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Man Utd Fans to Glazer: "Go Home!" (go back to the homepage) Supporters of Britain's Manchester United are even talking boycotts to wrest the soccer team back from its new American tycoon owner The takeover of Britain's most famous and profitable soccer team, Manchester United, by the American tycoon Malcolm Glazer has unleashed a wave of hostility among fans, and nowhere more so than here in Manchester, the city that claims the team as its own. Chief among critics' beefs is the amount of debt Glazer is loading on the team. But more personal fears are also troubling long-time supporters, who worry that the new owner will ignore soccer history, commercialize the team at the expense of the sport, and, worst of all, try to Americanize a beloved British tradition. "I don't want it to turn into something where we have cheerleading at halftime and people in the stands with those sponge hands," says Richard Whatmuff, 27, a Manchester native who now works here as a surveyor. "English football is different than American football." Glazer's purchase of more than 75% of the club, which he's in the process of taking private, has been met with rage among hard-core supporters. Groups have staged demonstrations, worn black armbands to the most recent match, and even burned a papier-mâché effigy of Glazer. Fan organizations have called for a boycott of sponsors, such as Vodafone (VOD ), Nike (NKE ), Budweiser (BUD ), and Pepsi (PBG ). Their ultimate hope is to bankrupt the team and force Glazer to sell it back at a discounted price to home-grown supporters. DEBT BURDEN. While not everyone feels as strongly as the boycotters, conversations with more than a dozen fans around Manchester revealed widespread unease over the direction Glazer might take the legendary team. "He's going to place all the debt on United, and we're going to lose all the players. It's going to go downhill completely," says Kirsty Gilliatt, 17, a student who has already canceled her Vodafone service in protest. She was walking her dog by a strip of souvenir shops and concession stands a few blocks away from the team's stadium, Old Trafford, where a pub named after the stadium has now been decorated with a "Stop Glazer" banner. Indeed, the debt that Glazer is bringing to the team -- and, more important, what he might do in order to repay the debt -- is the most pressing concern for the club's followers. Glazer, the owner of the U.S. National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has told the London Stock Exchange that he'll borrow $490 million to fund the $1.47 billion deal, and raise an additional $509 million by issuing preferred securities to certain investors. On last year's sales of $309 million, the team made an aftertax profit of about $35.5 million, which supporters fear won't be enough to pay the debt's interest without major changes. YOUR LOGO HERE? "My concern is, is he going to have to increase the ticket prices? It's supposedly still a workingman's game," says Gary Cooper, a 35-year-old concession manager, who was taking a break from his job in the city center's shopping mall. Along with higher ticket and merchandise prices, some fear that the Old Trafford could suffer the indignity of being renamed Nike Stadium or Budweiser Arena -- a common occurrence in the U.S., where huge corporations pay millions to have their names emblazoned on sports stadiums. Others worry that the field will simply be sold. Fans also fret that if Glazer manages to find a way to renegotiate a more lucrative TV broadcast deal for ManU -- contracts are now negotiated for all the teams by the league -- it will be at the expense of other teams whose success is necessary to ensure healthy competition. "It's going to be to the detriment of English football," says Dominic Powell, a 32-year-old season-ticket holder who works for an insurance broker here. FANS ACROSS THE WORLD. Even among big, successful British soccer teams, ManU is a special club, with a fan base that extends far beyond the team's home region. In accounting firm Deloitte's annual Football Money League report, the team nicknamed the Red Devils has held first place as the most profitable football team in the world for the eight years the survey has been in existence. ManU has been the best-supported team in Britain since the 1960s, regularly boasting the highest average attendance at matches, says Tim Crabbe, sports sociologist at Sheffield Hallam University. Like many others, Crabbe credits the start of the franchise's global appeal to a Munich air disaster in 1958, when seven members of a promising team were killed in a plane crash after playing in the European Cup tournament. The team remained popular, despite mixed performances, for decades following that accident. And its fan base grew even broader with the formation of the Premier League in 1992, when the club began winning titles at a time when satellite broadcasting brought the games to an international audience. ABSENTEE LANDLORD? Yet even as ManU established itself as a global brand by gaining supporters as far away as Tokyo and Singapore -- and also distinguished itself as a financial success by listing on the London Stock Exchange -- many Mancunians continued to have an intensely personal connection to the team. "For those supporters, the football club first and foremost is not a business. It's a football club, and it's local to the city of Manchester," says Crabbe. "They see themselves as the stakeholders." Indeed, for local fans, whose loyalty to the club is often handed down among generations along with season tickets, the sale of their team to Glazer is seen as an affront. For one thing, it's unclear whether the businessman has ever been to a ManU game. "He has bought a company, but he has never been here. He has never felt the vibe. I do feel uneasy about that," says David Fishwick, 37, a high-school teacher whose parents are season-ticket holders and who remembers attending his first game in 1976. Fan associations have pledged to continue fighting. As the owner of 76.2% of the club's shares, Glazer has told the London Stock Exchange that he plans to take the club private by June 22. Still, activists hope to defeat Glazer over the long haul by boycotting merchandise, sponsors, and even games. "Our focus is putting a stranglehold on the income streams going into Manchester United to force Glazer out," says Oliver Houston, vice-chairman of the fan group Shareholders United. RIVALS SCORE. Yet loyalists already see the dilemma embedded in their strategy. Sara Morgan, 29, an office manager whose immediate family holds six season tickets, is rooting for Glazer to fail, but nevertheless walked out of the merchandise store at Old Trafford with a bag of gear. Boycotting games, "is like shooting yourself in the foot," she says. "All you're going to do is miss out on seeing the team you love." The irony to some soccer fans is that ManU has been considered the most corporate team in the country for some time. It has grown rich by courting international fans, to the chagrin of less well-funded teams with only local support. Even in their home city, not everyone is unhappy. Fans of the city's other soccer team, Manchester City, are enjoying the brouhaha. "At the end of the day, the United board put the club on the stock market, which means anyone with the money can buy it," says Manchester City fan Ian Dwyer, 55, who works in retail. "It's dog eat dog." |