Have The Glazers Now Found Love At United?
After two fraught years, is the Glazer family edging closer to finding honour and respect among United fans?
Sir Alex uses interviews regularly to encourage fans towards a show of love for the club’s owners and is particularly fulsome in his ardour now, as he revels in the Glazer family’s gift of more than £50 million worth of new players.
“I’ve said since they took over the club that they have been nothing but supportive,” Ferguson said. “They have demonstrated that support by giving a lot of money this summer and I appreciate it because I think it gives us a really strong squad next season.”
This was the vindication for which the Glazers had been waiting since being savaged last year for selling Ruud Van Nistelrooy. A spokesman for the family greeted the manager’s endorsement more warmly than the arrival of a winning lottery ticket.
“We have said all along that money has been available for the manager to spend and now he has chosen to really take the plunge and spend a lot of money on four great players,” the spokesman declared in the Times newspaper.
“He has always had those funds and the manager has always been reassured about that. The family are 100 per cent committed to investing in all aspects of the football club, which includes providing the manager with the funds to invest in the transfer market.”
According to the Times, the manager’s appreciation is shared by fans, leading to warmer relations between owner and supporters.
“The Glazers have experienced a thawing in their relations with United supporters over the past 12 months and their extravagances in the transfer market this close season are likely to endear them to fans concerned only with the team’s performances on the field,” the newspaper reported on 11 July.
“The debt, which stands at about £663 million, remains a cause of concern for others but the Glazers insist that it is “serviceable;” given the club’s mammoth revenue streams.”
The newspaper may be right in its view that there has been a shift among the wider United fan base towards the view that the Glazers are pumping money into United and the claims of the anti-Glazer faction are exaggerated.
However, despite their sudden splurge, the Glazers are far from the respect and gratitude that currently attaches to Randy Lerner at Aston Villa, to Tom Hicks, the man behind Liverpool’s cash crazy summer and of course, Roman Ambramovich. The disastrous Automatic Cup Ticket scheme stands as yet another mammoth break on any real affection and is the public relations fiasco that not even £50 million can neutralise.
The Glazer family may well delight in its command of the headlines and the glowing press United have received since last August. But nevertheless, it could do without the number crunching of its critics who claim that United have spent nothing like £50 million on players this summer and could conceivably end the close season with a profit in trading after the sales of surplus players.
The anti-Glazer faction MUST reports in its latest newsletter : “It looks like the Glazers have at last put their hands in their pockets? Not quite. The cash comes from club funds, not the Glazer pockets.
“Hargreaves cost £17 million. Nani and Anderson cost around £8 million each upfront with more to pay depending on targets. Hargreaves’ £17 million falls into the next financial year so will not impinge on this year’s financials.
“In all, about £16 million has been committed before any players sales which could result in net even balance or even surplus.”
The impasse between Glazer and his critics is so entrenched that nothing can bring them together. For the remaining United fans however, investment in the team is all there is. So long as the Glazers keep Sir Alex active in the transfer market and his team on top of the table, they will wonder what all the fuss and rancour is for.
Advantage Glazer.
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