Twenty years ago Manchester United was rocked by the Glazer family takeover that would ultimately mark the decline of the football club from a financial and playing sense.
The Americans arrived amidst fan fury but due to a series of fortunate circumstances for themselves, were able to complete the hostile takeover of the world’s biggest club in May 2005.
The Telegraph have gone into extensive detail of the story of how a debt-free, largely well-run United became a club saddled with huge outside debt and is still very much paying the price 20 years later.
Who were they?
The Americans were seen as “socially awkward” and the anthesis of what your typical football club owner of the mid 2000s was. They were in a landscape of predominantly British owners and big personalities and the Glazers were neither.
The Telegraph reports that the United board were “struck by their social awkwardness” and could not wrap their head around some of the things they did in the series of meetings before the takeover.
Despite making most of their money in property development, the Floridians also owned the NFL team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who had won the highly coveted Super Bowl trophy two years before in 2003.
Someone present in the pre-takeover meetings claimed, “they were keen to show us their Super Bowl rings which they were wearing. It was not something that a chairman of a football club would do. It was hard to know what to say.”
How did they do a deal?
The Glazers were able to make a move for United due to the fallout of the Rock of Gibraltar scandal which involved the manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Irish businessmen John Magnier and JP McManus, who were major shareholders in the club.
There was a dispute over the breeding rights of the highly successful racehorse, the Rock of Gibraltar, which finally led to Ferguson taking legal action against the club owners.
These events created a boardroom schism that gave the Glazers the chance to convince certain key members that the club should be sold to them. McManus and Magnier became spooked by the level of support Ferguson was attracting as “fan activism at Hereford [racecourse] and the threat to racing’s marquee event, Cheltenham.”
The club’s chief executive at the time David Gill was also on board and a relatively unknown Ed Woodward, “was among those trying to persuade the board in early 2005 to back the leveraged buyout plan”, in spite of huge board scepticism of the idea.
Nonetheless, “On May 12, 2005, the Irish sold their stake of 28.89 per cent to the Glazers for a profit of around £100 million. The Glazers controlled 76.2 per cent of the company and delisted the following month.”
On their first day at the club, the new owners had to leave clandestinely in the back of a police van, such was the fury and vitriol of the fans.
How the Glazers went about their dealings
The Americans quickly went about their business and started to erode the culture of the club that had been built up over decades.
One source told The Telegraph that many were taken aback by their “arrogant” treatment of the club’s shirt sponsors Vodafone at the time and that they were keen to play the field to get a bigger deal.
More than 200 companies were approached with the Glazers never wanting just “one option, they wanted multiple options who would be played off against one another.”
“United had interest from insurers AIG; the Malaysian Air Asia airline; online gambling house Mansion Bet; and LG Electronics, the Korean electronics manufacturer”, all of whom felt at one point they were in the lead.
“Indeed, Mansion, in April of the next year, was so indignant about its treatment it went public with what it alleged was ‘double dealing’ by United.”
What’s more, a Stretford End season ticket holder Andy Green, who also just happens to be the head of investments at Rockpool investments did some digging into who the Glazers actually were in 2010, five years after their takeover.
What he discovered was “truly extraordinary” and would paint a sad picture of what would eventually happen at United.
The Glazers knew a little about NFL and nothing of football but what they did know was “shopping malls and office blocks in anonymous American suburbs.”
“Green discovered that 63 of the 64 properties had CMBS mortgages on them. They had been leveraged to such a degree that after rental income the portfolio returned less than $10 million in profit before tax.” Many had also gone bust. Effectively the Glazers had bet big on the property market that had spectacularly collapsed by 2010 after the global recession of 2008.
As Green put it, “they are a rich family – but a rich family who live by maxing out the credit card.”
United now, after 20 years, know exactly what the Glazers are about with hundreds of millions of debt and dividends siphoned off from the club instead of being reinvested back where it came from.
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
