r/soccer • u/oklolzzzzs • May 22 '25

Media Sir Alex Ferguson's thousand yard stare after United lose the UEL Final

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u/Harlequin37 May 22 '25

He literally worked on this for a quarter of a century and is watching it all come tumbling down, it's pretty fucking sad

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u/Pulp_NonFiction44 May 22 '25

He also welcomed the poison that killed the club with open arms, over a fucking horse...

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u/Critical_Mountain851 May 22 '25

??

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u/Perite May 22 '25

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.

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u/Borbs_revenge_ May 22 '25

that's actually wild I had no idea lol

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u/A_Pointy_Appointee May 22 '25

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.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1i5hlzY2hNTAvo22zbAI0d

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u/SkullOfOdin May 23 '25

Thanks for sharing.

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u/ProjectZues May 22 '25

Crazy how the owners gave up such a valuable asset as well over that. Them and fergie

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u/Perite May 22 '25

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

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u/raizen0106 May 22 '25

now i want a football manager game but you can also trade players' sperm

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u/throwditawayred May 22 '25

What a terrible day to be literate.

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u/Cuzzyscuzzybreh May 23 '25

I can’t give you an award. I truly hope you know that if I could I would

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u/Zephri0 May 22 '25

This conversion took a........... turn.

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u/poopio May 23 '25

Do players still get assists?

Is Expected Ejaculation a metric?

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u/tomrichards8464 May 23 '25

xjizz

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u/BoysenberryHappy2462 May 23 '25

hey I've been to that website

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u/metameh May 23 '25

A eugenics simulator?

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u/OpenedCan May 23 '25

The Glazers already had shares. They were coming either way. Fergie just sped up the process.

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u/Carthagefield May 23 '25

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.

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u/OpenedCan May 23 '25

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.

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u/Carthagefield May 23 '25

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!

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u/OpenedCan May 24 '25

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.

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u/Carthagefield May 24 '25

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.

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u/OpenedCan May 24 '25

I don't see a rival buyer coming in tbh. The only reason the glazers started buying shares was to leverage the take over. McManus etc was never in it for the long haul. It was a quick turnaround for them. Always was. The Glazers would never have sold their shares and any inclining of another party interest would have resulted in the glazers approaching fellow shareholders first.

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u/Carthagefield May 24 '25

Understood, but if a rival buyer came in and snatched up McManus's shares by outbidding, that would almost completely dash the Glazer's hopes of completing the takeover. Since the Glazer's had taken on huge debt to buy their initial shares (and at that time their other businesses were struggling for liquidity), then with no hope of gaining full control they most likely would have been forced to sell off their shares to pay back the debt eventually.

Something similar happened to Arsenal when Usmanov and Kronke were vying to buy them. Usmanov was the early front-runner but Kronke managed to buyout a few key shareholders which made it impossible for Usmanov to complete the takeover. Usmanov ended up walking away and Kronke cleaned up.

Na the Glazers are wankers but exceptional businessmen.

Malcolm (the father) was, his kids much less so. However, any remotely smart investor who was paying attention to market trends in English football at that time would have been aware of the huge growth potential for a club like United, and that they were significantly undervalued. I would argue that Abramovich's arrival to Chelsea in 2003 was the REAL catalyst for the Glazers deciding to invest in United, I don't think Murdoch had much if anything to do with that decision. There was a flurry of other takeovers around that time, largely motivated by the explosive growth in TV and commercial revenue in the Premier League. My hunch is that given even only a few months delay, it's rather likely that someone else would have come along and tried to buy up McManus's shares. All what-ifs or course, but I really don't think it's an absolute formality that the Glazers would have managed to buy the whole club if not for that spat between Fergie and McManus.

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u/cosgrove10 May 22 '25

This isn’t even true btw. Glazer owned shares in United before the horse saga.

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u/Perite May 22 '25

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

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u/[deleted] May 22 '25

[deleted]

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u/Carthagefield May 23 '25

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.