It has been 20 years since the Glazers bought Manchester United. That is two decades’ worth of fan protests, demonstrations and personal abuse hurled in their direction – and still they own the football club.
At the final game of the season against Aston Villa this Sunday, the supporters have announced there will be more displays of vitriol. The saga surrounding what is, by some margin, the English Premier League’s biggest club and in terms of social media reach, the world’s most popular, shows no sign of ending.
Now, of course, there is a fresh ingredient, the presence of Sir Jim Ratcliffe as minority shareholder but day-to-day controller. He, too, has come in for his dose of abuse as he has set about knocking the organisation into leaner financial shape.
What is remarkable about the Glazers, in particular the two brothers closest associated, Joel and Avram, is that nothing seems to faze them. It is hard to think of any other business figures who would willingly withstand such a sustained campaign and not crack but at no point have they betrayed a sign of conceding.
It is true they invited bids, which is when Ratcliffe joined, but that was because they had witnessed what Todd Boehly was prepared to pay to acquire Chelsea. A back-of-the-envelope calculation told them United, much greater in terms of its history, prestige and fan base and, it follows, potential sponsorships and TV rights, could command a considerably higher sum. They entertained offers but, as it soon transpired, only from those prepared to allow them to stay in charge.
They also achieved something that far higher-profile commercial figures had attempted but failed. Rupert Murdoch, Robert Maxwell, Sir Philip Green and others all expressed a desire at one stage to own the famous club. Suitors from overseas, including the Gulf and Asia, have also been rebuffed. Along came the Glazers, a relatively obscure wealthy US family known only for possessing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL, to leave everyone else gasping in amazement.
They did it by borrowing heavily and securing the debt on United. While the fans have always decried the mechanics of the deal, in corporate takeovers – though not in football – it was par for the course. In technical language it was a leveraged buyout.
The level of borrowing, hard as it is for the club’s followers to swallow and the wider football community to understand, has not really affected United’s ability to compete and win trophies. They have had world-class managers and attracted star players. That’s as may be but unfortunately, since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, they have not enjoyed anything close to the success of his era when prizes galore went to Old Trafford.
That lack of glory has seen the fans point to the debt as if it was somehow responsible. It was not to blame – the interest payments were met and the club was able to carry on buying what on paper at least counted as being among the sport’s finest.
No, more to blame was the Glazers' inability to replace David Gill, the long-time chief executive alongside Ferguson, who left at the same time, with people who knew how to guide a club of United’s size and stature. United simply did not choose well. In Ed Woodward, the Glazers had a sharp commercial mind, a former investment banker, who presided over a bonanza in marketing tie-ins – coups that had the rest of football enthralled – but the game is much broader and deeper than that. United needed someone steeped in football lore, who knew the intricacies inside and out, to take the reins and it did not arise.
Meanwhile, the Glazers were content to remain in the US, thousands of miles away, watching their purchase from afar. Here, the fans’ attacks were self-defeating. Ask the leading groups, as I did for my book, why they loathe the Glazers and apart from the funding arrangements and even ahead of those, they cite that the Americans never showed any love for the club. Football supporters want their club’s owners, the money men, to share the same emotions, the highs and lows, as they experience in the stands and they did not see it. For their part, the Glazers maintained they would attend matches but they are not prepared to be subjected to hostility, possibly violence. So, the fans kick up and the Glazers do not visit.
The supporters have another obstacle, in that Ferguson has not once criticised the Glazers. It was his behaviour, following the gift of a share in champion racehorse Rock of Gibraltar and subsequent demand of a share in the stud fees, that led to him falling out with the club’s then-investor, the horse’s Irish owner John Magnier, and enabled the Glazers to move to acquire the club. When his friend Jim O’Neill, now Lord O’Neill, put together a consortium of rich United diehards to buy the club from the Glazers, Ferguson did not issue his public backing and their attempt crashed.
The Glazers, who it should not be forgotten left the club in the back of a police van for their safety when they first visited Old Trafford 20 years ago, have always been able to count on Ferguson’s appreciation. This has undermined efforts to unseat them. The fact that Ferguson until recently was a highly paid employee probably meant he would not speak out, but his silence weakened the cause.
Into the cauldron has stepped Ratcliffe. So far, he has shown little sign of being capable of turning the club around. He has applied the rules of business management, seeking marginal gains here and there, firing long-standing backroom staff and cutting back on costs, without transforming the fortunes on the pitch.
United have one more critical match remaining, the Europa League final against Spurs in Bilbao on Wednesday. Win that and they are back in the lucrative Champions League next season.
In truth, though, little has changed, It never has in all that period. United are shaky performance-wise, the supporters scream and shout, the Glazers remain. Thanks to Ratcliffe, the absent landlords can be even more absent.
There are potential foreign buyers, in the Gulf and elsewhere, who may be prepared to have a tilt should they bow out. That will transpire only if United slip in the global appeal rankings and their social media following drops. Should they cease to be winners, that will develop – no child thinking of which team to support wants to be associated with a loser. They are not there yet, but the clock is ticking. For now, there is another anniversary accompanied by another fans’ march and further placard-waving to look forward to. On it goes.
Chris Blackhurst is author of The World’s Biggest Cash Machine – Manchester United, the Glazers, and the Battle for Football’s Soul (Macmillan)
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