Are Red Sky and Knights really Fergie’s Delight?

[Dorset]

David Conn - The Guardian 23/2 … ‘Concerns over English football's financial wellbeing are set to deepen further with the impending release of a report from Uefa which shows that Premier League clubs owe more money than all the other clubs in Europe's top divisions put together. When it publishes the report in the coming weeks, Uefa will present it as authoritative evidence of the need for its Financial Fair Play rules, agreed in principle by the major clubs and leagues, which will require clubs to break even financially from 2012-13.

In the foreword, Uefa's president, Michel Platini, says the figures demonstrate "increasingly clear warning signs" and argues Uefa's initiative is necessary "for the health of European club football". Uefa's leadership makes a marked contrast with the silence at the Premier League and the Football Association over the debts at Manchester United and Liverpool’

Call me an old cynic (you wouldn’t be the first) but I’ve often thought that Sky’s drooling obsession with Manchester United was an immoveable love fest destined to last forever and therefore you might justifiably ask yourself, as the next eulogy to Wazza rolls across the SSN screen, in what way, exactly, does David Conn’s recent article change anything? Well, in order to answer that question, and also add some credence to my belief that there must be a plausible reason why Sky can’t get enough of those little red devils, you’ll need to recollect a few events from the last twelve years…

September, 1998 - Manchester United officially confirmed to the London Stock Exchange that it had accepted a £623.4m bid from Rupert Murdoch's television company, BSkyB. The move, like any accepted proposal of marriage, ended with a certain degree of ceremony, but so great were the numbers standing up in football’s church, giving lawful reasons as to why the union shouldn’t take place, the whole shebang collapsed, primarily due to the threat of a high profile government investigation into [for want of a better phrase] an unholy alliance. Mercifully for Murdoch, the Premier League ruled that BSkyB could keep its 11% share in Manchester United and that dowry remained intact until…

October, 2003 - Manchester United were once again at the centre of further controversy. Nope, you can forget the Rio Ferdinand drugs scandal, much like he did, as I’m referring to Sky’s sale of their shares in the club through Goldman Sachs, to Irish racing millionaires John Magnier and JP McManus, leaving them with a massive 21% stake in the club. Talk about Sky lovin’ and leavin’ ’em in the lurch! The hammer came down and the shares were gone, for just over £60m, to the two horse breeders in trilby hats who apparently knew nothing about the game of football. United were no doubt marketed as the racing certainties of the new millennium and, spurred on by Ferguson’s glowing testimonials (too much red wine again, Sir Alex) a suitably convinced BSkyB gave the two Irishmen a leg-up into the unknown - just asking for trouble and no mistake! And so it proved…

May, 2005 - Outrun in the Premiership finishing straight by the emergent Abramovich-backed Chels, Magnier and McManus see the writing on the wall and it reads ‘losers enclosure’, which isn’t really where they want to be. Time to sell their stake, saddle up, and ride off into the sunset with the healthy profit that Sky had previously earmarked for itself, no doubt after many years of Premiership control-freakery, driving the red devil’s handcart to evermore glory that they themselves could relay SSN-wise day in, day out and to their subscribers ever-growing discontent. Enter US tycoon Malcolm Glazer, not only a willing buyer, but debt-ladener of distinction too, and the newly acquired shares raise his stake in Manchester United to more than 75 per cent, a move that allows him to take the world's richest football club private, thus ending United's 14-year stretch as a plc.

Moving on and after providing a gritted teeth coverage of Chelsea’s runaway back-to-back title success, Sky soon realise that the power is still well and truly in the hands of a certain Russian oligarch and the vitriolic campaign designed to undermine his coach, rubbish his players and discourage potential new signings, seemingly had little effect on results. Time to up the ante, then, through all media outlets, until such time as the required reaction - a destabilisation of club and owner - was attained and signalled by Jose’s departure. However, whilst the last three seasons could be seen by the United supporters as a vindication of the Glazers being brought in, and by the media of their vilification tactics, something isn’t right, both on and off the field. In short, the United team during that period [with the notable exception of Ronaldo] was nothing to write home about and all the while the Glazers debt ladened backdrop became a monster that prompted David Conn’s article and led to the production of the table given below:-

Current Premier Debt League

Manchester United £716.5m

Liverpool £237.0m

Arsenal £203.6m

Fulham £197.0m

West Ham United £110.0m

Aston Villa £73.0m

You may not have seen this, certainly not on Sky, nor even on the BBC News, where Conn’s findings were referred to after a report on Pompey going into administration as an indicator as to who might be next. The table above was not even shown and, all too predictably, scenes outside Stamford Bridge were flashed onto the screen when potential administration candidates were bandied about by the reporter, the Corporation failing to produce a single name from the top three on the list in the process.

It is this type of self-serving and selective drivel that drives us all crazy, but, as we move forward to media coverage post JT and Ash-bashing there are now signs that help is at hand in the quest for balanced news reporting. Continually beholden and bulimic in its regurgitated praise, the green and gold scarves are not only accepted by Sky as a tele-visual waving force to be recognised, but also representative of a cause to be championed. And who’s that we see coming over the hilltop? Why it’s…..

The Red Knights who say Uni, led by another Fergie friend, Jim O’Neill, the head of global economic research at, yes you’ve guessed it, Goldman Sachs. Having served on the club’s board of directors in 2004-05, O’Neill feels the time is now right to force the Glazers out [hang on, wasn’t he around when the time was right to force them in?] and, along with another forty so worshipers of the sacred Ji-Sung Park, Peng and Neee-wom, they will dedicate a lot of time and effort towards scraping together the mere pittance the Glazers will want to move onwards and once more leverage upwards. Except that, as with Magnier and McManus, these payoffs never turn out to be mere pittances and a figure of £1 billion is already said to fall a little short of the American expectations for the deal.

Still, let’s not allow the odd £500m to cloud Sky’s fine judgement on matters this time around, shall we, because I’m more inclined to sit back and enjoy the ride, with speculators already showing interest in the club’s bonds [due to growing prospects of a bid] thereby hyping up the Glazer profit expectations even more by the hour. Imagine the moment when the Americans actually concede that enough [of the dosh] is enough and accept buyout conditions, confirming that debt leverage maximises profit like nothing else can, and hordes of scarf-waving fans throng the streets of Guilford to celebrate the occasion.

You can see it now, can’t you… United announce a new club song, ‘Karma Chameleon’ by Boy George, and a new away strip (white smock, braids, ribbons and heavy make-up) to go with it. The Glazers are run outta town amidst a raucous chorus of ’Red, gold and green, red, gold and greeeen!’ and all filmed for posterity by Sky cameras providing round-the-clock coverage that includes the Glazers getting on and off their plane home, together with that old SSN classic, the quotes from ecstatic fans outside Old Traffford who are both ’’Eeee, glad to see t’back of ’em†and anxiously awaiting the first major signing of the new era that “Mart just be Messi!â€

Of course, innocent debt leverage bystanders like ourselves, watching one Ferguson-backed financial accident merge into the next, wont want to get too carried away with speculation at such an early stage in proceedings, but the mere fact that Sky are giving it credence and paying it obvious lip service offers hope for those of us in need of [and having] a good laugh at the hypocrisy of it all. Quite frankly, the vast majority of fans throughout the country have had just about enough of this media-induced ManU merry-go-round of Premiership success and the fawning that has surrounded it and the bigger the price they have to pay to get themselves out of this current mess the better it will be football in general.

[Zola]

Quite an effort of a post, well done. Although some of it wasn't very clear to me.

I just hope the Glazers run up a lot more debt and cripple the club, not gonna happen though.

They have too many sheep followers with too much money who will bail them out.

They are so far removed from their 'tradition' that they want to get control back in the hands of the supporters. The Glazer debt is a worthy excuse to go up in arms...in my opinion.