Your reply to my post, shows a serious lack of getting the point. You carry on supporting the 'what if' guy.Exactly! @Red_toad's point about Chelsea actively disproves his argument
The Glazers.
- Thread starter The Azzurri
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
But they didn't had to, they developed the commercial side and financed the club with it. That's a lot more sustainable. And proportionally, they take less money than the PLC out of the club.
I presume he means "our" as in "the club's". It's money that the club has (and would have anyway), which the Glazers got ownership of without investing anything much themselves. To that extent I think it's perfectly reasonable to talk about it as the club's money, not theirs.
They'd be mad to just take all the money out of the club and not buy anybody, their £2bn club would become worthless.
Depends how rich the sugar daddy is! But yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think there is an excellent chance that the Glazers will just sit on it - I mean they get dividens each year and they can fly in themselves and business associates for the big matches. What's not to like?
Yes, it is the clubs money. The Glazers own the club. Therefore, it is THEIR money. Also, you make it seem as if the Glazers put nothing of their own into purchasing this club. If it was so easy why didn't any of us just go down to the bank and take out that same loan?
Can you please explain if commercial revenue tripled or went up 400%?
Please post a video of you going into your local bank and asking for a £800 million loan
Tbf, the Glazers are top businessmen and our club have never been in better shape. I dont think anyone would do a better job. The Glazers strategy is growth and they do a great job. A good example is startups with little to no money, they will need to work hard as hell to make it. A startup with much money will relax a lot more.
So you ask for a hypothetical that is impossible to prove. Its like saying prove to me Wayne Rooney wouldnt have been a better manager than Fergie at United. Unless you can evidence that and post a link below it's nonsense.
Again, you stated originally you will only work in fact, I have provided ample statistics to support my opinion and what have you provided exactly? Give me evidence we wouldn't be better off, post a link below and I'll have a read.
The only example you've provided this far further proves my own point!
Turnover*
I understand that they see us as an investment but I still think they could be in it for the long term. As you know since you have been in finance all you're life you don't have to sell off an investment as soon as it appreciates in value, in fact if you own a good business who is growing as rapidly as we are selling it is probably a poor thing to do financially speaking. If you look at the growth in revenues for big football clubs and United in particular I would say we are one of the most successfull companies in a high growth industry, why any sane investor would want to sell a company like that is beyond me.
I think it says a lot about how they've managed the club that they haven't had to pump their own money into it. They've taken a commercially successful entity and grown it into a global powerhouse brand, all without having to spend their own money. I don't know why we're looking at Mike Ashley as a shining example of how to run a football club, and I really don't know why we think that relying on the owners to shore up financial losses with their own cash is really a good thing.
In business, having debt is not a bad thing. In fact it can be a very good thing. I agree with the sentiment about how the Glazers did the takeover, and I too thought the initial level of debt was proportionally too high compared to the value of the business. But they've proven to be astute, and have managed the debt well. We'll never really know whether Ferguson was hamstrung by a lack of investment, or whether our lack of investment was his inability to see value in the market (or indeed his inability to accept that you'll overpay for certain players regardless of what you think they're worth). We'll never know how successful we'd have been had we remained a publicly owned entity. The football world has changed markedly in the last decade, especially given the influx of money into the game. The EPL is nowhere near as easy to win as it once was.
The pressing issue right now is that while we're commercially successful, that will only last as long as we're at the top. IMO the Glazers have shown that they understand that it takes investment to remain there, and are willing to do that. I don't think we can ask for much more. I do think it's time that we started cutting the owners some slack now, and accept that things could be much, much worse.
For me, you have to be doing some serious mental masturbation to find fault with the Glazers. I found their takeover in 2005 worrying at the time but they've done very little wrong and appear to have interfered almost never in the running of on-field matters.
Any restrictions to spending (on players) seems to have been down to Gill/Ferguson rather than the Glazers.
Obviously that might be wrong and they might be evil and corrupt...but what has happened that makes you worry about that? feck sake, it's only football.
Any restrictions to spending (on players) seems to have been down to Gill/Ferguson rather than the Glazers.
Obviously that might be wrong and they might be evil and corrupt...but what has happened that makes you worry about that? feck sake, it's only football.
Well said. We'll always be wary of them, but after this summer of recruitment, I'm super happy ("super happy" have been the main two words in my head all day)
Let's walk thru the "super happy" positives so far....
Mourinho. Class act, finally at the club he destined to take to greatness
De Gea. super happy that Mourinho is the new manager, may have left otherwise maybe? He certainly seems super happy now
Shaw & Jones - both back from long injuries boosting our defence no end. Shaw looks set for a super happy season
Bailly - how many defenders look so comfortable so quickly. Remember Stam? Rio? it usually takes times for defenders as its all to do with partnerships. super happy
Smalling - now established as our no.1 defender and just getting better and better
Darmian & Valenica. Both quality Rb's now
Lingard, Scheiderlain, Mata, TFM, Carrick will all be energised (aka super happy) by the new signings
Mhitaryan - Bunderslega player of the year. pure quality, expecting big things from him
Memphis may well yet surprise us. There's no doubting his quality, and maybe Mourinho is the man to unlock it
Paul Pogba. Makes me slightly more than super happy. The final piece to bring it all together. He's back! And if he needs a rest TFM will step up
Martial, Rashford, Rooney - all massively super boosted by the arrival of Zlatan. He will improve them in training EVERY day (yes even Rooney). Super super happy
Zlatan. I could watch him play football all day. Just a joy to watch him work, and in a United shirt now, never thought I'd see the day. SUPER HAPPY!
Guess what? I'm super happy (I know I know, I hide it well
)They are businessmen. What did people expect?
Oh, exactly what we got. Being opposed to somebody isn't the same as being surprised by them in any way.
Fixed!
Sorry but where's the evidence/ examples to prove that United being owned by another owner post the Glazers turnover would not have increased revenues?
Going round in circles as you cannot back up your statement.
If I stated Rooney would have been a better manager, I'd have to be able to support that. I didn't state it, so guess there's a reason for that, like I couldn't back such an absurd statement up.
Had you said they'd done a great job in increasing revenues, then fair play. But to make out only they'd be able to do that is absurd, as revenues at Arsenal, Liverpool, City, Real, PSG, Chelsea etc etc are up hundreds of millions since the Glazers took over United. Simply due to greater TV deals, sponsorships, inflation, ticket prices etc etc.
Commercial turnover*
The Glazers; A Great Bunch of Lads.
fair points.
But if an investments grows so big, there is always a potential downside.
Besides United is a bit of a headache for them. us supporters.
They pretty much leave the management of the club to the manager, while Woody facilitates him.
Honestly I would prefer things as they are rather than they sell it.
Money the club made and would have made regardless. Fair fecks for spending but they started too late, we needed reinforcing at the beginning of the decade.
But they've done the opposite of 'beneficent' owners and actively taken money out of the club, not to mention THAT fecking debt. Will never like the vampire bastards, even if they're not the most incompetent around.
Looking at other owners, the look like a reasonable bunch.
But we must remember, this isn't any altruistic BS. They are investing to save a brand that was on the verge of collapse in part due to chronic underinvestment.
But we must remember, this isn't any altruistic BS. They are investing to save a brand that was on the verge of collapse in part due to chronic underinvestment.
Chelsea, actually iwns their sugar daddy 1bil GBP, as of 2015. All those "investment" by Abramovic are actually in form of loans.
Commercial revenue and turnover are two very different things mate.
Are you serious? How many times do I have to say it? What you are asking for is impossible, you're asking for evidence for a hypothetical question! I can't give evidence about something that hasn't happened.
What we can do is use the evidence available to us, that we had our most successful period in the club history and that turnover and in particular commercial revenue has increased exponentially under their guidance. Of course other clubs revenue has increased over the last 10 years or so, who's arguing that exactly? What we can see is United have seen bigger improvements over their domestic and European rivals, despite having been out of champions league football for 2 out of the last 3 years. You've also seemed to have gone quiet on your point about Chelsea which is not surprising as it continues to support my case.
Where did I say only they would be able to increase our revenues the extent they did? I said we would've have the commercial revenue we had now if they werent here that's comparing it to our previous owners. A quick quote on when I said that please.
ravelston on the difference the Glazers have made
Would that be the years when we bought Van der Sar (and Foster and Kuszczak), Vidic, Evra, Park, Carrick, Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Rafael, Fabio, Berbatov and a bunch of others? And that's not to mention the 50% or more of the combined Rooney/Ronaldo fees that had not been paid at the time of the buyout.
Some basic data on ticket prices - Looking at percentage increases in the prices of the cheapest and the most expensive seats:
Last seven years of the Edwards family ownership: 169.2% (cheapest), 95.1% (most expensive)
First seven years of the PLC: 85.7% (cheapest), 137.5% (most expensive)
Last seven years of the PLC: 57.7% (cheapest), 52.6% (most expensive)
(2005/06 prices were set by the PLC before the buyout. For that year: 0% (cheapest), 24.1% (most expensive)
First seven years of Glazer price control: 36.4% (cheapest), 38.9% (most expensive)
Given that prices have been stable for the subsequent four years, the 36.4% increase in the price of the cheapest tickets is less than inflation (36.6%) over the eleven year period. That is, for 2016/17, those tickets are cheaper in real terms than they were before the buyout.
I'm not sure what the "disdain" bit is about. If you mean that they didn't interact with supporters, that's true - although how they were meant to interact with a group who had hung them in effigy and maintained a continuous state of protest, I don't know.
Unfortunately he's probably correct. More importantly in many ways, the PLC would probably not have sanctioned the purchases of Vidic and Evra in January 2006. Their purchase pushed the salary/revenues ratio up to 55% - way beyond the 50% that Roy Gardner had made one of the cornerstones of our business model (take a look at his statements in the 2003 and 2004 Annual Reports). How we would have done without them we will never know.
In terms of just having the money to spend, it's already been pointed out that our marketing department was two men in a back office at OT. It could also be mentioned that our commercial revenue had been essentially flat for the previous five years (that's cheating a little because the Nike deal kicked in during that period and reduced our merchandising revenues - however the revenues had remained flat in the years after that adjustment). Even if we had magically recognized the potential of the United "brand", it's unlikely that we would have been able to leverage it to the extent that has happened under the Glazers. There's an interesting comparison available if we look at our closest peers at the time of the buyout. Pre-buyout our annual commercial revenue was £16.69m higher than the average of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. in 2014/15 it was £85.97m higher - the figures for 2015/16 are not available yet, but it seems certain that the difference will be well over £100m. It's reasonable to assume that Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are not complete idiots in the marketing sphere - perhaps that's the level that the PLC could have aspired to. If that's the case, then we simply would not have had the revenue stream to support the recent purchases or, more importantly, pay their salaries.
You misunderstand me. They are investing heavily to resurrect their investment. An investment that was head nowhere the summer Moyes left.
I'm sure we would have coped without them.
Oh. Gotcha.
That's not evidence, that's false equivalence. You had that period because of a certain miracleworker being the manager, not because of the Glazers leeching money out of your club.
The detoriation we've seen since 2008 is a result of the heavy financial burden the Glazers put on your club. Only since the past 2 or 3 years, when the club was finally able to overcome these self-imposed financial shackles we have seen significant investments in order to mend the damage caused by your owners.
The Glazers did nothing less than pulling off the biggest scam in football history by letting a club shoulder the debts it's new shark owners had to take, because they couldn't have afforded the purchase otherwise. I'm still baffled of such constructs even being legal. What baffles me even more however, are supporters who are celebrating this
Without SAF, this endeavor could very likely have ended with the bankruptcy of the club.
I never had a problem with them in the beginning so my opinion of them is the same. They barely talk in the press and keep themselves to themselves which is what a chairman should do, not one who announces transfers or targets on twitter. People on here were slating them for ages and the G&G campaign came into play but the team was still as successful as it'd been in the past.
They given every manager that have worked for them the money and resources they'd required to achieve the targets set, now they've delivered in bring a superstar into the team instead of selling one, no one can grumble about them surely.
Overall it's been a rough couple of years but we're going back in the direction we've been craving for since SAF left, this is largely down to the Glazers.
They given every manager that have worked for them the money and resources they'd required to achieve the targets set, now they've delivered in bring a superstar into the team instead of selling one, no one can grumble about them surely.
Overall it's been a rough couple of years but we're going back in the direction we've been craving for since SAF left, this is largely down to the Glazers.
I'm glad you brought up Fergie, he illustrates the point perfectly. You claim him to be a miracle worker (and rightly so) yet how was the first few years of his tenure? He was on the verge of being sacked. Do you judge him by those years or by the years that followed? Much like the Glazers, their long term success far outweighs any perceived hiccups in their early years.That's not evidence, that's false equivalence. You had that period because of a certain miracleworker being the manager, not because of the Glazers leeching money out of your club.
The detoriation we've seen since 2008 is a result of the heavy financial burden the Glazers put on your club. Only since the past 2 or 3 years, when the club was finally able to overcome these self-imposed financial shackles we have seen significant investments in order to mend the damage caused by your owners.
The Glazers did nothing less than pulling off the biggest scam in football history by letting a club shoulder the debts it's new shark owners had to take, because they couldn't have afforded the purchase otherwise. I'm still baffled of such constructs even being legal. What baffles me even more however, are supporters who are celebrating this
Without SAF, this endeavor could very likely have ended with the bankruptcy of the club.
And very like ended with with bankruptcy of the club? False equivalence anybody?
You have a funny of what deterioration is, unfecking believable . Some people just can't accept when they were wrong, it's embrassing.
I've been totally against the Glazers for saddling the club with enormous debts and not backing SAF in his last few years but fair play to them now that they seem to have finally loosened their purse strings.
I'd give Woodward a huge credit for it though. They totally trust him and he must have persuaded them especially Joel Glazer, who apparently is very close to Woodward, that it's best from them that we remain competitive on the pitch and without SAF at the helm, to do that we need to spend and we need to spend big.
If they're willing to back the manager and spend on other areas whenever needed, I don't have any problem if they make a lot of profit out of the club.
I'd give Woodward a huge credit for it though. They totally trust him and he must have persuaded them especially Joel Glazer, who apparently is very close to Woodward, that it's best from them that we remain competitive on the pitch and without SAF at the helm, to do that we need to spend and we need to spend big.
If they're willing to back the manager and spend on other areas whenever needed, I don't have any problem if they make a lot of profit out of the club.
It think it's also fair to note that sponsors must have put a lot of pressure on them loosening the purse strings.
Adidas contract as an example, will decrease if we don't get UCL qualification this season. So yeah, kudos to them for loosening the purse strings, but part of it have been forced, without a doubt. If you consider the amount of sponsors we have on board - there must be certain expectations on the clubs on field success (which leads to an off field profile growth etc). Nobody wants to be associated with a loser.
Adidas contract as an example, will decrease if we don't get UCL qualification this season. So yeah, kudos to them for loosening the purse strings, but part of it have been forced, without a doubt. If you consider the amount of sponsors we have on board - there must be certain expectations on the clubs on field success (which leads to an off field profile growth etc). Nobody wants to be associated with a loser.
Exactly. And where would you find something better to do with the money. Add to that that they seem to enjoy (and be good at) running sports teams and it's hard to see why they'd sell.
SAF kept the club at the top despite the squad being bled out of substance. What do you think what happens with your commercial value, if your club has a longer spell of non-success?And very like ended with with bankruptcy of the club? False equivalence anybody?
I just need to have a look at the squad and its development over the years between 2006 and 2014...
You still have neither delivered a solid argument why flooding the club with 500m of debts is supposed to have brought the club forward, neither have you delivered a convincing argument for what the Glazers have done others couldn't have. Each and every big club in Europe has experienced a huge growth in revenues over the past 10-15 yrs. This is a simple result of how the football biz developed in general. The Glazers also didn't negotiate the PL's latest TV deal.
You have survived this takeover, that is all is what can be said about the time of the Glazers.
Surprised that on a Utd forum so many are uneducated on the Glazers!
The Glazers bought the club with the banks money and saddled an otherwise financially healthy club with a massive amount of debt. Whether you like them or not, this was a major factor behind our recent struggles.
Despite SAFs bollocks about there being 'no value in the market' it was inexcusable for our net spend to be on par with the likes of Stoke City over a 5yr period
Now we appear to be benefitting from some of the clearly very savvy business decisions the Glazers have made to turn us into an absolute money-making machine
Over the next 5 years, i fully expect us to be a force in Europe again.
Nevertheless, do not forget that the Glazers have not put so much as a button of their own money into the club. It is up to the individual to decide whether the 'barren years' where worth it in exchange for being in the position of ridiculous financial power we are in today - and thus whether the Glazers have been good or bad for Utd
The Glazers bought the club with the banks money and saddled an otherwise financially healthy club with a massive amount of debt. Whether you like them or not, this was a major factor behind our recent struggles.
Despite SAFs bollocks about there being 'no value in the market' it was inexcusable for our net spend to be on par with the likes of Stoke City over a 5yr period
Now we appear to be benefitting from some of the clearly very savvy business decisions the Glazers have made to turn us into an absolute money-making machine
Over the next 5 years, i fully expect us to be a force in Europe again.
Nevertheless, do not forget that the Glazers have not put so much as a button of their own money into the club. It is up to the individual to decide whether the 'barren years' where worth it in exchange for being in the position of ridiculous financial power we are in today - and thus whether the Glazers have been good or bad for Utd
You mean like miss out on champions league football two times in 3 years? Miss out on European football one year ebtirely? Go our longest ever period without a premier league title? Our commercial revenue still rockets. Have a guess what the Glazers would've done without Fergie, they would invest, just like we have seen over the last 3 years. They've done what any good owner does, they allow the footballing men to run the footballing side of the team whilst they run the financial aspects.
I give up, I've literally answered those questions in my previous posts, I've explained how despite obvious growth of other clubs they haven't grown to the extent we have, I've highlighted the record turnover and commercial revenue of our club, we have received a world record fee for our own player, we have paid a world record fee for a player, we have world record sponsorship deals etc. These are things that strongly suggest the Glazers have been fantastic owners for the growth if our team.
Is it proof beyond contestation that the previous owners or a different owner would not achieve the same results? Of course not, because it's a hypothetical question, it's impossible to do. But do these little peices of information paint a wider picture of how well this club has been run? You bet your ballsack it does.
The "barren years" encompassed a spell wherein we won the PL 5 times and finished second 3 times whilst also reaching 3 CL finals. If that is barren you obviously have very high standards. Since we started spending at a higher level the results have been not so good. Ah well.
The Glazers put no money into the club, but they did spend a total of £520m of their "own money" on the purchase of the club (combining the initial equity investment with the money spent paying down the infamous PIKs). "Own money" can of course mean a lot of things, but the bottom line is that it was money that they personally were on the hook for - it was not a liability of the club.
As far as "financially healthy" is concerned, it is true that the club was in no immediate danger of bankruptcy, but the club was not being well managed. That a buyout was even possible is an indication of this - the stock price of a well managed company is typically high enough that it is almost impossible to undertake a profitable buyout.