I wore my green and gold scarf to Old Trafford during that period, but I was also still wearing a £60 club shirt.
Woodward, Glazers....
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It's easier said than done but ideally, you shouldn't buy any merchandise, shouldn't go to Old Trafford or any games, we shouldn't post about United on the internet and not watch our games on TV. The issue being that neutral football fans would most likely still watch and talk about United and they are billions. Hitting the Glazers pockets is the only way to get their attention and it's nearly impossible.I wore my green and gold scarf to Old Trafford during that period, but I was also still wearing a £60 club shirt.
They've attempted (attempting?) to pursue a deal for Sancho which indicates they have an amount of United money. Who knows if it's what Dortmund want?
There is no one to blame apart from the owners. Those fortunate enough to go watch the game are going to support the team and players.
The protest against the club, just because it didnt work doesn't mean it wont be useful. The times have changed since then, the club and its sponsors will be keeping an eye out on all this.
The social media protest, people say it doesn't work but for the likes of Addidas, Chevrolet bad publicity is bad for business. It may not affect the club directly but over time it will as these companies will be asking questions.
Agreed completely but the issue is that the fan base is far too large to organise in such a manner. But this may be offset against loss of support / new supporters as the club continues to underachieve.
I also wore a scarf, didn't buy a shirt, but bought match tickets to see my club.I wore my green and gold scarf to Old Trafford during that period, but I was also still wearing a £60 club shirt.
I'm not sure if I understand your question properly but my suspiscion is that the club lacks cash due to the absence of crowd at Old Trafford and delayed UEFA/PL money, I also suspect that the issue with Sancho is to convince Dortmund to take a relatively low upfront fee. Basically the club is willing to spend +100m but not willing to part ways with too much cash right now because we don't know how much money we are going to make next season and therefore need to keep cash for operating expenses.
My question was rhetorical, but is essentially what you are saying. Who knows if we have an amount to spend which will tempt Dortmund? At the moment, seemingly not.
But the underachievement of the club is relative and it's unlikely to impact the commercial potential or support of the club significanly. Now we will have a clearer idea when Chevrolet's replacement will be announced, it will be an interesting day.
I think it has become clear that once the club is in the Champions League that it can command the bigger commercial deals. You're right on the relatively of success, to the Glazers top four is their 1999 season.
This summer is looking like it's going to be a huge missed opportunity. I won't pretend to believe Ole is the perfect man for the job or a great tactician, as there are many things left for him to prove. However, what we did end up with at the end of the season was a solid 3rd place, and more importantly a young and talented football team that had given the club a momentum and belief. That's something we needed to build on to progress to the next level. As things stand, one player signed, is just not enough. Can only hope the club sort it out over the next 3 weeks, and if not, the team can keep up their performances/results from Jan onwards.
Again not saying the Glazers are good owners, i just don't think the amount we have spent on transfers and wages has been fine, more than fine, in no way do I feel the amount we have spent has held us back or is responsible for the fact we are only just scarping top 4. I have no issue with them when it comes to the amount they have spent on transfers like I've said we are near the top of every net spending list going, we should have a world-class team for what we have spent. Saying it could have been more is hardly the problem, the problem is we wasted so much of that money, the way the club has been run in terms of squad building going back even before Fergie left has been appaling, all the evidence points towards us even if we had more money to spend we would have just wasted it anyway.
But 100% agree that billion should have gone thinks like upgrading old Trafford. You think the Benrabeu is costing 600 million to upgrade, it's not hard to imagine with the fact old Trafford is older and more hodgepodge than the Bernabeu it's not hard to imagine it would cost more to upgrade, especially with British contractors and bureaucracy. that's where the money needed to go. The investment in the squad has been fine, it's just been wasted.
Can we please for the love of God finally get rid of them
Tell that to Liverpool. Their return on investment is looking pretty good right now.
Same. And I was still buying their crappy, overpriced bottles of lager at half-time and, occasionally, the legendary United pie. Principles aren't easy when you're getting a first-half hangover and need a top up.I wore my green and gold scarf to Old Trafford during that period, but I was also still wearing a £60 club shirt.
They're a football club though, Manchester United are a brand / business / sport franchise more comparable to US sport.
It has to be organised. There has to be an organisation coordinating boycotts of matches and merchandise and making sure the media give the story a lot of attention. Glazers out-rallies. Social media campaigns encouraging boycott of sponsors.
From a neutral point of view it is a great story: A big club with a great legacy taken over by financiers milking it to the last penny. A grassroot led campaign to take on predatory international finance capital. Characters like Ole and Mourinho being hung out to dry by the smug faced Glazers, with all their inherited wealth.
The challenge is doing it without hurting the club too much in the process. A new and more constructive owner to take over after the Glazers must be lined up, and the Glazers must be made to understand that they will only lose if they refuse to either
a) Invest significantly in the club
b) Sell the club to a new owner
I was more thinking about visibility and marketability which is the main point when it comes to commercial success and the fact that United still won a bit of silverware in the last 5 years. While fans are rightfuly frustrated, the club is as relevant as it was 10 years ago, the perfect example may not talk to you but it's in the NHL in terms of Value the top 3 teams are the Rangers, the Leafs and the Canadiens, the last time one of these teams won the Stanley Cup was in 94 and they are all extremely relevant, you could also look at the Knicks in the NBA who are arguably the worst managed franchise in the world.
It's one of the advantages and inconvenients of being a genuinely large sport franchise with big visibility, those are very resilient and can handle a fair amount of mismanagement. The positive thing is that United can turn things around in a single summer with a great coach and a couple of overperforming signings.
If Glazers dont invest as fans desire, I think this summer will be a major watershed.
We struggle to acquire new fans now anyway, and so many fans are having their emotional tie with the club weakened as every week passes. Match going fans have adjusted to life without going to Old Trafford, and fan-less football on TV is no way close to being as good as the real thing. And now that all the other top 5 have strategically invested, OGS's team is going backwards. It's simply not sustainable.
And so when the covid19 recession really hits in next few months, the club will truly face the drop off in income because it will have lost so many 'customers' who contributed to the coffers in one way or another.
We struggle to acquire new fans now anyway, and so many fans are having their emotional tie with the club weakened as every week passes. Match going fans have adjusted to life without going to Old Trafford, and fan-less football on TV is no way close to being as good as the real thing. And now that all the other top 5 have strategically invested, OGS's team is going backwards. It's simply not sustainable.
And so when the covid19 recession really hits in next few months, the club will truly face the drop off in income because it will have lost so many 'customers' who contributed to the coffers in one way or another.
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Except American sports don't have relegation or any real competition. The NFL and the NBA are glorified commercial machines with a little bit of sports in between. While the NHL is fine, the Leafs can't get relegated and there's literally zero incentive to win the Stanley cup other than glory. United can easily end up in a situation where we aren't in the CL for next season and then we'd lose millions again. It's a completely different business process, and requires our owners to really understand value in squad building, which they obviously don't.
This is why some of us think that despite the Glazers being terrible owners and their business model being at crossroads with fan expectations things can still improve if they got rid of Woodward and brought in someone who is more competent or at least less egoistical to accept help on the football side. Woodward has utterly failed and this Sancho saga says it all - its not uncommon for clubs to miss out on prime targets but what is uncommon and unacceptable is the paralysis that seems to grip our club when we get knocked back on our first choice. Did we even have a plan B if we failed to bag Sancho, why has that plan B not been implemented already? These are the questions the owners and fans should be asking because it shouldn't be acceptable for a club of this stature to be so paralyzed on account of one player.
That the Glazers find Woodward's shenanigans acceptable is a more urgent reason for them to go, I know they have leached outrageous amounts out of the club due to their ownership model and its just as important but in the short run Woodward is hurting us as a club more. Put Van Der Sar under the same operational and financial parameters I think he would do ten times better than this clown masquerading as a football executive. His job is simple but he complicates it too much because he cares too much about how he looks in the media.
They're probably more of a business than us lets be honest. See the fact that they almost furloughed a chunk of their staff.
I suppose my point is that their owners appear to value success, top four is the ceiling under our owners.
Top 4 is a fecking curse in the league. If a club like Manchester United is not within spitting distance of top honors then you are utterly failing. Taking Woodward out of his role would in my opinion makes us instantly better as a football club.
Come on now, that's just false. All owners value success. Liverpool's owners have just hired the right manager and management, who in turn have bought the right players.
Glazers have hired idiots and bought utter crap for insane amounts of money.
Yes, when the club fails to qualify for the Champions League? There is a clear and obvious trend here, worrying too.
You do realise Woodward was specifically installed by the Glazers because he is their yes man? He was involved in the loan that the Glazers got to buy United when he worked at JP Morgan.
Woodward is not going anywhere, unless the Glazers leave. In any other organisation, Woodward would have been fired already. There is nothing on the football front that he can point at to justify keeping his position.
Lets not sugarcoat issues and attribute this incompetence to some deliberate attempt to spend enough just to make up the numbers in the CL, we already spend as much if not much more than clubs that actually win stuff the Glazers are just incompetent and this is exhibited by their tolerance of Woodward's failures.
True.
In my country back in the SAF days you could say 3/4 football fans are Utd fan. The pubs only played Utd matches. Sadly now it's more like 1/4. And pubs play Liverpool or City matches. In a mere 7 years.
They certainly have football men making football decisions.
They can hardly be sacked can they ? That's the issue, unless by some divine miracle they decide to sell us were stuck with them for the foreseeable future, utterly depressing to see all of SAF's hard work torn down internally by these idiots.
That would be an interesting point if we were talking about a club close to relegation, United aren't in that situation or if we were talking about squad building. There is no point making up irrelevant scenarios and discussing them, United has been consistently competing for top 4 in the last 7 years. And the conversation isn't about United not making millions because of the CL, we have already had that and have done perfectly fine commercially, Kid Moyes and I were talking about mid to long term commercial prospects and whether the club could suddenly become less relevant and see the Glazers forced to sell which is why we were initally talking about how to hurt them financially.
I haven't spent 1p on the club since Van Gaal. Except for the long sleeved icons beauty off the Adidas website, had to have it. I don't give the club clicks or likes. I get all my United news here. I watch and cheer the boys for 90 minutes and then I'm done.
This is the worst bit of all
It's the only power we have as supporters because the club being a football embarrassment doesn't bother them one bit.
Right, we have spent enough money to build two title winning teams is the depressing reality. It’s the recruitment that has been poor that’s the problem.
Exactly this. How people don't understand this is beyond me.
Am glad that people are now highlighting this. This is the Glazer business Model. Top 4, also known as the New Arsenal. They have no interest in winning trophies.
The official Twitter account has continually tweeted pointless tweets over the past couple of weeks to receive a barrage of abusive replies everytime, mainly calling for Woodward and Glazers out. The account appears most active when support is enraged. I'm wondering is it a case of "Look how many replies we receive on social media, add an extra zero to that commercial deal." or I'm as cynical an asshole as I thought.