Category: The Glazer family

In the space of four hours and eight minutes on Tuesday, Manchester United put out two statements that will surely go down in the club’s history. First, the mutual termination of Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract was announced at 5.30pm and it was later confirmed the Glazer family were open to selling up. Most United fans welcomed the news. Their ageing prima donna was heading for the exit and there was renewed hope the unpopular American owners might pack up.

It had taken fewer than 10 days from Ronaldo’s melodramatic broadside at United, delivered via Piers Morgan’s knockabout questioning, to the No 7 shirt being vacated. Those in the firing line included the owners, coaches past and present and the club’s training facilities. There was no way back for Ronaldo, not that he wanted one. When his contract was ripped up, the club and player got what they desired.

Whereas the writing was on the wall from the moment the first interview snippet was released, the announcement that the Glazers were seeking a buyer for the club came out of the blue. It has taken 17 years for the Glazers – who bought United in a controversial £790m leveraged buyout in 2005 – to accept the turning of the tide at Old Trafford but it will be a little while before they hand over the keys.

Due to the coincidental timings, fans will hope the sale of the club might follow in the same speedy manner as Ronaldo’s shooing out the door or the collapse of the European Super League. That, however, is unlikely to be the case.

The confirmation that the Glazers are willing to depart in exchange for billions was day one of a lengthy process. When it became public knowledge that Fenway Sports Group was, at minimum, seeking outside investment at Liverpool, it was eight months into the process. Raine Group, which brokered the Chelsea sale and has the same role at United, had the mandate for three years before Roman Abramovich was forced to sell up. Takeovers are a complicated business and the sale of Manchester United will be the biggest in football history.

Americans are showing the most interest in Liverpool and we can expect the same at Old Trafford, although the British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe is widely reported be keen to acquire the club. Ratcliffe’s Ineos group already owns Nice in France and the Swiss club Lausanne. There is also Saudi Arabia’s sports minister, Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Faisal, saying his country would support any private sector bids.

Where the problems lie, unsurprisingly, are the costs involved in buying such an entity. The asking price is around £3.7bn, which rules out most homegrown investors and others will be put off by the poor state of Old Trafford. It could cost up to £1bn to renovate the stadium and that is a hefty add-on.

Following an unsuccessful bid to buy Chelsea Ratcliffe has said he had a meeting with the Glazers in the summer and they told him the club was not for sale, but months later it is on the market. It is not an overnight decision to sell a business of this size. Did Ratcliffe’s interest make the Glazers contemplate the sale or were their minds already made up and they prefer to not sell to the Ineos founder?

There will need to be in-depth due diligence and that will just be working through the list of Ronaldo’s gripes. There is plenty to be done at United to modernise a club built on Sir Alex Ferguson’s foundations. From business to football, if they want to continue as the behemoth created alongside the Premier League, changes will have to be made on many levels. A new training ground would be one necessity and an overhaul of the commercial operations another.

An optimistic scenario would see a takeover completed next summer in time for the opening of the transfer window. Any incoming owners would want to spend on new players for an early popularity boost, although purely by not being the Glazers they would be one step ahead.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s departure will have both a short- and long-term impact. His absence at Fulham allowed Alejandro Garnacho more minutes, before he scored the late winner. If United decide against signing a replacement in January, it would be a boost for youngsters such as the Argentinian.

While most of the first team squad are away at the World Cup in Qatar, the remaining players are training with the under-21s, allowing Erik ten Hag the chance to evaluate his young charges and see who could be worthy of a chance when the Premier League season restarts. The head coach now has the opportunity to look forward, no longer forced to deal with Ronaldo’s disruptive presence.

Thanks to the World Cup, there will be time for the dust to settle at Old Trafford. Fans will not attend a home match until late December, allowing them to absorb the shifting of the sands at United.

There is reason for optimism at United after frustration with owners and a club legend but it will take time for the impact of the past seven days to fully take hold. Good things, hopefully, come to those who wait.

The Glazer family has been urged by Manchester United fans to sell quickly and to make sure they leave the club in the right hands rather than chasing the biggest bid.

In an open letter, the Manchester United Supporters Trust also warns the Glazers that any sort of uncertainty could be “disastrous” and tells them “it’s time for a change”. It comes after reports the Americans want at least £6bn for a club they bought in 2005.

“The last 17 years has been characterised by debt and decline – on-the-field and off it,” Must says. “The vast majority of United fans will agree with the conclusion you appear to have also reached – it’s time for change.

“Fans will want to carefully scrutinise any new prospective owner – most of all we implore them not to repeat the mistakes you did – of alienating the fans that represent the greatest asset of Manchester United.

Despite the high price, United are likely to attract a number of potential suitors. In August, Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest person, expressed an interest in buying United. Some petro-states could also be keen on acquiring one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Must’s letter strongly criticises the Americans for their record before urging them to sell as quickly as possible. “You have made huge amounts of money from Manchester United,” it says. “Hundreds of millions of pounds out, without a single penny of investment in. Whatever commercial objective you had in 2005, we suspect you have met it.

“So now you can do two things for your legacy – the first is to prioritise the best interests of Manchester United Football Club over the financial interests of the selling shareholders. Our club, at this moment in time more than ever, needs the right ownership and that should be the priority rather than simply the highest bidders and highest return for you.

“Second, we implore you to move with speed. In football, any sort of hiatus or uncertainty is disastrous. If you have decided to sell, we urge you to do it quickly to allow the club to move on without any delay.”

It is understood that four of the six Glazer siblings have wanted to sell for a while and the other two, Avi and Joel, have come round to it in recent weeks. The Raine Group, which oversaw the sale of Chelsea this year, has been appointed as the financial adviser.

“We have a terrific new manager, and we can all see recent progress on the field,” the letter says. “So, conclude your review process as quickly as possible, identify the best new ownership for the football club, and get the sale done, so Erik ten Hag has the certainty he needs to invest in the playing squad and we bring in the much-needed investment for the stadium to restore Manchester United to its proper position.

“Now is the time for change in the best interests of Manchester United.”

Old Trafford: the gleaming jewel in the crown that is Manchester United. A destination venue with a wow factor that teems heritage, culture, modernity, warmth, light and vision. The ground revamped and overhauled or even downsized for the club’s vaunted youth teams to finally have a permanent home while a fresh 110,000-capacity stadium – perhaps named New Old Trafford – is built for the successors of Billy Meredith, George Best, Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney to grace. All of this part of a Manchester United HQ that develops the vast plot of land owned at M16 0RA.

With the Glazers offering notice they may sell, an architect is hardly required to see how a new owner could transform a crumbling and patched-up Old Trafford that has had zero fresh structural redevelopment since Malcolm Glazer bought the club in 2005.

An illustration of what can be achieved is found at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which took three years to build and cost £1bn and is a shiny testament to vision and ambition. For the 62,000 fans who can attend there is a Michelin star restaurant, numerous bars for home and away fans, a Grade II-listed building, an art gallery, Europe’s largest club shop and, generally, a sense that all was constructed with care and attention.

The finance required for an analogous site would surely start at £2bn but United, even more than Tottenham, have a proud history that could be drawn upon to create a forward-thinking monument to England’s record title-winners that would, in time, show the proprietor a nice profit.

The club was recently valued at about £3.75bn but Ed Woodward, the former chief executive, believed so vast are the revenue streams yet to be tapped that it could easily be raised to north of £10bn.

An example: the official tour of Old Trafford lacks imagination, the highlight being the trumpeted access given to the “actual changing rooms” used by the team during what feels like a bolted-on walkabout. Imagine instead a Manchester United virtual reality palace where, via goggles, you live the fantasy of any United player in any legacy triumph – say Ole Gunnar Solskjær in the 1999 Champions League final – and try to score a famous goal.

Or a bespoke Manchester United museum that allows an in-depth, immersive journey from the Newton Heath LYR Football Club of 1878 to the current Manchester United. Or, why not out-Michelin Tottenham and have a two-star rated restaurant that is open not only on match days and sits along side mid-range priced eateries that can be enjoyed after shopping at boutiques, working out at the Manchester United gym, watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster at the Manchester United cinema or a youth production at the Manchester United community theatre?

There is more than enough acreage to achieve all of this and more but instead the Glazers lacked any real desire: a neat shorthand for their 17-year ownership.

This year the Glazers appointed two master planners, Legends International and Populous, with a view to finally redeveloping the club’s home. Then, a spokesperson said: “Manchester United has appointed a team of leading consultants to begin work on creating a master plan for the redevelopment of Old Trafford. Work will begin immediately on developing options for Old Trafford and studying their feasibility, with the aim of significantly enhancing the fan experience.” This appears to have been abandoned.

What the considerable number of United fans will hope is that if they do sell whoever buys does not prove to be the Glazers MK II.