SIR Alex Ferguson and his side may not be the only Old Trafford winners from the possible meltdown at Chelsea - the Glazers may also earn some brownie points into the bargain.
When Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich wiped out Chelsea's é80m debt in June 2003 and let managers Claudio Ranieri and then Jose Mourinho dip into the contents of his vast wallet almost everybody in football wanted a sugar daddy.
The richest man in Russia, and the 11th richest in the world, with an estimated fortune of around é40bn and prepared to bankroll the building of a successful side, seemed ideal.
Smashing any football transfer record was going to be a drop in the ocean for someone awash with that kind of dosh.
Someone with loads of cash who just turns up on match day, smiles embarrassingly in the directors box, watches the game, says `yes' to any player the manager fancies and then goes home. How good is that?
Never mind the damage to the competitive nature of English football and harm to the transfer market, Chelsea fans were in raptures.
When you haven't won the League title since 1955 and it's virtually bought for you it was a case of `don't look a gift horse in the mouth' down on the King's Road.
Around the country there were thousands of green-eyed fans moaning about Chelsea but secretly wishing Abramovich had chosen their club as his plaything.
A proportion of United's support saw past the rolling pound signs in people's eyes and were glad that Abramovich didn't turn his attention to Old Trafford. He wouldn't have been welcome even if he'd brought Ronaldinho with him.
Even less welcome was an American who plunged the club into immediate debt.
Hostile
Malcolm Glazer and his family's relationship with the fans has been decidedly hostile in some quarters and, at best, an uncomfortable one. They split the Reds support.
Some left for FC United and some stayed but remain anti-Glazer.
Those who vigorously opposed the Florida millionaire buying United were not hate-fuelled because they believed the recluse would suddenly be nipping over the Atlantic and barging in on Sir Alex Ferguson's team talks. Their concerns were deeper than that.
Nevertheless, there were fears from the `wait and see' brigade who were prepared to reluctantly take a step back and monitor the Glazer influence at the club.
Some of their worries centred on the possibility of Malcolm Glazer or his more active sons Joel, Bryan or Avram meddling with on-field affairs when they got their feet under the table. They imagined a video conference link from Tampa Bay to Old Trafford every week where the Yanks demanded that Gabriel Heinze should play instead or Patrice Evra, or Wayne Rooney should be dropped because he hadn't scored.
Or perhaps chief executive David Gill's phone would be ringing and a Glazer would say `go and buy so and so from Barcelona or Milan and tell Fergie that Paul Scholes should make way for him!
`Oh and by the way tell Mr Ferguson that we are sending over a couple of coaches to help him out and if he doesn't like it then he can start using his bus pass because we'll get somebody in who will agree to our ideas.'
But there has been little sign of the family in any of the corridors at Old Trafford, let alone those leading to the dressing room on a match day.
The reclusive family have largely remained just that on the football front although increased ticket prices and staff redundancies are another story.
The concerns harboured about the Glazers are coming home to roost at Stamford Bridge.
Abramovich has gradually been appointing his own men on the backroom staff. Allegedly it was he who wanted misfit Andriy Shevchenko and not Mourinho.
The spectre of Guus Hiddink, who Abramovich helped get the Russian international job, is now hanging over the Special One who has brought two Premiership titles to a previously non-achieving outfit.
The sugar daddy is starting to leave a bitter taste at the Bridge.
The Glazers' PR machine couldn't have done a better job of improving their acceptability rating.
What do you think? Have your say.
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The glazers have experience and are experts at running sporting organisations. The same cannot be said of Roman. So they know to let the football issues be dealt with by Ferguson.
Lovely bit of spin. The so called Chelsea crisis is beyond overblown. I cannot see Mourinho taking on players like Shevchenko if he didn't think he'd do a job for Chelsea. Unfortunately they have been guilty of of waving the cash around the mercs and buying up players while not really knowing where they will fit in like Ballack, we've done the same in the past. When you look at the whole Chelsea in crisis its worrying that no matter how bad they've played this season they're still in four competitions and only 6 points behind us.
No one has ever suggested the Glazers would interfere on the football pitch side. It is all about debt - both in how that is to be repaid and how it restricts other areas, such as transfers and ticket prices.
As for their sporting organisation expertise, their experience is limited to running a franchise in a closed market with no relegation, very regulated transfers and no local competition, salary caps etc etc where tv totally dominates to the extent of holding up play for advertising.
Not for me, not a penny to the OT franchise. Forza FC
Can we please make this the last story about Chavski's "crisis"? Like RCH says, theyr'e only 6 points adrift and could easily go on a run of victories. All this stuff in the press, writing them off, is making me very nervous. Enough already!
To be fair the Glazer's have kept a low dignified profile and UNITED have improved on the pitch.You get the feeling they trust SAF and listen to his thoughts on improving the team.
Abrmovich comes across as a spoilt rich boy who just wants to have his picture taken with the champions league trophy.He probably believes in the power of money.You can buy anything mentality! I find it strange he doesn't want to do it for Moscow Dynamo or Spartak.I doubt he has any real passion for Chelsea at all.
Chapter two of bad taste will be Liverpool of Arabia.The downside of Big money is people who don't care.The premiership may become a battleground for billionaires egos.
Agree that the debt is a very big concern for us fans. But I can't help thinking that a lesser transfer-kitty has helped our scouting process, we seem to get most of our transfers right these days. I've never liked the merchandising of the club, it really got out of proportions once we became a PLC. In fact so much we could be compared to Disney (which I detest, btw), but I grudingly have to admit that it helps us in paying silly-wages to the top players. Fergie had a point when he said that fans who feared for Utd's soul should have jumped ship when we became a PLC. Since then there was only been a matter of time before loaded businessmen charged into the OT offices. So if you want to point the finger, do it at Martin Edwards. He started this mess and is too easily forgotten when we mention the Glazers. Btw, seem to remember Fergie saying that Edwards put his foot down of lots of transfertargets, I don't think the Glazers operate in that way. As long as the money is forked out, Fergie seems free to decide which players should be brought in. It's actually good that the Glazers don't know a thing about 'soccer', there's less cance of them identifying transfer-targets :)
As long as the Glazers:1. keep their distance; 2. Work us out of debts; 3. Give C. Ronaldo a 120 TH week pay; 4.Make enough Funds to buy Kaka 5. come to watch our cup Finals or The day we will get crowned as Champions; Then our future looks bright as ever! Anyways Glazers have no clue about football no wonder our scouting team is falling to get talents!!
This article misses the point. We were never overly concerned that the Glazers would meddle in footballing affairs, beyond pre-season friendlies etc. The concern was, and continues to be, that the football club that is manchester united is being turned into a profit-making machine for the benefit of private investors, and the detriment of the fans. Yes we've always been interested in high returns. Yes this was true under the PLC. But never to the extent that the future of the club has been mortgaged on our earning capacity. I can't say I'm overly distressed having the Glazers in charge, but I do worry that the debt burden may prove to be unsolvable without the sale of top players, or massive price hikes (again), or even Old Trafford. Furthermore, we've already seen internal cost-cutting, with 25 administrative staff let go last year, the dismantling of the reserves (or youths was it?), the selling on of a vast number of youngsters, and most importantly for a club of united's size, profit-making in the transfer market. Good transfer business is for the likes of Harry Redknapp; good players these days don't come cheap, especially cos as soon as a player does ten kick-ups it gets posted on the internet for all to see. So, while the cost of running football clubs grows ever higher, we have become the most indebted club in the world, where the main concern for our owners is, whether they say it or not, how to make a profit. This is in direct contrast to the fans, who pay to watch the team, cos it means something more than profit to us. As of yet, this clash has been pretty small, apart from season-ticket price-hikes. But what of a few years from now, when we need to replace ageing stars, or if our profit margins haven't risen to the extent we'd hoped (40% was it)? What happens to us then?
I think Malcolm Glacier is an inept owner and not a very savvy businessman. ¿¿18m on Carrick? A ¿¿20m bid for Hargreaves? ¿¿10m for Bale? This isn't shrewd spending.
So just because a rival club is having a bit of a dip it makes the Glazers acceptable.
So far the Glazers have been awful in the transfer market.
The clubs leading scorer in European history has been replaced by an over the hill striker on loan for 10 weeks.
While some though Larrsson was a great signing, it was just another case of Fergie getting a player he admired but was over the hill. What next Blanc brought back when Heinze rightly decides if Evra can keep him out of the team his furture lies elsewhere.
Bringing Larrson in was a mistake and it meant that we were never going to get a Torres or any other quailty striker that could make the difference in the title race.
Maybe the specail is right United should have the league wrapped up
I'm anything but a Glazer apologist, but something else that is happening shows them in a better light. The doom-mongers warned that the Glazers would squeeze every penny out of United fans, but that appears to be the province of just about every other club in the Premiership. Just look at the way United fans have to pay top dollar for tickets at away grounds. The UWS guys this week drew our attention to what Fulham are doing, and compiled a list showing how other clubs crank up ticket prices for visiting United fans compared to those of other clubs. Imagine the outcry if United did that to fans wishing to visit OT? Imagine the press the Glazers would get in such a scenario?
The problems at Chelsea are symptomatic of what is wrong with football generally. The fact that the Glazers be a better bet than Russian millionaires at this point in time does not even entitle them to Brownie Ponts. They are running a business and Abramovich has different motives which may make their decision making more informed.
Both are motivated by their own self interests and not the good of the club. Both will run if their investments are not delivering what they want.
What happens then?
All this Glazer vs Abramovich is nothing but Old Trafford PR spin. The fat-cats at Old Trafford must think fans are stupid trying to talk down Glazers negative contribution to United. Fair play to Blackburns chairman John Williams I say. He is promising to use the new TV money to slash gate prices to fifteen pound adults and free for children. I have no doubt this will be repeated all over the Premiership leaving clubs who refuse to reduce prices standing out like a sore thumb.
I think the greatest investment that the Glazers invest in coaching. (ie managing) For example, the NFL here in America now have 6 or 7 head coaches who were former Bucs assistants and the TWO head coaches in the Super Bowl this year got their coaching starts BECAUSE OF the Glazers. The greatest part of Glazer ownership of your sports club is having them find the right personnel to run the football matters. (Or leave them where they are as in SAFs case.) They are managers in the sense that they delegate responsibility to the right people and don't promote because of friendships, but because of talent. Kudos to the Glazers for hiring the right people and not micromanaging.
Two wrongs don`t make a right.
No one ever thought Glazers would interfere in football matters but lets list their acheivments so far.
Massive debt dropped on the club.
Inflation busting price hikes to get the fans to pay off the debt.
Staff redundancies.
Trimming the squad to the bare bones.
Why exactly do they deserve any brownie points?
I don't ever remember fans expressing concern about the Glazers interfering with team affairs, our worries have been, and continue to be, around the debt that Uncle Malc has saddled United with and how it will be managed moving forward. Just because we are doing well this season people seem to have developed quite a blinkered view and aren't willing to admit that there is still a great deal of work to be done rebuilding the squad and until the Glazers put their money where their mouth is (such as buying a Kaka or Ronaldhino, lowering ticket prices after receiving all this new TV money etc) doubts will always remain over them. One thing to say about Roman (as much as I hate what he has done to football) is that at least he does turn up for matches and takes an interest in the club.
Whatever happens at Chelsea (and let's be very clear, as Mick and others have said, that it is no "crisis"), it is utterly unconnected and thus irrelevant to the ownership situation at United. Any comparison is fundamentally flawed because the two transactions were fundamentally different: one was a straight cash buy by a inestimably wealthy man; the other was a protracted, forced delisting from the stock exchange by a man who, whilst wealthy compared to the fans, could not purchase the club without taking out an extraordinary amount of debt. Whether we think Abramovich is a disaster waiting to happen at Chelsea has no bearing on whether we think the Glazers are a positive or negative force on the long-term future of Manchester United. The article uses an absurd comparison as the basis for a wildly speculative supposition that is of no interest to the fans and that fails to acknowledge that the debt was at the heart of our opposition to the takeover, not fears about first-team interference.
My season ticket went up by 17% this season. And that does not take into account the inflation busting rises that will be put on Champions League tickets.
What really grates is that all this money is going to pay off the debts which the Glazers have transferred to the club. they have even made a profit on transfers. There is nothing to thank the Glazers for.
Chris, Stu, spot on. No way should a man who loaded one of the wealthiest, well run, and debt free clubs in the world with hundreds of millions of debt, get any credit whatsoever. And he should not get credit for not messing up a club either. Its crazy that he could do what he did, so lets not add to the madness by praising him for it!
peter cheadle well said i am in same boat as you except i have 3 season tkts
stu, very well said.
Perfectly put Stu.
I'll follow you....
Stu: Well said!
I have nothing to add to that.
Love United Hate Glazer
Well, thank you for that Stuart Mathieson. I do hope you have now worked your and the MEN's way back into good books at OT. But, please remind us how many Glazers now sit on the board at OT? And how many non-Glazers? And how much is the debt on MU just now? And when will the club be free of that debt? And how many staff and players have been off-loaded? And what has been their total spend on incoming transfers? And how much have ticket prices risen? And by how much will they continue to rise in future? And, and, and........Well, I'm certainly persuaded that nothing has changed!
PR Rubbish.
What is happening at Chelski has nowt to do with the Glazer clan's crippling debt that they have loaded onto Utd.
The King has got no clothes on fellas - despite what spin the MEN and OT want to try to put on it - LUHG