What 'growing consensus' about Manchester United's 'financial crisis'?

In the Mail on Sunday (06.12.2009) Rod Draper contends that there is 'growing consensus among European clubs that Manchester United face an imminent financial crisis'. A quite startling development because although United have been ladled with an awful lot of debt there has been no real indication that this was affecting the day-to-day operations of the football club.

United made a big surplus on transfers in the summer as a result of the £80m sale of Cristiano Ronaldo and that would have more than covered any interest payments required this season even if all other sources of income suddenly dried up. Admittedly given how these things are usually phased it may not have immediately hit the books but there must have been a chunky downpayment. So why is there a 'growing consensus'?

Well Rod Draper quotes 'directors of Bayern Munich' - which without attribution is worthless - as saying that when United were quoted £60m for Franck Ribery that they heard nothing back from United; Partizan Belgrade suggested that United's failure to take up an option to buy Adem Ljajic for £10m was because they couldn't afford it.

Surely a financial crisis would be more evident if United weren't enquiring about the valuation of expensive players rather than merely quibbling over price? Bayern Munich wanted more for Ribery than Milan wanted for Kaka - which suggests that the German club were simply overvaluing a player they didn't want to sell. United also made enquiries about Benzema - but refused to get into a bidding war once the price went over £25m, I'm surprised that hasn't been mentioned yet. And to further weaken the credibility of this story everyone accepts that United did offer the full £25.5m for Carlos Tevez in the summer - but Tevez decided that he wanted to move on.

So last summer United enquired about Benzema, Ribery and Tevez - firming up the bid on Tevez, pulling out of negotiations on Benzema and never getting past the initial quote on Ribery. These are hardly the actions of a club that has run out of money.

Since the takeover by the Glazer family the transfer pot has shrunk - but at no stage is there an indication that the Glazers wouldn't back Sir Alex Ferguson if a player needed to be bought. United had a summer when everyone knew that they had vast sums to invest; but so did Manchester City and Real Madrid and the sudden inflationary pressures created did not sit well with United.

If United spend nothing in January and then next summer then there could be something in it. But just because United refused to pay inflated prices for two players does not mean that there is a 'growing consensus among European clubs that Manchester United face an imminent financial crisis'.

I'm surprised Rod Draper put his name to this ill-conceived piece.