Influencers
This is a story that I have been delaying for a long time. A story about football royalties, business nous and what it takes to be a Premier League club owner in 21st century.
We have all heard about Manchester United one way or another. For some that name resonates in their head as the ultimate football club, for others it brings a sad memory of what it once was. For others that name became an afterthought. But above all, Manchester United FC is suffering from identity crisis. We are all focused on what Manchester United should stand for and we neglect what Manchester United is turning into before our eyes.
This story will start somewhat vaguely. Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge of Manchester United for 26 years. Taking charge in 1986, the Scottish manager turned Manchester United into the biggest club in world football and kept it at that level for decades. He was part of four complete rebuilds, won 13 Premier League titles, went to four Champions League Finals, winning two of them, treble in 1999, probably the best team in the Premier League era in 2008/09. There was so much success around the club in that period that losing a game was considered a major failure.
On paper, Manchester United FC was the blueprint for how a football club should be run. The success on the pitch was unmeasurable, unprecedented, so unrealistic that it clouded judgements and contaminated some people’s minds. It served as reality. And that period was not reality. That period was nothing more than period in time. Astonishingly successful one, but period in time, nonetheless. In the bigger picture, many people thought the period of success will never end. Or at least will not get diminished to the levels of the past few years.
We can go over many questionable football decisions since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013. We can go over anything you like, and you will probably be right in pointing fingers left, right and centre. But for the purposes of this article, we will start around the year 2003.
By the end of 2003, Malcolm Glazer had around 15% of the Manchester United shares. By the summer of 2005, the Glazer family had full ownership of the club and the new era was set to begin.
Not without significant resistance. The takeover was completed by using financial structures including loans backed against the club assets. Essentially, the Glazers used Manchester United’s money to buy the club. Repayments of over £60 million per year were required thereafter to finance the loans taken in the first place.
Practically, the Glazers did not start their ownership on best terms with the supporters. However, that did not stop the club from investing heavily in playing squad and the success on the pitch did not halt either. Manchester United went on to play in three Champions League Finals under the Glazers and won five league titles, an FA Cup and four League Cups. The team did not skip a beat. There is argument to be made that the team from 2008/09 to 2010/11 was the greatest team ever in the Premier League. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov were icing on the cake, sprinkling magic around stadiums in Europe.
Around that time, Old Trafford was the place to be. Manchester was the epicentre of the sports world. The ultimate football club was at its peak both commercially and on the pitch.
We stop for now with the praising of Manchester United and their footballing excellence.
Sir Alex Ferguson flirted with retirement since 2002. By the end of the 2010/11 season the playing personnel was getting older and yet another rebuild was peeping from the horizon. Somewhere there I suspect Sir Alex Ferguson decided the time has come for him to step down. Nothing has left for him to achieve but one thing. Dethrone Liverpool by winning league title number 20 for Manchester United.
On 22 April 2013, Robin van Persie, wearing number 20, scored the goal of the season sealing Premier League number 20 for Manchester United. After that season Sir Alex Ferguson retired from management.
But do not forget — another rebuild was peeping from the horizon.
Another person that was responsible for the excellence of Manchester United was the then Chief Executive David Gill. In tandem with Sir Alex Ferguson, David Gill overseed one of the most successful periods in the history of English football. He also left at the end of 2012/13 season with Sir Alex Ferguson and since then he has a place in the UEFA Executive Committee.
The two most important people in terms of structure and direction of the club left. The ball was thrown in the court of the Glazers with millions of supporters worldwide holding their breath in anticipation. The new era in Manchester began. David Moyes was the successor appointed under the recommendation of Sir Alex Ferguson. Moyes had the toll task to rebuild the title winning team.
Patience and support were required from the Manchester United fans and board. David Moyes got neither. In fact, he experienced the worst managerial stint in his career. The culmination of frustration and dissipating belief was on 8th February at Old Trafford. Bottom of the league Fulham secured a 2:2 draw in which Manchester United attempted EIGHTY-ONE crosses. 81!
In total, David Moyes got 8 months as a manager of Manchester United, ridiculed from pillar to post and eventually sacked on Twitter.
Louis van Gaal came along. Short-lived renaissance was experienced with couple of trophies secured but still no success in the Champions League or the Premier League proved to be the final nail in his coffin.
Jose Mourinho was the absolute no-brainer. The Portuguese specialist attempted to revamp the whole atmosphere around the club. And for a while he was successful. The team finished second in the Premier League and won the Europa League and Carabao Cup.
However, disagreement with the board over transfer policy meant the relationship between Mourinho and the board soured, the dressing room atmosphere was at an all-time low and eventually Mourinho was replaced by club legend Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer.
First appointed as interim manager, Ole brought back the feel-good feeling in the dressing room and the performances on the pitch improved. The highlight of Ole’s career is probably the win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League after 0:2 home defeat in the first leg at Old Trafford.
Heavy investment followed and the club finished 2nd in the 2020/21 season. Unfortunately, the desired progress was not achieved and in October 2021 Manchester United recorded their worst ever home defeat by Liverpool losing by 0:5 and one of the heaviest defeats at Old Trafford. The crowd emptying around 70 minutes into that game showed that the days of Ole in charge are numbered.
Two interim managers later, Erik ten Hag was appointed in May 2022.
Because we got into a lot of details about management and playing personnel, do we still remember about the plan after Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013? Good. I will remind you of it in a bit.
That was a small chronological recap of what happened mostly after 2013. However, those facts mean nothing without any structure and substance around them.
Ask yourself this question — who is in charge of a business? Is it the owner, or perhaps the management? Who is setting the general direction of this business? Who is responsible for establishing a culture and who is responsible for ensuring that culture is in place in every single department of the business?
Answers to some of those questions about Manchester United we do have. Until 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson was everything for Manchester United. He had a vision in 1986 and he worked for decades to establish the culture and create what we once knew as Manchester United FC. The house of excellence. Nicknamed originally by Bobby Charlton, Sir Alex Ferguson brought the magic of Old Trafford for all to see — Theatre of Dreams.
The mystique, the allure, the livery and achievements, Sir Alex Ferguson was everything.
And now it is time to shatter that fairy-tale by inserting a couple of American marketers into the mix.
The Glazer family did nothing wrong from a business perspective and I will try to illustrate that.
The method in which they bought the club using the club’s money is completely legitimate. Just as a comparison Burnley FC was sold in January 2022 using a leveraged purchase almost exact copy of what the Glazers did in 2005.
Obviously, supporters of any club would find that type of takeover particularly distasteful, but from business perspective the Glazers hit the jackpot.
Furthermore, for about 8 years the Glazers celebrated unprecedented success. The club kept winning, which meant the global reach can keep expanding by attracting new fans. Merchandising was looked at completely different in 2005 than the way it is now. The Glazers revitalised the club’s commercial operations and turned it into a global force.
For many younger fans nowadays Real Madrid and Barcelona are the biggest clubs in the world, but for a significant period Manchester United was right up there with them. And I am not talking about a close second. Manchester United FC was The Club.
The Glazers are partly responsible for this immense growth. Their marketing strategies and ways to attract commercial sponsorships is probably their best attribute. The club raked in record breaking revenues from deals with Nike and later Addidas, AIG, Chevrolet, Audi, Kumho tyres and many more.
The club was a pioneer in terms of commercial success and many other clubs like Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea studied avenues in which they can emulate what Manchester United achieved with the reach of their commercial brand.
The owners never shied away from spending money on players either. The club spent over £1 billion in transfers since Sir Alex Ferguson left. The amount of investment was never the problem.
How do then we find ourselves in August 2022 with yet another complete disaster of a transfer window taking place before our eyes, yet more dressing room problems, constant leaking of information to the press and a fan base desperate for some type of relevancy?
Part of the problem is the main strength of the Glazers — marketing. Their unique ability to market the business better than almost anybody in football is an admirable skill. Very lucrative one too. In today’s day and age, it is almost as important to win on the pitch as it is the ability to market your product properly.
For the first 8 years of their ownership the Glazers were living in dreamland — the team was dominating domestically and already established force in the European stage. All that was “missing” was for somebody to take it to the next stage commercially. And that is what the Glazers did. The unprecedented success of the club meant more revenue, which meant more dividends. The better the club was doing, the more opportunities the Glazers had to work their magic and attract more capital.
And we go back again to 2013. Is this a story of simply “blinded by success” or is there something else going on here?
How do you have the ability to own and control multibillion dollar asset but yet somehow you do not have the mental fortitude to create a vision for your asset? How are you owning a football club and instead of moving the club forward you are just there for the ride?
There are two options for those of you who have not yet formed an opinion on the Glazers. You can either say things are always changing and the owners are doing their best to maximise their profits while trying to keep the club at a competitive level.
Then there is the option of looking back at 2013. When the two pillars of the football club left, the Glazers had no idea what the next step is. The Glazers had an idea how to market and sell the era, but they did not know how to create the new era.
We live in a world full of technology. The Glazers are the social media influencers of the football world. They can masterfully associate themselves with a product, expand the reach of the product, create an audience, demand for the product, and reap the benefits of the sales of this product.
The Glazers cannot create a product. They are simply the messengers. They are here to market the product and make money. While the team was winning, they made money.
But now when the team is on a downward spiral for years, the only strategy they have is to pull financial levers in order to alleviate immediate pressure on stock prices also known as operation Cristiano Ronaldo.
When the Portuguese was signed in August 2021, the move made no sense from footballing perspective by blocking the development of exciting young forwards like Rashford, Sancho and Greenwood. However, days after the official announcement the stock price of Manchester United rose by 5.8% or in other words adding almost £212 million to the valuation of the club at the time.
And while most of the United fans will try and be positive about this new regime with Erik ten Hag in charge, others will have their attention focused on removing the Glazers.
Either way, Manchester United are suffering from midlife crisis, identity crisis and bi-polar disorder all at the same time. People associated with the club all are pulling in different directions while the directors are eager to find the next big thing to market. There is not a glimmer of hope that somebody would like to start this cleansing process by identifying the problem. And that is a bigger problem.
Spending three and half months chasing a player that does not want to join your club is not the exception, it is the expected.
And with that expectation in mind, do not get disgruntled when Manchester United can’t convince Frenkie De Jong to join the club after 4 months of negotiations. A player that was “made” by Erik ten Hag has no interest in joining Erik ten Hag in one of the biggest clubs in the world.
With all that being said, on paper Manchester United is not that many miles behind Liverpool and Manchester City in the race for the top.
However, on paper, Manchester United knew what they were doing in 2013 too…
