When Abramovich bought Chelsea, United in 2003 went through a few years when it seemed we would never be able to win again. Then the Glazers bought United and started buying players like Anderson, Nani, Buttner, Bebe, Valencia and the ONLY reason we won five titles subsequently was the genius of Alex Ferguson. While Roman has lost some interest in Chelsea, they still win titles regularly.
The sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi then bought the world’s most useless club and now they buy the best manager and players in the world while we just watch. Their football is breathtaking and out of reach for us because of that investment. Have you ever seen a player in a contract dispute with or wanting to leave City? They get whoever they want and keep them because they pay more than anyone else.
Barca and Real are both non-profits with massive implicit public funding. Bayern has a similar ownership structure. PSG has City-like (probably greater) financial backing.
We are not where we’d like to be. We make the mistake of blaming players for not playing well, managers for making bad decisions. We can sit back and counter attack and win a trophy here and there but there is NO way that a for-profit club with a debt burden can compete in a sustained fashion with Barca, Real, Bayern, PSG, City and Chelsea.
We owe something to our players. Rashford is potentially a Ballon D’Or winner but won’t get there at United. I know we don’t trust Pogba because he left, but he is exactly the same. Bryan Robson never won as much as he should have only because he played in the wrong era. Journeymen like Gary Neville played in the right one and have trophies overflowing.
We are in a strange position that ONLY one entity in the world can get us back there. Big Tech could but won’t. The Norwegian sovereign fund won’t, we are too expensive for the other oil states who would rather buy fixer-uppers like Chelsea. Jim Ratcliffe, Bezos and Bill Gates don’t have enough money.
So, I just want my beloved MUFC to allow us to dream again. I want us to attack, attack, attack and to show my kids the beauty of a Giggs twisted blood run, a Scholes diagonal to Ronaldo, a Rooney debut against Fenerbahce. Saudi society is emerging into the light and if we can be part of that, it would be a positive result. They are unlikely to behave badly as owners (unlike the Glazers) because they need PR and are buying us because of that.
In the end, I don’t care where the money comes from, all great fortunes have terrible crimes and all that. Money makes football dream and we need much more of it.