Fear and loathing at Manchester United
The £500m begging letter issued by the Glazer family this week has once more galvanized the bulk of Manchester United supporters. The £500m bond offer document is little more than a death sentence for what was once Britain's richest club.
The document details how much the Glazers have already taken out of the club over £20m - personally taken out of the club by seven members of the Glazer family in loans and fees. It also outlines plans to sell Carrington and possibly Old Trafford and then secure the ability to rent these club assets back to the club - thus loading future liabilities on the club for decades to come. The Glazers have already banked £40m of the new £80m four year deal with AON - thus taking out of the system a large chunk of the revenue in 2010/11 and 2011/12. The £500m raised would also, finally, offer the Glazers a chance to pay down their personal debts accrued in the takeover with £70m diverted directly from the club to pay off the PIK (payment-in-kind) debts that are the only personal costs still being borne by the owners.
And the result of this asset stripping was a £40m operating loss last season if transfer fees are taken out of the equation. United are heading down the road that Leeds have already trod and can see Portsmouth somewhere in the distance.
Since The Glazers started their bid process in May 2005 ticket prices at Old Trafford have doubled as have food and drink prices. This squeezing of the fans is now so obvious that the once proud record of sold-out signs for league matches is largely a fallacy and will soon start to be recognised as such. Hundreds of seats in the stands are unused each week as there is little possibility of selling on tickets on the weeks when fans have a conflicting appointment. The corporate sections - who have also seen their prices double - are also massively undersubscribed and available every matchday. But perhaps the best indicator of the malaise is the biggest derby match against City in years - the semi-final of the Carling Cup - there are still tickets on general sale for that match, and before the postponement there were thousands available.
Fred Done the Manchester bookmaker and United fan reckons that any investor would be mad to consider the bond issue against a backdrop of asset stripping and declining (paying) customer base. United fans are reaching a tipping point, the bulk stayed silent while things went well - but most largely accept that Sir Alex Ferguson and a well established setup have kept the ship afloat despite the owners - not because of them.
The strength of feeling is such that United fans are organizing again to build p pressure on the Glazers to sell up and move on. But what can they do in the face of seemingly impossible levels of debt?
