As reports from early this morning release the new of Manchester United’s latest accounts, my memory casts back to the time when Duncan Drasdo, MUST, the Red Knights and all those big talkers spoke out against the Glazer dictatorship and how they would do this and that to make the Glazers sell. For all their talk, today we have announced a mammoth yearly loss of £83.64m. Ouch! Time and time again we are subjected to false dawns. Duncan Drasdo with his campaign to have empty seats at Old Trafford this season to starve the Glazers of cash. Keith Harris and his Red Knights’ organising a takeover bid. The operating profit of £100.8m is a record high for any English club but it can still not disguise the fact that the Manchester United we all know and adore may be going out of existence because of some money-grabbing man known as the Leprechaun in his home of the United States of America. We were £716m in debt earlier in the year. That figure must have climbed astronomically since then so our disgust.
Commercial Director of Manchester United, Richard Arnold, will try and divert attention away from this unacceptable loss by stating how wonderful it is to have such a handsome size of a profit and David Gill will come immediately after him saying the club can sustain the debt (Mr. Gill of course thinking of his pay packet before the long-term liquidity of the club). For all this supposed genius commercial territory specific sponsorship we are getting from Asia and other continents of the world, we are still making an incredible loss. The following for me told an unbelievably bleak story. Last year, we spent more money paying back interest than on players. If that doesn’t signal a club mired in financial chaos then I don’t know what does. The accounts do not lie. Do not be disillusioned by the record high profit. We are on the brink of financial meltdown.
What annoys me as well about this is the pointless and ill-mamanged campaigns organised by so-called experts. Duncan Drasdo seems to be like an innocent child lost in a vast toy store. But all the shelves are empty and he has no idea what to do. I know me means well but his organisation, MUST, seem to be making no headway whatsoever. For all the Norwich-inspired neck wear about Old Trafford last season, they sure as hell haven’t done a tap to remove the Glazers from power. It’s all fine and well twirling a piece of cloth in the air. But to intimidate a billionaire who is living more than 3,000 miles away separated by a vast ocean? Please. That’s like trying to intimidate Jose Mourinho in a mind game. You know you’ll come off second best. The plan of organising to make sure United fans don’t renew their season tickets has also failed miserably. The idea of this was to starve the Glazers of cash and while doing this boycotting also the purchase of any United merchandise. Well earlier this summer, I saw many English, Irish, Asian and plenty others milling around Old Trafford coming out with a big grin delighted with their new United jersey. Drasdo’s campaign has been a failure somewhat and that has been underlined by MUST’s recent lack of communication towards their MUST online members.
Keith Harris trying to broker a deal for the Red Knights to buy-out the Glazers was also amusing to watch. How was the idea of 40+ millionaire putting their money together to buy a club every going to work? First of all they were priced out of it at an eye-watering price tag of £1.5bn set by the Glazers. Secondly, can you imagine them deciding on whether they should finance the bid for a player the manager wanted? Some people would be for the move, others would be against. The arguing over that one issue along would make sure that this type of takeover would never materialise.
So for all the commotion and hot air regarding all these people and organisations in trying to oust the Glazers from power inside Old Trafford, we are stillunder the ownership of Malcolm Glazer. We are still making enourmous losses. And most significantly, we are still edging ever closer to being bankrupt.
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