Battle to buy Manchester United: the big dos and don’ts for the next owners

Put football first

When Louis van Gaal walked through the manager’s door in July 2014 he was stunned at how the actual football had parity (at best) with Manchester United the Commercial Beast. That was why the Dutchman chose, when answering the first question at his unveiling in Old Trafford’s Europa Suite, to state pithily that he knew “how important also the sponsors are” – an observation he repeated on the pre-season tour of the US. United have never had a Gulf state owner or billionaire backers willing to spend like Chelsea’s so the need to self-finance has been fundamental, but the pursuit of footballing excellence as the prime focus too often feels subservient to the financial imperative. For a snapshot take a peek at the 25-strong list of global sponsors on the club website.

Keep Erik ten Hag happy

The route to a successful team is simple: hire the right manager and allow him time and authority to remould the squad and, by natural extension, the club. Ten Hag has zero trophies on his United CV but is winning battles that matter on and off the field in the quest to build a winners’ culture. His nascent side are attractive and dynamic, and have made it to the first final they could reach under him: Sunday week’s Carabao Cup showpiece against Newcastle. United required major surgery when Ten Hag took over but are outsiders in the title race, five points behind Manchester City and Arsenal. He improves players, too, as Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka will confirm. Away from the pitch, Ten Hag has moved out the petulant Cristiano Ronaldo, smoothly demoted the captain, Harry Maguire, to fourth or fifth choice, and managed up expertly to a boardroom where the Glazers’ January parsimony meant signing the Burnley reject Wout Weghorst on loan and not the elite marksman that might have moved United even closer to the leaders. Simply, Ten Hag is the club’s best signing since Sir Alex Ferguson departed a decade ago.

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Be a warm, engaging presence

Supporters do not want a rent-a-quote proprietor who thinks the show is all about them but they do deserve to be taken notice of via regular contact and clear messaging. Admirably, United have a fans’ forum and fans’ advisory board that hold quarterly sessions, and this season supporters’ groups have been invited to cup competition media briefings with Ten Hag (without the media). Yet the Glazers had barely spoken directly to those who are the club’s lifeblood before the 2021 European Super League farrago that caused renewed protests against them; a fair barometer of their attitude towards the fans. Whoever replaces the Americans (assuming they sell) should learn from this.

Redevelop Old Trafford and training ground

The cost would be exorbitant – perhaps a minimum £2bn (€2bn) –, yet imagine a destination that is a centre of sport and culture with the famous team as the main attraction at a shiny state-of-the-art Old Trafford. In the complex could be a cinema and theatre offering local and international fare, a Manchester United museum, a revamped 21st-century stadium tour that allows virtual role-playing of, say, memorable goals and triumphs, a bespoke women’s stadium (perhaps a reconfiguration of the present Old Trafford so a precious historic site is not lost), plus stores where you can shop till you drop and bars to kick back in. The Carrington training base could use an upgrade, too.

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Don’t saddle the club with debt

In 2005 Malcolm Glazer’s leveraged buyout dropped about £500m of debt on United and in 2023 the sum is about the same. Factor in the dividends the six children of the deceased Glazer started paying themselves from 2016 and the ire directed from many fans at the family is hardly incomprehensible. United are a behemoth that generates millions of pounds in turnover so imagine how much better and deeper the squad would be if there were no debt mountain to service.

Don’t allow uneven recruitment

The signings of Casemiro, Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martínez show that Ten Hag has a shrewd eye for a footballer, but the windows of 2013-2021 were a sorry cycle of farcical moves in the market embodied by Ángel Di María (summer 2014) being the then British record £59.7m signing who did not wish to leave Real Madrid. Related here is the pre-Ten Hag series of misguided managerial appointments in David Moyes (shocked to be asked), Van Gaal (past his best), José Mourinho (too argumentative) and Ole Gunnar Solskjær (too nice). In “top football”, to use Ten Hag’s phrase, landing an A-list No 1 is the hardest trick, so any new owner should be as strategic as Manchester City were when identifying Pep Guardiola. After this, City made the Catalan an offer he could not refuse by first recruiting Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain, directors who shared his background at Barcelona.

Don’t accept mediocrity

Van Gaal’s sacking in May 2016 came in the hours after leading United to a first post-Ferguson trophy, the FA Cup. This was because the side had finished sixth, meaning no Champions League football. So: winning a trophy meant zero when it came to judging whether what the manager built had value. Fourth place (and presumably) no silverware would have allowed Van Gaal a third season. That should be viewed as the wrong way round.

Don’t forget why United are United

While football is a business and United’s global reach makes them a multinational company that relies on the bottom line, the club are also a proud, storied institution. A potted history would begin in 1878 when the team were Newton Heath, feature being close to going bust at the start of last century, then move on to the Busby Babes and the suffering of the Munich air disaster in 1958. It would take in the holy trinity of Denis Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton, have a chapter on Michael Knighton’s 1989 takeover-that-never-was, before describing the two decades of Ferguson-masterminded Premier League-era domination – the crown jewel being how United remain the only English club to win the league, FA Cup and European Cup treble, in 1999. You might like to think that whoever takes over would understand what they are custodians of and not try to hollow the soul of the club as the Glazers did for too long. But, who knows …

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