The bootyful game: folly and lolly at gold Trafford

The UEFA Nations League, now in its fourth year and “devised to minimalise meaningless friendlies”, has a format too puzzling for us to bear thinking about, except that it seems there are 54 countries involved, the entirety of Europe minus Russia. Euro 2024 had 24 countries. Meanwhile, Chris Blackhurst has the sorry tale of what can happen when suits smell money.

Plus, stretching the point a bit, for those under-employed third-class clubs there is now the third-class UEFA Conference League, also in season four. And the UEFA Champions League 2024-25 edition has a “new format” with the 32 clubs of 2023-24 expanded to 36 playing eight games apiece (and possible two-legged playoffs) to get to the quarters against the previous six. This raises the total number of matches from 125 to 189.

In a moment, we’ll get back to Manchester United… But first, just to rub it in, the 2024-25 FIFA Club World Cup, which has struggled since it began in 2000, has been expanded to 32 clubs, from seven, to hopefully freshen it up, and stretch the season, and bank balances, a bit more. Finally, we mention, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will have 48 countries battling it out in the “off” season, up from 32. Does this mean more qualifiers too?

So the message is clear, how the money men think. The players’ association is complaining, with talk of a strike. Maybe the fans love it, though the non-corporate-box types pay much, even for the cheaper seats behind goals that are miles from those pitches inside running tracks, as was the case even as recently as the Euro 2024 final in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. For all Manchester United’s problems, at least Old Trafford doesn’t have a running track.

While we diehards await FIFA’s and UEFA’s extended thrills and spills, we can read about what the suits did at this venerable club. This September, as the disjointed Red Devils were going down 3-0 at home to great rival Liverpool, one fan posted on the BBC Football website’s live commentary – “Still though, just think about those lovely balanced books… ”

Blackhurst is a business writer and commentator, and he needs to be to lay bare what has happened at the world’s biggest club (Real Madrid may disagree), before and since the unheralded, downbeat, unconnected American family the Glazers bought United in 2005, borrowing heavily so that they used hardly any of their own money and plunging the club into record debt.

The author says he has always wondered how exactly the family managed it; how and why they bought the club, and how and why they have stayed the course in the face of unprecedented abuse and hostility. The Old Trafford fans did not take to their new owners, sparking angry protests.

The working-class city has always been brash and in your face, Blackhurst recounts. Its story has seen  political protest and struggle, and mass gatherings including the “Peterloo Massacre” of 1819 when some 60,00 pro-democracy and anti-poverty  campaigners were attacked by  infantry and yeomanry on horseback, wielding clubs and sabres. Up to 20 died and hundreds were injured.

In 1878 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company’s Newton Heath works formed a football and cricket club. “The idea was that the workers could better themselves, staying off the drink, at least while the matches were being played.” They wore the company colours of green and gold, which is why some 21st-century rebels wear the same, in allegiance to a club that was more “of the people”.

In May 1908 Manchester United secured its first league title, then the FA Cup in 1909. That same year a new stadium was commissioned, paid in cash thanks to astute financial management. The Sporting Chronicle described the ground, on land bought from the Earl of Trafford, as “the most handsomest, the most spacious and the most remarkable arena I have ever seen. As a football ground it is unrivalled anywhere in the world.”

Thus, says Blackhurst, it became engrained in United folklore that the Red Devils play, and deserve to do so, in the finest stadium anywhere. Plus, they do so for a club that is debt-free. Success was mixed over the years, and the author presents a nice potted history. Then came the post-World War Two glory of the Matt Busby era, halted by the 1958 Munich air disaster. The next few years were grim as Busby rebuilt, and in May 1968 United beat Benfica 4-1 at Wembley to become the first English club to win the European Champions’ Cup.

The author says it made United special, unique, “blighted  by terrible tragedy, yet possessed of remarkable, almost mythical powers of recovery that resonated down the ages. There were football clubs – and there was Manchester United”. Notably, Alex Ferguson became manager in 1986, and chief executive and majority owner Martin Edwards floated the club on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, putting it at the mercy of the market.

Before he retired in 2013 Ferguson would lead the club to more than 30 domestic and international titles, including 13 Premier League championships, but he also became embroiled in a row that would have far-reaching consequences for United. In a chapter titled ’It all started with the horse’, Blackhurst writes how the Glazer family “have a racehorse and an almighty personal falling out to thank for their amazing good fortune”.

Ferguson, who adored horse-racing, had befriended John Magnier and “J.P.” McManus, two Irish businessmen reputed to be the richest men in the country. They owned racehorses, though their power and wealth went much further, including Ferguson encouraging them to buy into United, and they eventually became the second-largest shareholders.

Things went sour in 2003 when Ferguson, against much advice, sued Magnier over ownership and stud rights for champion racehorse Rock of Gibraltar, to which Ferguson believed he was entitled. Magnier counter-sued, requiring Ferguson to substantiate his claim, plus to answer “99 Questions” concerning the United manager’s transfer dealings.

The case was eventually settled out of court but the consequences were far-reaching, as the Irish men sold out their United holding to the Glazers. The fans have constantly complained since that the rarely seen, distant family is stingy, lacks vision, doesn’t care and is too profit-driven, more interested in paying themselves fees and dividends than on-field success.

After Ferguson left in 2013, managers came and went, Old Trafford comforts and facilities weren’t updated, and the club began to lag behind, on and off the grass. In 2021 the Glazers alienated fans still further, and football fans everywhere, being among the ringleaders in a plan for a ”European Super League”. Opposition was furious from fans, media, pundits, ex-players, managers and politicians. Here was football being hijacked by a bunch intent on riches and minus love for the spirit of the game, the thrill of winning  and gloom of defeat.

Within days the scheme collapsed but the episode hardened the fans’ enmity. They hated the family, always had, always would. This had made it even worse. In December 2023 the Glazers sold 25 per cent of the club to British multi-billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe for just over £1 billion, valuing it at slightly more than £5 billion. He retains first refusal on their 75 per cent.

Blackhurst concludes: ”That’s several  billions of pounds from not putting in much at all, and after extracting many millions in cash for you and your family  down the years. Brilliant.”

It’s one heck of a fascinating story, really well told, brilliant in its own way. It’s also almost enough to make you give up on football, a nice little hobby for billionaire owners. Almost.