Caporegime
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Time to support Wrexham, they might make it to the PL...in my lifetime.
The Manchester United Club Thread **Sponsored by Comedy Central**
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
That's a hard stance to take and I imagine you won't be alone. It's hardly going to matter if a few fans stop supporting a club in light of a takeover the size of Manchester United. I think it'll be extremely hard for any other club to compete tbh.
United's spending has been on par with the top spenders without even winning anything but the Bangkok trophy the last few years.
Soldato
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I never even thought about Wrexham until I watched that documentary. Now I always check out any highlights and see how they are doing in the league. The power of media. They have gained a fan via that show. Probably many more too.
Many people are saying if the Qataris do win the bidding, they will stop supporting Man Utd and maybe football in general. Fine, you do you, but remember, us English are not exactly all innocent are we. Yes, we have changed over the years, many many years of history, but remember, these Middle east that are investing in our beloved clubs and other ventures are still young countries. Who's to say they won't change too. Regardless, a country is going to do what it does, nothing we can do about that. They did and are still doing things we, as a society, don't agree with but they also don't agree with things we are doing. Swings both ways.
I will probably get labeled a Qatari sympathiser, no, I just understand that every country is different. Guess I am a little hypocritical as I was saying before the WC, I won't watch it, but it ended up being one of the best WCs ever.
In fact I would probably be more against as US consortium take over as they way the US treat workers, stupid healthcare costs, racism rife all over, tipping culture is all ****** up. Hell, if I were to be really critical, I would be against Sir Jim take over as the UK has a stupidly high child poverty problem. Why should a first world country such as us, have a child poverty problem?
I think its time to put aside what we think about countries and just accept the fact they will do what they want regardless.
Edit: upon reading Reddit and Twitter threads on this news, it appears to me, not many people understand what 'Sportswashing' actually means.
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But you will with every match ticket you buy, every shirt you buy.
It’s ugly but you can’t say you won’t support them if you carry supporting the club, and yea that’s a real difficult position for fans to be in.
I don't go to football matches (not in the UK anyway, like to have a drink with my live sport), and I don't buy shirts. I financially 'support' by subscribing to Sky and BT.
The only way I can protest is to stop watching sport entirely, which I'm not prepared to do.
A very naive viewpoint, even concerted fan demonstrations over Glazer ownship since 2005 has not had any impact over 18 years. If you think the Glazers are selling because they've had enough of fan protests, you're a mile wide of the mark. The Glazers and FSG are interested in selling because the purchase of City, and more recently Newcastle and Chelsea has set a benchmark on what clubs like Liverpool and United can be worth. Simply put, it's money.
The ESL didn't die due to fan voices, since when have clubs cared about their fans? Ticket rates, that are vastly higher than other European top flight leagues, keep increasing. Television rights keep increasing, with the end viewer taking the burden in either increased service cost or having to sign up to an ever increasing number of services.
The ESL didn't work because the incumbent associations imposed sanctions to ensure the clubs couldn't have their cake and eat it. It's all about money, unfortunately.
I do agree with you that football shouldn't be about money, and I personally, as a United fan, do not want to be owned by Qataris. There really isn't anything fans can do about it though. MUST had some traction/communication with the Glazers eventually, but all they were givem were empty promises.
I mean you could do something when it was the Glazers so whats new? You literally had a game postponed under their ownership. Saying there is nothing you can do is absolute nonsense.
Have all the green and gold scarves been recycled?
But the majority at the protest didn't really have any moral objections to the Glazers ownership. There was a minority that did and had protested against the Glazers from day 1 but most didn't care who owned the club as long as they spent more money on signings.
If this Qatar bid amounts to anything it will be the same as the Glazer takeover, a minority will object but not enough to make a difference. Although some will pretend otherwise, the rest would push their nans down the stairs to sign another £50m player and will be changing their twitter pic to some random Sheikh and doing the stereotypical 'walk like an Egyptian' dance.
And before I get any stick from the Mancs, I've said the same thing re Newcastle and that it would be the same at the majority of clubs.
So give Chelsea back to Roman then and stop all this fuss about Ukraine? After all Russia will do what Russia does regardless. Yeah you have accepted it and that's fine, as I said at least people should hold their hands up and admit they are hypocrites and that their morals only extended to use it as a tool to complain about Chelsea and City.
I don't support the club I did from a boy anymore, I'm not happy about the funding or the way the club was run. I did largely ignore it and not bother but some of the views and comments on this forum made me look at what I was prepared to tolerate and I was wrong. The club can go down and out of business for all I care. I didn't watch a single second of the world cup either.
I wish United could take a stand because they don't need state investment but it's wishful thinking. With artificially inflated worth of football clubs as businesses its a sad state of affairs.
Most people objected to the Glazers due to the bloody awful way they ran the club more than anything else. Yes the fact we were servicing debt to the tune of ~£50m/year along with the Glazers taking money out of the club was annoying but we were still spending loads of money on players.
They didn't invest in the infrastructure around the club and they didn't seem to give two monkeys about the actual football. That was what the fans hated the most. Football fans ultimately care about the football so when the football results are coming the other stuff takes a backseat. When results are **** though the fans start looking at everything else and it pushes them over the edge.
Theres a poll on redcafe at the moment about the Qatari bid and peoples views on it.
Fine, no reservations 22%
Not happy, will still support the club 31%
Not happy, will seriously consider my continued support 15%
Fine, but have some reservations 32%
I would be surprised if that 15% actually do more than consider. I will be happy with any owner that does the right thing for the club which in my books is focussing on the football and the fans. I don't want to become PSG because I think that makes you a soulless club. Buying any player you want because you can. Buying players because of their galactico appeal does nothing for me.
If people have strong enough morals to stop supporting a football club due to their owners then more power to them but I would think those people lead quite a tough life if they take that moral stance on any other aspect of their life.
They didn't invest in the infrastructure around the club and they didn't seem to give two monkeys about the actual football. That was what the fans hated the most. Football fans ultimately care about the football so when the football results are coming the other stuff takes a backseat. When results are **** though the fans start looking at everything else and it pushes them over the edge.
Theres a poll on redcafe at the moment about the Qatari bid and peoples views on it.
Fine, no reservations 22%
Not happy, will still support the club 31%
Not happy, will seriously consider my continued support 15%
Fine, but have some reservations 32%
I would be surprised if that 15% actually do more than consider. I will be happy with any owner that does the right thing for the club which in my books is focussing on the football and the fans. I don't want to become PSG because I think that makes you a soulless club. Buying any player you want because you can. Buying players because of their galactico appeal does nothing for me.
If people have strong enough morals to stop supporting a football club due to their owners then more power to them but I would think those people lead quite a tough life if they take that moral stance on any other aspect of their life.
What do you mean United don't need state investment? We are owned by greedy americans who have taken over a billion out of the club since they took over and have let the stadium and facilities rot and the club go from the top side in the country to a question on top 4 every season. We need better owners. We don't need oil money but go and have a word with the Glazers and see if they want to "do the right thing" and sell it for less money to someone else.
United fans can't/won't stop the sale of the club to whoever the Glazers want. How did peoples dislike of the latest WC pan out in the end? Exactly. People can always do something if they care enough and are willing to suffer enough for it but this isn't one of those things.
That isn't United, thats the owners. The Glazers are a parasite at the club. I would love United to be taken over by someone nice who runs the club sustainably based on our revenues but that ship has sailed a long time ago. Once we were bought out, that was it. Horse has bolted.
Soldato
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I meant society, belief, religion wise, not wars.
I hold my hand up about the WC, thats why I said in my post. Unfortunately, it is what it is regarding football and these takeovers, investments etc.
The fact you could do something isn't the point, the point is, in the case of Manchester United, is fans doing something didn't result in any change. The postponed game didn't result in the Glazers selling up. They leveraged the club in order to buy it, and have milked it in dividends. They were never going to give up the goose that lays the golden egg due to a few protests.
They're selling now because the market has changed with the buy outs of Newcastle and Chelsea, and now they can maximise the asking price of the club. Chelsea was what, a £4.25bn sale? £2.5bn in shares and £1.75bn commited investment. If Chelsea is worth that then Glazers have a base line from which to command a higher price for Manchester United.
Fans protesting is just noise, fans walking out of games isn't lost revenue because they've paid for their ticket already. Fans not renewing season tickets isn't an issue because they'll just sell those tickets to another fan who missed out the last time.
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Shocking isn’t it. £150-200 million to buy the club, £1 billion taken out in the form of dividends ect and now going to sell for £4-5 billion. Tax free!
So how bad are the Quatis in comparison? I’m happy to get rid of parasites we have in charge and what will be will be.
I'm pretty sure they have come out with some doozies over the years that were a sharp illustration of how they viewed the club.
Woodward saying "Playing performance doesn't really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business."
Of all the journalists in the world that you shouldn't pay attention to, Kaveh Solhekol has got to be in the top 5 and you certainly shouldn't be listening to him on financial matters. The company the Glazers used to buy Utd is registered in the Cayman Islands (not Manchester Utd) so there will be no corporation tax on the profit attached to any possible sale however the various Glazer kids will be taxed when trying to take that money into the US or whereever.
That’s pretty irrelevant to us in the UK as the tax won’t be going to us like it should.
Why should it? Utd isn't owned by a UK resident or company.