What’s your best case outcome from these protests?

Dante

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This is the reality right now and you paint it as a potential new option? The only difference is the debt, right? How would the new owner(s) buy the club, you think?
It's an ordered list of my personal preferences, not of likelihoods. And the maintaining the status quo is always one such possibility.
 

georgipep

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It's an ordered list of my personal preferences, not of likelihoods. And the maintaining the status quo is always one such possibility.
Fair enough. I don't understand the point of listing options that are practically impossible but if it is your "ideal world" list, I get that.
 

The Firestarter

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Fair enough. I don't understand the point of listing options that are practically impossible but if it is your "ideal world" list, I get that.
The thread title literally asks for one's "best case outcome". You might have wanted to visit the Realistic buying options thread instead.
 

anant

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The best realistic case scenario is us getting sold to another super rich family, who clear us of the debt, and instead of the owners taking out 40-60m every year on debt and interest repayments and dividends + 455m debt that is still left, they take out 30m on dividends and spend the remaining 30m on upgrading the stadium, training ground, building/buying a stadium for women's team and on strengthening the 1st team squad.

If I'm being realistic, if we want to avoid takeover by a country who would like to use the club for sportswashing, I've made peace with the fact that they'd want to earn some money for themselves. If someone is investing 4B, and there arent really any more avenues to increase revenue, till there is another technological breakthrough in how football is consumed, which is a few years away at the very least, I don't see the investment being of significant value to them. So the only way is if they take some significant chunks of money to satisfy their greed. As long as they provide what the fans need, I'm fine with it
 

POF

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I don't think they'll get 4bn for the club, but wouldn't you rather have owners who have debt to their name, rather than the club?
I just don't think it makes any difference. If the debt is external they'll just draw more dividends to pay it off. All that matters is the working capital and access to funds to invest in the squad or infrastructure when required.

Thinking about it, it's probably better with the debt in the club than personal. It's likely to be more tax effective within the club so interest payments and loan repayments are probably more cost effective that way.

In overly simplistic terms, when the Glazers go to sell the club, if it's worth £4bn with a £500m loan sitting in it, it would be worth £4.5bn without. United is their asset. A loan in the club is still a liability for the Glazers.
 

Tincanalley

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That is an objectively terrible letter from MUST though. At least if I was advising the Glazers, I would be advising to ignore it completely, there is no incentive in there for them to do anything.

Look at the 4 point plan - rebalance ownership in favour of supporters, appoint directors whose interests are not the shareholders, a share scheme accessible to all (i.e. cheap shares) to reduce the Glazers to a minority, and enforce consultation with supporters on significant decisions.

If I'm a Glazer, I'm thinking - why would I do any of that? What's in it for me?

That letter is clearly written as a chest-thumping exercise directed at fans rather than being any serious attempt at engaging the owners, so why would the owners engage?

I'm all for fan representation in running the club, but we would want more competent representation than the likes of MUST before it would be of any use to the club.
Thats what the legistative framework should be to force their hand.
 

Sunny Jim

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The best case scenario? The Glazers sanction spending of 100mil this summer.

i have no hope of them leaving, knowing their nature I'd expect them to punish fans with no spending. The squad is more or less top 4 quality atm so the there is no point in investing.
 

Gee Male

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Thats what the legistative framework should be to force their hand.
I don't understand you're point. Are you saying that MUST have written a letter based on a legislative framework that doesn't exist?
 

MattofManchester

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Protests should be directed more at government to introduce legislation that combats these owners. All billionaire owners.

Funny how they've gone quiet again after the SL fiasco.
 
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Massive disruption and pressure on the Glazers. I don't know whether it would force them out, but maintain the pressure and give them constant headaches.
 

lsd

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Losing second and wrecking the players by giving us 4 games to play in 8 days
 

Foxbatt

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The violence has turned this on its head. I am all for protesting but not what happened.
 

Tincanalley

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I don't understand you're point. Are you saying that MUST have written a letter based on a legislative framework that doesn't exist?
Boris threatened a legislative bomb on the scumbags that organised the ESL. That might have had something to do with the watery “apology” to fans and apparently more apologies to OJS. Keep up the pressure. Unite. Oppo fans. Match going and foreign. Ignore the nay sayers. #GlazersOut
 

TheGodsInRed

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Are there going to be more match day protests? I wonder if we can get the Pool game postponed again...
 
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The violence has turned this on its head. I am all for protesting but not what happened.
What violence are you talking about, exactly? I think that it's worth being clear when you talk about that, because there's a big difference between violence against people and 'violence' against property. The two things are absolutely incomparable. And a lot of peaceful protests in the last few times have been accused of turning violent after police come to shut the protest down.

I don't think Manchester United fans should be held totally responsible for the violence and the police should be viewed as victims. There is too much of that on this site right now. We are Manchester United fans, and we should not be so quick to condemn our fellow fans due to media criticism. It's always very easy to blame football fans for violence - there's a long and nasty history of politicians, media and policemen blaming football fans when violence breaks out, essentially saying that football fans are yobs and thugs and should show more respect to authorities.

To me, this protest showed what protests need to be successful. If we show more respect then the protest movement will achieve nothing. It still might achieve nothing, but it's much more likely to be successful because of the media coverage. The media coverage is what got the game called off, and that came about because of the pitch invasion. This is basically what people in the media seem to mean when they say that trespass and property damage is unforgivable, because those nonviolent, disruptive acts are what got the game called off.

This type of disruption is the only way we're likely to get the Glazers' attention (because they bought United so they would receive money from the profile of the matches we play, so the risk that matches will not go ahead is a risk they will have to take seriously), so if we really want them out we're gonna have to keep on getting games called off, disrupting the match-day experience that they're selling to sky and the superleague and their sponsorship partners.
 

Gee Male

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Boris threatened a legislative bomb on the scumbags that organised the ESL. That might have had something to do with the watery “apology” to fans and apparently more apologies to OJS. Keep up the pressure. Unite. Oppo fans. Match going and foreign. Ignore the nay sayers. #GlazersOut
OK. I still don't get how any of that is relevant to my point that thd MUST letter is useless, but anyway.
 

alexthelion

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Was a great post you responded to. It lowers the value of the club and limits the revenue streams, so it nears a potential sale or a complete 180 in how they run the club.
Can you guarantee that? Or do you just want to harm the club and hope?
 

alexthelion

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I don't think they'll get 4bn for the club, but wouldn't you rather have owners who have debt to their name, rather than the club?
How do you really think that type of owner would repay the debt?

I'll give you a clue, MUFC.
 

alexthelion

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That is an objectively terrible letter from MUST though. At least if I was advising the Glazers, I would be advising to ignore it completely, there is no incentive in there for them to do anything.

Look at the 4 point plan - rebalance ownership in favour of supporters, appoint directors whose interests are not the shareholders, a share scheme accessible to all (i.e. cheap shares) to reduce the Glazers to a minority, and enforce consultation with supporters on significant decisions.

If I'm a Glazer, I'm thinking - why would I do any of that? What's in it for me?

That letter is clearly written as a chest-thumping exercise directed at fans rather than being any serious attempt at engaging the owners, so why would the owners engage?

I'm all for fan representation in running the club, but we would want more competent representation than the likes of MUST before it would be of any use to the club.
I really wonder why they couldn't come up with something at least reasonable, this is ridiculous.
 

Tincanalley

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OK. I still don't get how any of that is relevant to my point that thd MUST letter is useless, but anyway.
Glazer family
  1. Willingly and openly engage and promote the government initiated fan-led review of football and use this as an opportunity to rebalance the current ownership structure in the favour of supporters
  2. Immediately appoint independent directors to the board whose sole purpose is to protect the interest of the club as a football club, not its shareholders
  3. Work with the Manchester United Supporters Trust and supporters more broadly to put in place a share scheme that is accessible to all and that has shares with the same voting rights as those held by the Glazer family. Should the appetite be there amongst fans then you should welcome, and offer no opposition to, the Glazer Family shareholding being reduced to a minority or indeed being bought out altogether.
  4. Commit to full consultation with season ticket holders on any significant changes to the future of our club, including the competitions we play in
The four points. The bolded is where they engage with fans. Include fans. Respect fans. I am sure, that as a genuine fan yourself, you will find these ideas meet your approval.
 

alexthelion

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Glazer family
  • 1. Willingly and openly engage and promote the government initiated fan-led review of football and use this as an opportunity to rebalance the current ownership structure in the favour of supporters
  • 2. Immediately appoint independent directors to the board whose sole purpose is to protect the interest of the club as a football club, not its shareholders
  • Glazer family
    1. Willingly and openly engage and promote the government initiated fan-led review of football and use this as an opportunity to rebalance the current ownership structure in the favour of supporters
    2. Immediately appoint independent directors to the board whose sole purpose is to protect the interest of the club as a football club, not its shareholders
    3. Work with the Manchester United Supporters Trust and supporters more broadly to put in place a share scheme that is accessible to all and that has shares with the same voting rights as those held by the Glazer family. Should the appetite be there amongst fans then you should welcome, and offer no opposition to, the Glazer Family shareholding being reduced to a minority or indeed being bought out altogether.
    4. Commit to full consultation with season ticket holders on any significant changes to the future of our club, including the competitions we play in
The four points. The bolded is where they engage with fans. Include fans. Respect fans. I am sure, that as a genuine fan yourself, you will find these ideas meet your approval.
Why would any owner want to"rebalance in favour of supporters"? What's in it for them? Why sell shares in bits rather than well complete? Why MUST, do they represent all United supporters?
 

Tincanalley

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Why would any owner want to"rebalance in favour of supporters"? What's in it for them? Why sell shares in bits rather than well complete? Why MUST, do they represent all United supporters?
What’s in it for you?
What’s in it for them is being allowed to compete under a new regulatory regime for example. Or even self regulate and thus avoid such intervention. What’s in it for them are more satisfied supporter base (the ones they apologised to last week).
 

mu4c_20le

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That is an objectively terrible letter from MUST though. At least if I was advising the Glazers, I would be advising to ignore it completely, there is no incentive in there for them to do anything.

Look at the 4 point plan - rebalance ownership in favour of supporters, appoint directors whose interests are not the shareholders, a share scheme accessible to all (i.e. cheap shares) to reduce the Glazers to a minority, and enforce consultation with supporters on significant decisions.

If I'm a Glazer, I'm thinking - why would I do any of that? What's in it for me?

That letter is clearly written as a chest-thumping exercise directed at fans rather than being any serious attempt at engaging the owners, so why would the owners engage?

I'm all for fan representation in running the club, but we would want more competent representation than the likes of MUST before it would be of any use to the club.
Since you like to roleplay as a Glazer, what would compel you to do anything at all? Why would you even be reading these letters when you could be on the golf course?
 

JustinC00

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Realistically there is none. The cnut glazers will take more money from the club leaving us even less to improve the club to spite us, while they make the minimum payments on the debt caused by them. They only care about their nfl team and we are just their little money printer. If they really care about fixing the relationship they will open the bank for us to get what Ole needs so we fan stop with this "4th is good enough" shite and actually win the league. But that won't happen.

Shame that this basically all started over a personal feud over a fecking race horse.
 

Rood

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That is an objectively terrible letter from MUST though. At least if I was advising the Glazers, I would be advising to ignore it completely, there is no incentive in there for them to do anything.

Look at the 4 point plan - rebalance ownership in favour of supporters, appoint directors whose interests are not the shareholders, a share scheme accessible to all (i.e. cheap shares) to reduce the Glazers to a minority, and enforce consultation with supporters on significant decisions.

If I'm a Glazer, I'm thinking - why would I do any of that? What's in it for me?

That letter is clearly written as a chest-thumping exercise directed at fans rather than being any serious attempt at engaging the owners, so why would the owners engage?

I'm all for fan representation in running the club, but we would want more competent representation than the likes of MUST before it would be of any use to the club.
The ideal scenario for the owners is that the fans are content- there is currently significant disruption to the day to day business of the club due to fan discontent (match postponed, complaints from sponsors, legal issues etc) so it is in the interests of the Glazers to placate the fanbase

Personally I think the letter is well written with clear objectives.
I am sure MUST do not expect to acheive everything on their list of aims, but I think it is realistic that we will see movement on 1 or 2 of the demands in the near future. We have already seen Chelsea offer to have a fan representative at board meetings, its likely that other clubs will follow suit - it might just be a PR exercise but its still a step in the right direction.
 

suheilsworld

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I don't know how bad the Saudis would be honestly, I think for Saudi its a way of promoting the country really. I live in Dubai (UK expat) currently and I think what the UAE has done to promote themselves has actually been good business.

Emirates / Etihad flights all route through the UAE (Abu Dhabi/Dubai) so it gets a lot of tourism, people recognise The Emirates stadium now, kits are flooded with Fly Emirates, same with City.

It's a big publicity stunt where you can get the west to start to take note of your country really.

If the Saudis take over they'll probably sponsor United with big money, want them to have the best players and promote tourism to Saudi in general I think. I think the UAE has always been quite east meets west, Saudi is going through a whole modernisation period now (although politically its really archaic still).

There's worse owners like Qatar and PSG for sure, but I think at least under Saudi ownership it'd mean United aren't going to be riddled with debt and bled dry.
Well put. Wanted to write something on the lines of this myself. Staying in Abu Dhabi and closely following what’s happening in Saudi, a takeover of United would give the nation a perfect platform to boost their image and tourism around the world. Not commenting on the ethical side of the view, Saudi are looking to boost their tourism, sports and media industry and have been heavily investing in it. I can positively see them investing in us more from a footballing perspective than sponsorship alone
 

stw2022

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What’s fatal to the cause will be failing to realise they need to take the bulk of the fans with them and failure to answer the ‘what next’ question

Quite apart from inventing interest from complete strangers, the idea that if we default on the loans the money lenders who forced Greece to plunge it’s entire population into poverty will think selling Old Trafford and flogging Fernandes as going “too far” is another one of those things it’s easier to yell “Glazer stooge” at someone for than to answer.

Stadium invasion aside the arguments, people and aggression directed towards anyone who questions the direction of this is identical to the last time this failed
 

shamans

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Ideally someone in a position of power picks up on it. A politician looking to win favor or a royal member or some other rich dude and the fans get an actual voice.

In a nutshell, I want to see increasing pressure on them till the club is indeed sold. I don't buy arguments that say fans should sit down because nothing can be achieved. At this point the fans have been disrespected for years.

Even in the world of corrupt billionaire owners the glazers are the absolute worse.
 

Pogue Mahone

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The ideal scenario for the owners is that the fans are content- there is currently significant disruption to the day to day business of the club due to fan discontent (match postponed, complaints from sponsors, legal issues etc) so it is in the interests of the Glazers to placate the fanbase

Personally I think the letter is well written with clear objectives.
I am sure MUST do not expect to acheive everything on their list of aims, but I think it is realistic that we will see movement on 1 or 2 of the demands in the near future. We have already seen Chelsea offer to have a fan representative at board meetings, its likely that other clubs will follow suit - it might just be a PR exercise but its still a step in the right direction.
So that’s the end game? Some minor tweaks to the way the Glazers run the club, mainly as a PR exercise?

I do agree that’s by far the most likely outcome. Although it falls a good bit short of what most of the tub-thumpers seem to think is possible.
 

Rood

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So that’s the end game? Some minor tweaks to the way the Glazers run the club, mainly as a PR exercise?

I do agree that’s by far the most likely outcome. Although it falls a good bit short of what most of the tub-thumpers seem to think is possible.
No of course not - its just a first step and indication of direction of travel for more change

There is a lot of cynicism out there about what these protests can actually acheive (understandably so) but I would say there are already successes even if only small like the Chelsea announcement about including a fan in board meetings and I expect other clubs to follow that lead.

Although much of the focus is on 'Glazer Out' - for me the #ProtectTheLegacy kind of message which aims for changes in football governance is more important and has some chance of success
 

Gee Male

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The ideal scenario for the owners is that the fans are content- there is currently significant disruption to the day to day business of the club due to fan discontent (match postponed, complaints from sponsors, legal issues etc) so it is in the interests of the Glazers to placate the fanbase

Personally I think the letter is well written with clear objectives.
I am sure MUST do not expect to acheive everything on their list of aims, but I think it is realistic that we will see movement on 1 or 2 of the demands in the near future. We have already seen Chelsea offer to have a fan representative at board meetings, its likely that other clubs will follow suit - it might just be a PR exercise but its still a step in the right direction.
I don't disagree with you necessarily, other than that the letter is well written. MUST have essentially set out a list of demands in public, with a demand for a reply by tomorrow. The way they have approached it guarantees that they will be ignored. And, in the event that the Glazers want to engage the fans on this, MUST will be sidelined from that.

What they should have done was written a letter privately, not stuck up on Twitter for a mob to jump on, but a private letter respectfully requesting engagement on future plans in private with a view to an update at the next Fans Forum.

This approach would have been far more likely to get a response that actually helps in achieving MUST stayed aims, but admittedly far less likely to get a few thousand likes on social media.

I suppose the point I'm getting at is that if we want the Glazers out, then we need someone to engage with them on their terms, in a meeting room, in a manner they are used to. That ain't gonna be MUST.
 

Rood

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I don't disagree with you necessarily, other than that the letter is well written. MUST have essentially set out a list of demands in public, with a demand for a reply by tomorrow. The way they have approached it guarantees that they will be ignored. And, in the event that the Glazers want to engage the fans on this, MUST will be sidelined from that.

What they should have done was written a letter privately, not stuck up on Twitter for a mob to jump on, but a private letter respectfully requesting engagement on future plans in private with a view to an update at the next Fans Forum.

This approach would have been far more likely to get a response that actually helps in achieving MUST stayed aims, but admittedly far less likely to get a few thousand likes on social media.

I suppose the point I'm getting at is that if we want the Glazers out, then we need someone to engage with them on their terms, in a meeting room, in a manner they are used to. That ain't gonna be MUST.
Nonsense - a respectfully written private letter would have gone straight in the bin!

they aren't perfect but MUST are the biggest supporter group so will likely be involved in any discussions but no need to focus on them as there are other avenues for the club to engage with fans. They can communicate directly with ST holders and members for example

Also there is a much longer letter with similar demands but more detail, I actually thought it was this one that had been posted above but just realised it's different
https://www.imust.org.uk/Blog/Entry/manchester-united-fans-forum-letter-to-the-club
 

Flying high

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I don't disagree with you necessarily, other than that the letter is well written. MUST have essentially set out a list of demands in public, with a demand for a reply by tomorrow. The way they have approached it guarantees that they will be ignored. And, in the event that the Glazers want to engage the fans on this, MUST will be sidelined from that.

What they should have done was written a letter privately, not stuck up on Twitter for a mob to jump on, but a private letter respectfully requesting engagement on future plans in private with a view to an update at the next Fans Forum.

This approach would have been far more likely to get a response that actually helps in achieving MUST stayed aims, but admittedly far less likely to get a few thousand likes on social media.

I suppose the point I'm getting at is that if we want the Glazers out, then we need someone to engage with them on their terms, in a meeting room, in a manner they are used to. That ain't gonna be MUST.
"What do we want?" Whatever you can spare, please, if it's not too much trouble. Sir.

"When do we want it?" Whenever it suits you. Sir.


Seriously, do you not think MUST have been trying this for 16 years? Asking hasn't worked. Now it's time to tell them how it's going to be.
 

Rood

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I don't disagree with you necessarily, other than that the letter is well written. MUST have essentially set out a list of demands in public, with a demand for a reply by tomorrow. The way they have approached it guarantees that they will be ignored. And, in the event that the Glazers want to engage the fans on this, MUST will be sidelined from that.

What they should have done was written a letter privately, not stuck up on Twitter for a mob to jump on, but a private letter respectfully requesting engagement on future plans in private with a view to an update at the next Fans Forum.

This approach would have been far more likely to get a response that actually helps in achieving MUST stayed aims, but admittedly far less likely to get a few thousand likes on social media.

I suppose the point I'm getting at is that if we want the Glazers out, then we need someone to engage with them on their terms, in a meeting room, in a manner they are used to. That ain't gonna be MUST.
Nope - proof that this was exactly the right way to go about things

Although time will tell what difference it actually makes - just words so far but that in itself is a change from the past where there was pretty much zero communication from the Glazer family
 
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cyril C

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You know what the problem is - Arsenal has managed to line up a financial package, whether taking on some debt is unknown, but at least have someone with loads of cash, or in a position to take on debt. MUST or the Yellow&Green thing - got nothing on hand. All they can hope for, is someone will somehow come up with 4B of cash, without borrowing, pay for everything and not expecting anything.

A 10% return on investment for a 4B project, would be 400m dividend. 5% is 200m.

You know the best possible outcome, is for the British government using tax payer money, to fund the purchase, such that no-one will be expecting any dividend or interest payment.