Most Manchester United fans will never be happy with the way that the club is being run under the Glazers.
Paying many tens of millions in interest every year from Manchester United’s turnover is borderline criminal.
In justification, the owners might argue that they have increased Manchester United’s turnover to the extent where these payments have been completely offset.
And reports today declare that Manchester United have broken all records with their turnover this year. The Telegraph says:
The prospectus states that total revenue is expected to be approximately £429m to £434m, an increase of 18 to 19 per cent. By comparison Real Madrid’s turnover was £480m but that includes player sales.
Profit for the year is expected to be £23m to £25m – significantly down from the £146.4m for 2012-13 but that was mainly due to a one-off tax credit.
With a revenue of around £420 million Manchester United have not only beaten their personal best. They are also comfortably the biggest operators in The English Premier League.
They are also expected to leapfrog Real Madrid as the world’s richest club again in the next financial year.
But you do wonder how this recent transfer spend is going to impact the overall level of debt.
Manchester United obviously had cash reserves set aside for transfers but you can’t imagine that the transfer spend – which will largely go into the reports for next year – won’t in some way add to the debt mountain.
There is a fine balance to be struck between remaining competitive in the market and paying off that debt. The best-case scenario would of course be for a cash rich investor to come in and get rid of the Glazers. But the Americans seem adamant that they want to hold onto the club and will set the sale price prohibitively high in order to ward off potential buyers until they have had their fill. The concern is that they don’t share the long term concerns of the fans.
Manchester United fans – are the Glazers steering the club in the right direction?
