WHY doesn't Manchester United's plc board just tell John Magnier to take a running jump and keep his nose out of their business?
I'll bet chairman Sir Roy Gardner and his fellow directors would love to do exactly that. But they can't, can they?
Because Manchester United is a public company. And public companies dance to the tune of their shareholders.
And the bigger the shareholder, the more they dance.
And Mr Magnier owns a big, big slice of the Old Trafford Empire. He shouts "jump" and United's plc board reply "how high?" because they've got no choice.
That's the nature of the beast when it becomes a public company. It is at the beck and call of anyone who has enough dosh and business nous to accumulate a large block of shares in exactly the way Magnier and his colleague JP McManus have done over the past couple of years.
Bad idea
And the sequence of events instigated by Messrs Magnier and McManus which have unfolded at Old Trafford over the past few days have only strengthened a belief I've held for a number of years now, that professional soccer and public companies simply do not mix.
Could you imagine a Chelsea shareholder writing to Roman Abramovich demanding a breakdown of his club's transfer activities?
I don't know what the Russian is for "none of your business" but that would form the basis of Abramovich's reply.
Sure, Magnier's got all those United shares locked away in a safety-deposit box. But his business is horse-racing. That's how he's made his millions.
Magnier and his pal McManus might know everything there is to know about breeding champions of the turf but they know next to nothing about the running of a professional soccer club.
Ignorance
And they exposed their total ignorance of soccer matters in their demands to the board.
Do Magnier and McManus REALLY believe that Sir Alex Ferguson decides how much his club should pay for an incoming player, how much that player should be paid and what commission should be paid to an agent or agents for brokering the deal?
They didn't say as much in their letter but that was the clear inference.
Magnier and McManus are gravely concerned, apparently, about the huge amounts United have been handing out to agents as part of the overall fee for an incoming player.
Here again, had United not been a public company, they woudn't even have dignified that demand for an explanation about fees to agents with an answer.
Do you think United shouldn't be a PLC? Have your say
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Good article. No court case no problem with the Cubic boys as all they are interested in is making a buck on the shares.
I know Fergie is stubborn and believes he should have a slice of the stud fees but, as with Rio, after a while you want to just get on with things as in Magnier getting back to his horses and Fergie getting all the fuss at Man U settled down.
I really wish he would take a settlement then tell them to go away and you will find that they will. Spend some time in the company of the wealthy and you will find massive egos driving them along their chosen highways.
If Arsenal nip us this year, and they have the horses, we will look back and say we had too many fires to deal with.
While totally agreeing with the above article I still do not understand why they are getting away with putting so much pressure on Fergie with only 25percent of the shares. Its not as if what they are doing is believed by anyone to be in the best interests of either the club as a whole or the shareholders. Fergie after all is regarded by virtually all as the clubs biggest asset. He is in the prossess of rebuilding the club and if this is halted now could have disasterous consequences - remember when Busby left. For example Robben's parents have said that they do not want him to go to Madrid or Chelsea because the clubs do not have any long term interest in their personell. If Fergie goes will or if his future looks short term will the hottest property in Europe want to join. Van the Man also said he may not stay if Fergie goes. Notice contract talks have suddenly gone quite on Van the Man - I wonder why???
There may be some downsides to being a public company, but what are the alternatives? Having a club as the personal fiefdom of people like Ken Bates or Alan Sugar? At least the scrutiny involved in being a public company prevents chairmen from taking suicidal financial risks, like at Leeds. The Magnier affair has been blown up out of all proportion. Magnier doesn't want to trash a company that he own 25% of, and he certainly doesn't want to spend hundreds of millions buying it outright, just to help him win a court battle in which there are at most a few tens of millions at stake (and which he's probably going to win anyway). Anyway, why shouldn't transfer dealings be subject to scrutiny? If we are unnecessarily paying millions to agents then that leaves less money to spend on buying players.
This is a really distressing story in the way it is taking attention off the pitch into the boardroom. As much as we all know that "money talks.." Magnier and Co need to respect that Man United is a footballing organization and has a tradition built around the game and not the business. We still have battles to fight on the pitch and the suits should stick to watching the Stock index and stop disrupting an already fragile campaign.
Once again Mr. Hince shows his complete naivete when it comes to business matters. While every United supporter is P'ed off with the M&M interference, the problems are not caused by United being a PLC. Abromovich is the major shareholder in Chelsea - he is the only one - and when he says jump, the board and everyone else there, says how high. M&M have become major shareholders in Utd, but they are not the only ones. The ordinary supporter has more of a chance of impressing his/her wishes on the Utd board than a Chelsea supporter has of impressing Mr. Abromovich, particularly when you have active supporter shareholder groups like SU involved. Being a PLC or not does not protect you from the ill winds of bad ownership - only the grace of good fortune.
OT & ChrisW, 1st bit of sense I've read yet regarding the Fergie/M&M saga on this site.