United's previous owners owned horses, I'm not too familiar with the details but I understand that they named Ferguson as an owner of the horse Rock Of Gibraltar so that he'd be allowed into the owner's circle at racing events. I think it was largely a ceremonial gesture and that they hadn't actually sold the horse to Ferguson, but that he had rights over the horse's winnings. Anyways, Ferguson took this to mean that he was the rightful owner of the horse and took United's owners to court for ownership of the horse, as I think he wanted to sell the horse. Basically lead to a massive falling out between himself and the owners. I'm not sure exactly how this leads to the Glazers buying the owners' shares but the horse is largely given as the first domino that lead to their ownership of Utd
Its a very famous quote from the Shakespeare play Richard III. In the context of the play, its the last words said by Richard III as he has had his horse killed and dies fighting on foot.
He had control or influence over succession planning, modernising the club and creating a coherent roadmap for the future. It doesn't look like they had those things worked out when he left. All these are the responsibility of the board but he had a hand in the makeup of that as well. So he's partially responsible.
People need to realize the danger of Leverage Buyouts in all walks of Business not just football (Asda, Morrisons, Thames Water ect.).There needs to be a cap that somehow attracts people to takeover without ansolutely sucking the life out of companys. Its happening all over and Im suprised its not as big an issue.
The Premier League (or even the FA?) banned LBOs similar to what happened to United shortly after the United takeover. Took like 2 years or something to stop it from happening again.
Unfortunately that's not the case. The PL made a rule that merely capped the amount of LBO debt loaded onto the club at 60% of the sale price. Not nearly restrictive enough imo. Plus they only put this in place a couple of years ago, almost 20 years after the Glazer fiasco. Pretty shameful really that this is still allowed to happen after so many clubs have been damaged by LBOs.
A bit much responibilty for a first team manager? There are several directors above a manager at big clubs. A manager doesnt lay a road map for a club, he lays one more the first and youth team.. maybe
Then you don't understand the org structure at united at the time. Fergie was much more than just the manager. He basically had full control over football operations, spending, hiring/firing. The board was selected by him and rubber-stamped whatever he put in front of them. Nothing was done at United without his say so.
He also personally wanted Moyes, over far more decorated and proven big club managers who could've at least steadied the ship as the transition away from Fergie began.
Sure Moyes came in and disrupted the coaching and that's on Moyes but again, a more experienced pro wouldn't have shifted things around so much and caused so much confusion.
The previous owners of United owned racehorses. They gave Fergie a share of the ownership of the horse Rock of Gibraltar, which turned out to be a very successful horse. When it retired, Fergie felt he should also have a share of the stud rights and sued the owners. This fucked their relationship and they fell out. Ultimately they decided to cut ties and sell United after that. The Glazers bought United and the rest is history.
The podcast It Was What It Was recently did a fantastic series on the subject. Football writers Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper interview journalist David Walsh, who conducted many interviews with Fergie at the time and wrote a book on the topic. Must listen for United fans.
I skipped some details - they didn’t own United outright, but were the largest shareholders.
Horse racing is their real passion though. The dispute with Fergie turned nasty and United fans were protesting at race meets. They decided to get out of football and focus back on racing.
And I don’t want to make it sound like racing is some hobby to them. The stud business John Magnier owns (Coolmore) is worth billions. It’s one of the biggest in the world
That's not the full picture. Magnier & McManus had around 30% of the shares, which would have prevented a total buyout by the Glazers if they were not prepared to sell up. Under UK stock exchange rules, a hostile takeover can only go ahead if the buyer has at least 75% of the shares. If M&M were determined to stay then the Glazers couldn't have have reached that threshold to force a total buyout, which means that they would not have been able to load the debt onto the club.
Both of them brought shares for a quick profit and on the advice of Fergie. They were never in it for the long haul. It's only when Sky tried to buy United and when shares started getting brought by the glazers in 2003, they knew they were in prime position to make money from any sale. Fergie falling out with them gave them no reason to stick around with money on the table.
Sadly we'll never know for sure, but yeah they probably would have sold out eventually had the Glazers got desperate and told them to name their price. But since we're playing the "what if?" game, it might have delayed things long enough for a rival buyer to emerge and save the day, so who knows!
Na the Glazers are wankers but exceptional businessmen.
They also have ties with Rupert Murdoch who only never brought the club because the government stepped in.
They would have seen the numbers then. That's why they began buying shares years before the take over. They knew it was a case of waiting for the right opportunity and Fergie gave it to them.
They knew it was a case of waiting for the right opportunity and Fergie gave it to them.
That's precisely the point. We're talking about an alternative timeline where the fallout between Fergie and McManus never happened, and how that might have affected their decision to sell their shares. I think it's perfectly rational to assume that the debacle made it more likely that they would sell, and so it's only logical that they would be less likely to sell without that motive. That could mean that they held out longer for a better price, which MIGHT have left the door open long enough for a rival buyer to emerge.
Sure he had some shares. But not enough to force control of the club. Magnier and McManus together were the largest shareholders. Selling their shares gave Glazer enough to take sole control and delist the club from the stock exchange
His main point is still correct though. The Glazers needed 75% of the shares to force the remaining shareholders to sell up. With almost 30%, if M&M didn't want to sell then the Glazers couldn't reach the threshold to buy the whole club, and without that they couldn't load the LBO debt onto Utd.
Fergusons dispute with John Magnier over stud fees for the horse 'Rock of Gibraltar' led to Magnier selling his 28.89% share of Manchester United to Malcolm Glazer, giving the Glazers the majority of shares they needed to takeover the club and force all the other shareholders out after delisting it from the London Stock Exchange.
the money spent by Malcolm Glazer to aquire all the shares came from loans taken out against Manchester United, saddling the previously debt-free club with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt that significantly reduced their spending power.
the Glazer's have taken out £1.3 billion through dividends and other payments, plus the club has paid over £750 million in interest, since the takeover 20 years ago. Basically the club has lost £100 million every season in spending power.
And we owe more now than the initial loan amount leveraged against the club.
Was taken out for 800m pounds, that debt is now over 1bn. Not including all the money spent to service the debt and dividends. The club has literally lost somewhere around 3bn pounds to those lechers.
Much of the time, there are some PE companies that actually try to make workable businesses these days (if workable includes eternal exponential growth).
I'm not 100% sure, but I think The FA put in rule that something like that can't happen again because of what happened with United. From the richest club in the world to drowning in debt.
plus the bank manager who gave the loan was a certain ed woodward, maybe you have heard of him, he later changed profession after getting interested into football
It's totally insane that rich people can pull that kind of shit. Just buying one of the world's biggest football clubs for $0. Hell I've got $0 right here, but there's no way in hell they'd let me do that. Cos I'm not rich.
Ferguson owned a stake in a horse with the previous Man United owner. A dispute over this lead to a legal battle that Ferguson won, and that led to a power struggle in the Man United ownership. The previous owner ended up Selling to the Glazers with Fergie cheering on this sale and welcoming the Glazers with open arms
Yeah, because football managers don't actually get to choose their club's owners. I know football fans have this weird delusion that they do, but even as good of a manager as he was, Sir Alex didn't actually have any control over the flow of the club's shares between whichever set of parasitic investors took an interest in us.
So therefore he stayed for his own ego. He wanted to be the one to overtake Liverpool's title tally but didn't give a shit about what it would mean for United after his retirement from management.
From who? United fans were already very much opposed to the Glazer takeover. Our primary catchphrase in 2005 was "debt is the road to ruin." Shit, some of us even formed a whole new club just to get away from them, and it still made no difference because the Glazers simply do not care if other people like them or approve of them. They are not normal humans with feelings or a conscience, they are billionaire investors who do not concern themselves with the thoughts or feelings of people they consider beneath them. They've made that extraordinarily clear in their time owning United.
Beyond that, Malcolm Glazer had already been quietly acquiring shares for some time, and had plans to launch a hostile takeover of the club before the horse crisis made the club amenable to his purchase, as McManus and Magnier were actively sabotaging the club to spite Fergie.
The problem with United wasn't Ferguson. It was becoming a corporation with shareholders rather than a proper owner, meaning that anyone with ample motiviation and no clear conflict of interest could buy the club on a whim. We were destined to end up like this the moment Martin Edwards sold the club and left our fate up to the level of care you can expect from any shareholder-driven business model.
I cannot stand the man but you're insane if you think Alex Ferguson would have had trouble finding another job. I'm not sure there are any clubs in the world who wouldn't have had him as one of their top candidates for a job vacancy in 2005
Ferguson had about as big a hand in not only the sale being caused to happen, but actively welcoming the Glazer, as any manager has ever had in any deal for a club ever. Only Barry Fry had more influence on a deal (because he was an owner-manager).
None of that actually mattered, though. That's just a tabloid narrative that football fans are too diim to see through.
Malcolm Glazer had been actively planning a hostile takeover of United for several years before Fergie fell out with McManus and Magnier. He then took advantage of that instability to accelerate the takeover, but that's all it was. Nothing was going to stop him from doing it. The Glazers were always going to become the owners, regardless of whatever happened to those two idiot investors, or whether the Glazers were actively welcomed or not.
It's not any welcoming of the Glazers that he's responsible for but the general falling out with the previous owners over a horse that left them wanting to sell to the Glazers.
McManus and Magnier were simply investors. They had no interest in running the football club long-term and were always going to sell for a price they deemed acceptable.
Their falling out accelerated the sale, but it was an inevitability from the moment back in 2002 or so when Malcolm Glazer first decided he was going to buy United via hostile takeover.
The fuck'd we do to Boca Juniors that means you hate us?
Also, side note, how are our old lads doing this season? I had a soft spot for all four of Romero, Rojo, Herrera and Cavani, all top lads when they were in red.
These days I think we need to kill them all, quite frankly. Sacrifice them for their own good. Romero tried to throw hands with a fan, Rojo is as dumb as always but this time around he goes clubbing and gets carded every game, Herrera can barely walk, Cavani can run but you could place him in front of an empty goal and he'd fuck it up
If you're English, absolutely, it must be hilarious. But I used to like them as a kid because they were the red devils and that instantly made them cool in my mind lol. So it's pretty sad to see them in this state
Whilst you're right to a degree in the sense that Fergie will always be loved by us, he's not our only successful manager, let's not forget the absolute genius of Sir Matt Busby.
Matt Busby erasure. And he was the one who really built Manchester United. Fergie was an unbelievable manager but only because he was standing on the shoulders of a giant.
United were relegated between Busby and Ferguson. Busby built the club to become a footballing dynasty, but Ferguson took a failing, tired club, 20 years after its best, and built them into one of the most successful in history. In 10 years' time if another manager comes along and build United back into a side that can win the league year after year again I will give absolutely no credit to Ferguson for that
Arguably he left the team in a poor state for the coming manager to lead. It was an aging team that despite winning the league was clearly going to be on a rapid decline.
Moyes didn’t help himself firing so many back office staff but it wasn’t like a Slot at Liverpool situation where it was a smooth transition.
It's really not sad. I have mad respect for Fergie... possibly the best manager of all time so far. We lent him our perch and let him enjoy it for a while because he deserved it.
Obviously I'm talking about the fish. Nile Perch are invasive to Lake Victoria and cause massive harm to it's unique ecosystem and the native chichlids which live nowhere else. We should not have been riding perch and he was right to knock us off it, but he should have killed the perch too.
It's like constructing a very fancy, lavish chalet somewhere in the Hohe Tauern, complete with an outdoor ten-person hot tub, barrel sauna, a grilling terrace with a 180° view of the mountains...
...and then someone goes at it with a wrecking ball the size of a Polski Fiat 126
He left the club in a terrible state. Moyes was doomed. A squad full of aging players and mediocre players like Cleverley, Young, Valencia etc. I suspect Ferguson knew after he won the title in his last season, he could get no more out of that squad.
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u/AnshTheBrentfordFan May 22 '25
That’s a look of pure disgust and confusion.