11% this year, as failure to qualify for the European Champions League hurts sales. That could allow domestic rivals Manchester City FC and Liverpool to overtake it, knocking the Red Devils off the top spot in England for the first time since Deloitte began its Money League report on soccer 23 years ago.
The problem isn’t that Man Utd has skimped on player investment — the numbers show that it hasn’t, at least in recent years. But it has invested poorly. A useful point of comparison is Juventus, which occupies a similar status in Italy, having won more Italian championships, known as Scudettos, than any other team.
After the Turin-based club, run by the same Agnelli family that controls Fiat Chrysler Automotive NV, sold Pogba to Man Utd for 89 million pounds, it reinvested the proceeds in a string of players who subsequently led the team to the final of the Champions League, Europe’s top club competition. In the 12 months after Pogba’s departure, Juventus’s share price climbed 141%, although admittedly this was from a very low starting point.
Since the Italian team signed Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the world’s best player, for 100 million euros in 2018, stock increases have added almost 800 million euros to its market capitalization. That’s a very good return on investment, regardless of how Ronaldo plays.
The comforting news for Man Utd is that it differs from GE in one key respect: its problems are easier to solve. In aviation, power generation, and oil and gas equipment, GE makes products for markets that face an extremely uncertain future. The Manchester giant just needs to invest its capital more shrewdly. The best way to do that is to improve its long-term recruitment strategy, and for that it will need more effective management structures in place. Ed Woodward, the club’s executive vice-chairman, is the man in the firing line for increasingly angry fans. Immelt would no doubt commiserate.
--With assistance from Elaine He.
To contact the author of this story: Alex Webb at awebb25@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion
I’m not the moral police but from a personal standpoint, I could not support United if the Saudi’s takeover as I’m a journalist. After what they did to Jamal, I simply couldn’t be on board with their ownership.
I get a little evil chub every time this thread is on the first page, it's not actually going to happen of course...
No Saudis for me either. I’d rather go and support Salford.
Glazers should never have been allowed to buy United the way they did.
Where is the government and FA protection?
Nothing more than asset stripping going on.
Man Utd plc is about $500 mn in debt post the Glazer takeover. The club was largely debt-free before, so FFP shouldn’t have a problem AFAIK if new injections of equity on shares issued is used to pay it off.
Debt, is not a problem for the club if the financing of it is adequate. It has not been a problem in the Glazer reign since they have just transferred the debt they
incurred to buy the club in various ways onto the club’s revenue (see a report during SAF’s time).
It would, of course, be upto the new owners to decide how they want to manage the club’s debt and equity but it would make little sense to buy the club if it was not going to be adequately resourced to regain past glories.
#GlazersOut #SaudisIn
They wouldn't.
If they came in, they'd demand results quickly. They'd probably try to get results within 6 months, but they'll need to informed that to take MUFC back to the top, even with an unlimited budget, would realistically take 2-3 years and then another 2-3 years to reach CL very late stages.
Whatever the case, they'll demand to have the best. and they will be utterly ruthless. They'll want (but won't necessarily get), the best manager, the best players, the best sports doctors, the best coaches, etc.
im sure they’d need a brew boy
So did this turn out to be bullshit?
I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of Woodward mate. But Edwards especially and to an extent Gill were often similarly unsuccessful at getting the players Ferguson wanted every summer. You only have to read Fergies books to see he was often left frustrated with the clubs unwillingness to spend money on certain players or pay wages at a level to compete with those on offer at our rivals Pre Keanes 2000 contract.
The difference is most fans have fond memories of Edwards and especially Gill because we were successful for the vast majority of their times running the club. But they had Ferguson who was genius who could build great sides within a budget.
Would Woodward be well thought of if he'd taken over in 2006 and worked with Ferguson during the 2007-13 glory years?
How would Gill be viewed had he stayed and overseen the last 6-7 years under Moyes, LVG, Mourinho and Ole?
Which brings me back to my last point the way the club is set up it needs the right man in charge of the football side. We're not a Bayern, Juve or a Barca/Real who can hire virtually anyone and win league titles. Those clubs seem to have better systems in place and the fact they play in leagues that are way less competitive at the top end doesn't hurt either.
For what it's worth i don't actually think Woodward is the right man to be running United.
I reckon the players would play well if there was a takeover. Otherwise they’d go missing from the team hotel and never seen again
Not sure if they chop feet off as a punishment, but we’d certainly get less handballs.
Are you actually serious? Because it definitely would explain why Joel glazer is so bothered about us now.
If the Glazers ever did give an indication of selling, the Saudi’s will be right at the front of the queue.
It's what people are telling me by various sources of information. No way I'm in the know or anything like that. But I've been saying it for the best part of couple of months. And bow surely but slowly it's coming out in the media. People can have a look back at my posts in here to see what I've been saying.
I'm sorry, but what is coming out?
I know there are ups and downs. But football doesn’t go in cycles because teams suddenly become good or miserable. There are exceptions of course.
But in general you need to address the weaknesses and make the necessary adjustments / recruitment to get out of the slump you’re in. Usually this could be motivated by the club owners having on the Field ambitions or the club goes into financial decline. Our owners have neither.
I am ready to wait for us to resurface, but I’m still looking for the signs that we at least have the intention to get on the right track.’