The Story of the Glazer Takeover of Man United
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Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price, to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to.

It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs, innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse.

Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong?, a new podcast that explores the all-too-human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Doctors, PhDs, all around superheroes. From HuffPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong? wherever you get your podcasts. With McValue at McDonald's, you don't just get deals on the drinks. You get deals on McDonald's drinks. So when you're breaking a sweat, embrace the chill without breaking the bank. And when your crew is running on empty, keep your wallet full while refreshing the squad.

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They could not buy another business with the international recognition for the same price. I think it's quite possible that the Glazers have made more cash out of owning United than any other sports owners ever. My assessment of it was that they saw an opportunity, a business opportunity, a sporting business opportunity. Eventually, Greek took over. People were attacked on the streets, physically attacked on the streets.

Spatter. If it were now, because of how much the debt has become, that might be different. They've never been welcome in Manchester. They never will be welcome in Manchester. They know that, but they don't care.

In 2005, Manchester United Football Club had the world at its feet. Two years earlier, under legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson, they'd won a 15th English League title, their 8th in the past 11 years. The success on the field was well-timed. Just over a decade earlier, the formation of the Premier League triggered a rush of investment.

From European outcasts just a few years earlier, the English domestic game was taking its first steps to world domination. As the money began to pour in, especially from lucrative broadcasting rights, investors took notice. Owning a football club had never been seen as a way to make money, quite the opposite, but the game had changed.

Enter Malcolm Glazer, a New York-raised real estate and business owner. Already in possession of the NFL franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he, along with his six children, saw an opportunity in Manchester that seemingly few others had.

In this special two-part Talk the Devils Extra, we'll take you back to 2005 and tell the story of how the Glazers pulled off the deal to win control of the club. We'll examine whether it could and should have been avoided and consider the ramifications which are still being felt as powerfully as ever two decades on.

In conversation with Talk the Devil's regulars Andy Mitton and Laurie Whitwell are three expert witnesses. Fan activist Andy Walsh, Labour's then Minister for Sport Richard Cabourne and a former United board member, economist Jim O'Neill. They'll share their different perspectives on the takeover that changed the course of history at Old Trafford.

We pick up the story in early 2005, and while shares in the club had been available to buy publicly for over a decade, interest from major investors was sporadic. There had been a takeover attempt by Rupert Murdoch and his BSkyB organisation in 1998, which was ultimately prevented by the UK's Monopolies and Mergers Commission after a fierce fan backlash, and a previous attempt by property investor Michael Knighton had also failed.

Sports Minister Richard Caborn will outline the wider football landscape for us, but Andy Walsh and his fellow United supporters were feeling anxious. It was a pretty difficult period to be honest. I think we'd managed to stop the Murdoch takeover. Nobody thought we'd be able to do that, but we knew that other predators would be around looking to pick up Manchester United after that takeover.

So I think for me, it was almost inevitable that the Glazers were going to take over because of the way they'd approached it. I think they'd learned from the Murdoch takeover. We'd had a number of conversations. When I say we, there's a network of people at Manchester United. Fanzines being the common denominator, really, about pulling people together. But then the Independent Supports Association,

the shareholders group all pulling in the same direction, trying to defend what we saw as the traditional culture of the football club.

And some very skillful and well-connected people in that network who just did work on behalf of the fan base. So we had people in the city of London who were giving information back to us about what was happening. Dealmakers, some people might call them. Mergers and acquisitions experts, other people might call them. First thing first, the United fans, and they watched it after the interest of the club, so...

They were giving us information at the time. So we knew or tried to work out where each of the individual shareholder groups were at that moment. Well, 2005 was a very interesting year. It was when we were making the bid for the Olympics.

And the Premier League and all the other sports were helping us immensely to win 2012. But it was also an interesting year because the European Union, which we were a member in those days before Brexit, were trying to break up collective selling.

Nellie Crozer was the commissioner at the time. We're having quite a few battles because collective selling, I thought, as a sports minister, even though it was self-regulated, nevertheless, I think it was really advantageous.

both for English football, also making sure that English football was really on the international stage as well. So there's quite a lot of background to football and what was happening. Also at that time, the Arno report had been set up, which was a European commission looking at the state of sport generally, but football in particular.

because UEFA were also very concerned about effectively a Super League. So in the background to all this takeover, there was quite a lot of interest. And I think, again, in 2005, from a sports minister's point of view, we had got soft regulation in sport, which I thought was the right way. I didn't think government interference at that time or in regulation was

was the right way to go. And so we defended self-regulation and collective selling, which is a cartel, whatever you want to call it, which was under attack, as I said, from the European Union. As a group of supporters, we had a great deal of credibility after what we did with Murdoch. And also, as we knew lots of people in the city, people in the city knew that we knew lots of people in the city as well.

So a number of people from our network went and had conversations with merchant bankers about putting a deal together and what a deal might look like. There were conversations with people like Jim O'Neill, who was formerly on the board at United. We were then seeing how we might be able to put a deal together. I was a member of the Manchester United board over a very brief spell from November 2004 to

through to the sale in May of '05. And I was recommended to join the board on the back of the Glazers voting out, I think it was three previous board members and the beginnings of the, let's call it the argy-bargy about whether the board was representing the interests of the shareholders. And I was actually proposed by, I think at the time, the largest single owner still,

JP McManus and, or Cubic, I think they call themselves Cubic Expression. But importantly, eagerly welcomed by Roy and David and all the others. Why do you think they asked you to join the board, Jim? You know, preparing for this and also having pondered how things turned out over the years, I'm not entirely sure, but at the time...

I was chief economist of Goldman Sachs, obviously a global investment bank, pretty much in the middle of many things to do with international finance. And I'd met them actually through Joe Lewis, who was a big foreign exchange trading guy. And in those days, I knew a lot of the very big foreign exchange trading guys. And JP and Special had to have a dabble every now and then as well. It was, I thought, coincidental.

But I do sometimes wonder whether there was some clever underlying motive. But I think that at the core of it, without getting paranoid, I think they thought I had credibility with those that were running the club. I was known to be a friend of Alex's. That I would bring the best practices of at least my background as to how a publicly quoted board should be run. I'd like to believe they were the reasons. They might have thought...

I'd just do whatever they wanted, but I played the role of an independent board member that I'd do whatever I thought was the right thing. Perhaps at this point we should give you some background on the people at the heart of this story. John Magner and JP McManus were the richest men in Ireland in 2005, businessmen and racehorse owners. They held a stake of 28.7% in United, which made them together the largest shareholders in the club.

Not only that, they were also close to then United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, but fell out in a row over stud rights for one of the world's leading racehorses, Rock of Gibraltar.

To cut a very long story short, Ferguson believed he was entitled to half the proceeds of the breeding programme, potentially tens of millions of pounds, based on a gentleman's agreement. Magna and McManus insisted no such deal had been put in place. Although a legal settlement was reached, there's little doubt it fractured their relationship.

In an article for The Athletic in October 2023, Danny Taylor argued the Rock of Gibraltar dispute was a decisive factor in the Glazer takeover. In leadership roles at the club were Chief Executive David Gill, who took seeded Peter Kenyon, and Chairman Roy Gardner.

Another key figure at the time was investment banker Ed Woodward, then working at JP Morgan in the City of London. He helped facilitate a now infamous set of pick loans with a reported 14.25% annual interest rate that underpinned the Glazer bid. They later appointed him Executive Vice Chairman at the club.

But let's return to spring 2005, and you may be wondering why, if the Glazers saw Manchester United as such an enticing prospect, there hadn't been other interest as well. Jim O'Neill explains. I think in those days, institutional capital, which is supposedly at least, that's a broader issue about UK capital,

share ownership. But institutional capital is in principle the bedrock of publicly quoted companies all over the world. And the whole idea of institutions putting money into the sort of weird and wacky world of football where transparency wouldn't be number one topic, even for a publicly quoted company they correctly would have suspected would definitely be part of it. And so without huge

individual interest there wouldn't have been a lot of demand for the shares at the start I don't think and there actually I don't think there was for quite a while there were all these different parties but it all seemed to be leading towards something Manchester United perhaps being sold fans were complaining

There were protests at Hereford Racecourse, at Moss Lane, in Altrincham. There were numerous protests. How much of an effect do you think the fan protests had on the decision makers? Did it spook any of the interested parties? Did it affect the way that it was going?

I think the fan opposition to Murdoch had a big impact as to why it was correctly turned down by the UK authorities under the excuse, which is a very valid one, of competition policy. As it related to what happened with the eventual takeover, I think the board was very concerned. If you weighed into what came out publicly, being on the board,

There was a lot of really careful consideration to the exact wording of what we as a board said. And to the board's credit, when I reflect back, we made it very clear, which the Glazers nor Cubic ended up being very happy about.

that whilst the price was attractive, as according to an independent valuer, the debt that was being put on the club was something that we made very clear was problematic. So in that sense, the board shared the view of the fans. Against that, with the board being responsible for Manchester United Football Club, including the fact until that time a publicly quoted company, were quite bothered about some of the

hostility and protests that had started. And so they had to sort of, I don't think they were conflicting, but they had to manage those two issues in terms of how they represented the club carefully. When I think as to what might have caused the Irish guys to change their view, I do suspect that the protests, including at, you said Hereford, I think, I thought there was specifically also something at Cheltenham,

which would be very dear to JP and John, I think that really did get to them. And I think they might have concluded, not a bad price we could get out at, and it's just not worth this hassle for what

is for them a core, core business. I think they were, and maybe still are, the biggest players in the jump horse racing business. I don't think they'd contemplated that there'd be disruptions to that. In some ways, it's quite ironic that them choosing to sell is what indeed opened the ability of the Glazers to take ownership. You can't just go and buy Real Madrid...

or FC Barcelona because the way that they're constructed and owned by their members. Was the British government somehow complicit or powerless? Were you disappointed with their inaction? And as part of you, while you're very clear on how you feel about the Glazers, were they quite smart in doing what they did if it wasn't illegal? I think the Glazers were very smart in spotting the opportunity. We wrote to Richard Caburn, who was a minister in the Labour government,

and gave him a lengthy explanation as to why we thought the Glazers' takeover was disastrous, not just for Manchester United, but also for British football. We got two or three paragraphs back saying he's spoken to the Premier League, he's quite happy with the situation, and he thought the Glazers would be good owners of Manchester United. And as a football fan, he should hang his head in shame.

I reflected on some of the comments that were made in 2005, and I know I came under a little bit of criticism as the Minister for Sport, probably rightly so, people could be right to do that, but they were saying that I ought to intervene. Well, on the one hand, you can't intervene when it's self-regulation.

And when you've got the agreement with the Premier League and the Football League that we were going to run football as we did, we thought from a fan's point of view, from a community point of view, from a football point of view, that was the right model at that time.

And I think he was. And that's why with the Glazers, particularly from my point of view, as the government minister, I extracted two things out of those. One was about collective selling. Ironically, a bit later, the European Super League comes up. But that's an interesting one in the future. But at that stage, they said, yeah, absolutely.

There was no argument about the collective selling. There was no argument about the pyramid structure, which is totally different to the American structure of sport. And also they were really committed to the whole community, academies and involvement of the club in the wider social infrastructure of Manchester and beyond. And I think that held quite well.

for a good number of years in terms of that structure. But then, obviously, things changed because other clubs were taking the same structure because they were quite a leader in terms of deliveries, buyouts. And then they, as I say, the Premier League's ownership

started changing quite significantly. I don't recall much discussion about getting the government's help to stop it because I think everybody, there weren't that many of us, but there was sufficient commercial awareness that it was not a request, if we made, that would be taken seriously because of the issues I raised. I mean, it wasn't a government decision. It was a board decision, but we were under very strong pressure

principles governed by stock exchange listing and publicly quoted companies. We had a lot of legal advice. My pal Mark Rawlinson from Fresh Fields at the time was acting for the board. I called Mark a pal, that's how I first got to know Mark. We had to be really careful that we weren't ignoring the prime purpose of a board, which is to represent the interests of the shareholders.

Once Cubic had sold or were selling, it was pretty clear that they thought we should back it. And obviously, the other major owner was the Glazers. So...

we could have had some very, very complex legal situation. And being individual board members, we may have individual legal liability. And so that was a really important thing. If you mean, Laurie, as what else might we have done, that is where I first raised the idea of what became known five years later as the Red Knights. Many years earlier, because of my relationship with Joe Lewis,

When he owned Christie's, he called me out of the blue one afternoon, I think it was, and floated this idea of trying to turn Christie's into a club owned by the 50th wealthiest people in the world and asked me to put him in touch with our bankers, which I did.

And I think I might even have joked with him about what a cool way it would be to own United. I put that in one of our very last board meetings in trying to think how we could keep ownership away from the Glazers or anybody else. I floated the idea at the board. What JP had got into my head that United had so much cash flow and little debt, I said we could borrow some money and get a load of wealthy United fans to try and take us private.

And we had a brief discussion about it, but it was pretty late in the game. And to be honest, if I reflect back, and again, I've checked on my notes of the time, I don't think the other board members really understood quite what I was on about. There was a couple of people that thought it was an interesting idea to pursue, but it just never happened.

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to. It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs in

innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse.

Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Doctors, PhDs, all around superheroes. From HuckPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong? wherever you get your podcasts.

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One of our guys, a guy called Russell Delaney, who sadly is no longer with us, he was in conversation with an agent of Magnet McManus. In those conversations, there was nothing solid. And looking back on it, I think we were being played a little bit. And then the rug got pulled from under us, really. Magnet McManus obviously had a target number that they were aiming for. And as soon as the Glazers met that target number, there was no going back.

Did you feel reassured when you met the Glazers? What was your impression of them as individuals? Did you think they had genuine interest in the welfare of Manchester United in English football? Or did you think that they were just pure capitalists looking at the bottom line? I thought that they were trying to link across the pond, as it were, because they were obviously involved in sport in a big way in the US. And I think that they saw...

Whilst it was a different structure, they saw that the Premier League was the investment. I mean, looking at Premier League, you know, everyone thinks the Premier League is what it is, and it's fantastic, make no mistake about that. But in relative terms to what was happening in the States and the sports that they got, in terms of the revenues generating that, you're in the third division, basically, you know. But nevertheless, they saw...

beyond the power of just the money, there was the influence of the Premier League. And I think that they saw some of that connection in sport, now I'm talking, to bring the cross. I found, I'll be honest, I mean, I met them on a couple of occasions. I went down, I had dinner with them in the House of Commons at that time with David Gill and others who were, I think they were

My assessment of it was that they saw an opportunity, a business opportunity, a sporting business opportunity to link across the pond, as it were, and try to... Now, you know, I may have been wrong on that. What were the crucial bits of the takeover that happened that were kind of ultimately in the Glazers' favour, I guess? The main difference between the Glazers' takeover and the Murdoch takeover was that the intervention of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission

because of the Murdoch's other business interests. The Glazers didn't have the same business interests in the UK that would allow the MMC to step in. The Glazers were able to conduct this just as a business deal. It was just a share acquisition, equity acquisition deal. The Glazers have been sitting around Man United since the early 2000s looking at acquiring shares. I think they bought their first

Shares in United in 2002 or 2003 slowly built their stake. And then they made their decision to buy. And of course, once they got above a certain percentage, they now make an offer to everybody. So they had to put a deal together.

And that was purely a financial transaction to be put together with financial advisors on the market, which is very different to Murdoch. You know, Murdoch's TV interests allowed us to raise the concerns around manipulation of TV content. So it was a very different kind of battle, very different kind of fight.

Could the board have done anything, you think, in terms of their responsibilities? I think the board of Manchester United at the time of the Glazer acquisition could have done more to link up with those other stakeholders at the football club, particularly the spectators, to warn of the issues. The Glazers' takeover was so risky, the then CEO also went on the record to say how risky it was.

He put the warning signs up. He decided he would carry on working for him. For whatever reason, he took the decision he would carry on. But at the time, he said it was risky. You know, I've also spoken to other people who were senior executives in the club at the time. And in the club, I am told, everybody was very concerned about it.

In October of 2005, I was part of a group of United fans who went to Whitehall. And I felt that the British government were like, yes, we can see your concerns. Have a nice cup of tea and biscuits and we'll write a stern letter. And I felt that they were powerless. But you were far closer to the market and the rules and regulations than I was. Have they changed? Would it be allowed now? If it was in the exact...

form of ownership as a publicly quoted company, I don't think there's much the UK government could have done without having a much broader message for foreign investors in the UK. Because one, it wouldn't take much to get investors to think, well, they've done that with one perceived trophy asset that the people like. What's to stop them doing that about, I don't know, Marks and Spencers or British Airways, you know, whatever. And so I

I think there would be some that would explore it, and especially in the current era, if it were now, there would be more debate. But I think it would be very, very tricky for a country that's trying to attract global investors to start going down that path.

The way that it could be done, and this bill hasn't passed through Parliament yet, but obviously under the new, presuming it happens, the new regulator, if there's genuine focus about how much debt can be used to own a sports business, especially football, that would be something that would definitely get more scrutiny. But resisting the acquisition, I think that would be tricky.

So while fans were desperate for the board or the UK government to intervene, neither had the requisite power to stop the deal. To borrow a phrase from the Glazers' other sporting business, it was time for Andy Walsh to try a Hail Mary. You called Alex Ferguson? I did call Alex, yeah, because I had a pretty good relationship with him at the time, built on the back of the Murdoch takeover, really. We'd regularly have conversations.

Either my behest or his behest, if he wanted to just test something out with me, talk to me about how the fans might respond to something or he'd heard something that the fans were concerned about, he'd phone me up. Or sometimes he'd just phone up and have a vent. It's quite a funny moment where we were sat in the car, set of traffic lights, Stretford Arndale, and his number come up on my phone.

My wife turned around and said shush to the kids, not to say anything. And he just exploded on the phone, effing and jeffing and swearing his head off about a conversation he'd had with Martin Edwards. I knew he was doing that to other people as well. You know, he was very good at having those sorts of networks of people around who were trusted individuals who wouldn't then go and spill the story to the press and what have you. So, yes, I felt...

At that time, we had a reasonably close relationship. I could almost say anything to him. But still, it was very difficult. We decided as a group that the only thing that could stop the Glazer taking over was for Alex Ferguson to walk away. It was a highly leveraged deal, as we all know from what's been written in the past. And they required some certainty about Manchester United's financial stability going forward.

Losing Alex Ferguson would have spooked the markets. We felt that would have pulled the rug from under their financial stack of cards. So I rang him. It wasn't an easy conversation. I'm actually sat in the same room now as when I had the conversation with him.

And we had a bit of small talk. And then I just said, look, I've got a difficult question to ask you. And I just explained to him where we were, that the Glazers deal was highly risky. We didn't think that they had any interest in Manchester United. It was just another business acquisition for them. I basically asked him to resign. And I said, you know, would you resign? If you resigned, their business deal would collapse. The share price would collapse.

We'd be able to then put together a consortium, told him about where we were with everything. And he would then be carried back, you know, the words I used, he'd be carried back into Old Trafford on the shoulders of supporters. And we'd actually have a football club that would be organised in the interests of Manchester United first and not some wealthy absent businessman who cared nothing for the football club.

He listened very carefully and we had a very measured conversation then about what he felt was his responsibilities to the club and to the staff at the club that were responsible for him. It wouldn't be a question of him just handing in his notice, the impact it would have on everybody else. But he agreed he would go and talk to the family. I think he said he would go and talk to Mark, who was his son, who was his business advisor on these sort of matters.

Yeah, and then he didn't resign. Why do you think he didn't resign? Alex Ferguson is a very loyal individual. He tests people, but I think there was a loyalty to his staff. I think also it was a bloody big ask.

from somebody who he got on pretty well with at that time, right? But we weren't mates or anything. I was just one of a circle of people who he spoke to for advice on matters that were in my domain. We weren't pals. We weren't going out for drinks. We weren't going out with each other's houses for dinner or anything like that. He would have spoken to a lot of other people who he probably trusted more than me. And football is a precarious business. As a manager, he still had a legacy to cement.

Whilst he had won a number of trophies and he was, you know, hailed as one of the greatest managers that Manchester United has had and probably one of the greatest managers even at that time that has ever been in English football, he still wanted more. And he wasn't ready to walk out on Manchester United and risk that legacy. So that was my judgment as to why he didn't resign. It was a bloody big ask. He obviously judged it was too much of an ask.

Alex, partly because of the complications for me personally with the Irish thing, for that period I didn't sort of come across or speak to as often as I did before and since. I think as he's said publicly, I think he was actually quite happy, partly because it meant the Irish guys would be off his back. I think Alex, in many ways, especially early on, was pretty content about it.

I've seen Alex say it publicly and he's certainly said it to me. Who in their right minds would want to own a football club anyhow? So I think Alex thought life might be a bit more manageable. I don't think he's ever contradicted himself publicly about this, but I personally think

He must have yearned for something better in midfield than we carried through the early years of the Glazers' ownership. He had to resort, as fabulous as it was occasionally, to the resurrection of Scolzi and turning Giggs into a midfield superstar to compensate. I don't think that would have been number one on Fergie's priorities.

His name is Malcolm Glazer. He fixed his brother's flash. He tried to buy a football team but didn't have the cash.

Can you describe the damage it did to Manchester United's match-going support? Only recently I was in San Sebastian for Real Sociedad Man United and I met people, who you probably know, who haven't spoken to people since 2005 because of their actions, either going to FC United, stopping going completely or continuing to go to Manchester United. Disagreements among friends that still reverberate two decades later.

It's undoubted that the glazed takeover of individual decisions that supporters took at the time had consequences for friendships, consequences for relationships within families that still reverberate today, 20 years on. But those are personal decisions that people take. I had a couple of guys turn up on my doorstep. One guy in particular still lives around here who was wringing his hands constantly

And said, you know, well, what am I going to do? You know, I don't want to give him a season ticket. He says, I've lost three marriages and umpteen jobs following United. And now I'm faced with a decision that I just don't know which way to go. And I said, well, I can't tell you which way to go. It's difficult enough for me making the decision I'm making. I said, I can't tell you. And about six weeks later, I saw him in an FC United game.

And what he decided to do was farm out his season ticket, go and see if FC United was all about. And then if it didn't work out, he'd go back to United. If it did work out, he might stay at FC. People were attacked on the streets for taking the decisions that they took, physically attacked on the streets, spat at on the streets. You know, there are certain elements of Manchester United's support who tried to ferment physical disorder at FC United games.

So, you know, passions run very high, emotions run very high. And that was because of what the Glazers had done. But football fans fall out all the time anyway. You know, put four football fans in a room, you'll have six or seven different opinions. So that's just a consequence of how emotional people are about football and how invested they are in something really they haven't got any control over what they think they have.

Could you understand, Richard, why Manchester United fans were so concerned about the prospect of the Glazer takeover, the highly leveraged buyout? And do you think 20 years later those concerns were justified? I think they were justified, and I've got to say that, haven't I? Because eventually Greek took over. I think at that time, if I'm being honest, at that time, I think probably it was inevitable because what we had allowed

there, in England particularly, and the Premier League, was self-regulation, unlike the Germans, for example, on ownership, or indeed what you got in Spain, which was no collective selling and so on. But within our model that we had here, in England particularly, I think it was an inevitability. How could you stop that? Now, my concern was, first, the one thing that redistributed the wealth

of the Premier League with its big television rights, and that's what it was, was the collective selling and the redistribution and the formula that went with that. And as long as that was in place and properly regulated by the Premier League and the FA, which I'm bound to say later on failed,

That self-regulation failed when they went for the Super League and so on. But at that time that we're talking, 2005, I think there was a bit of inevitability because of the structure of football, how we'd allowed that to evolve.

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year.

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to.

It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs, innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse. Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost.

And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong, a new podcast that explores the all-too-human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right. And we're talking like legit, credible experts, doctors, PhDs, all-around superheroes. From HuffPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Glazer takeover did proceed, going through on the week of Friday 13th May 2005. At first, with Ferguson still in charge, the club's on-field performance continued to be first class. United knocked Liverpool off their perch as the most successful club in English domestic football with their 19th league title in 2011. A 20th was added as Ferguson announced his retirement two years later.

But since then, a succession of managers have, despite the occasional trophy win, failed to make the team consistently competitive at the very highest levels. A number of expensive big-name transfers haven't helped, and recruiting the right talent has become a major problem. The Premier League squad, having once boasted the world's leading players, has become a patchwork of inconsistent and underperforming stars.

For fans, the more pressing concern has become the financial situation. Two decades on, the money borrowed by the Glazers to purchase United, plus the interest, combined with the short-term borrowings needed to reinforce a stuttering team, has seen the club's debt rise to £731.5 million. With finances tight, the Glazers sold 25% of the club in December 2023,

The buyer was British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who had grown up in the Manchester area and was a self-proclaimed United fan. He later transferred his minority stake to his INEOS group, the share rising to 28.9%. As part of that deal, Ratcliffe took control of Manchester United's football department as well as day-to-day operations and has since issued two rounds of redundancies to cut the workforce by a third.

But results on the pitch have only sagged further, and regular failures to qualify for the lucrative European Champions League have added yet more financial pressure. For Andy Walsh, none of this comes as a surprise. Yes, I think everything that we said as a group of supporters at the time has now come to pass. The Glazers weren't buying Manchester United Football Club, they were buying an undervalued, internationally renowned business brand

They could not buy another business with the international recognition for the same price, which, let's remember, at the time is $200 million. That's all it cost them. Everything else they loaded on the club. So that is a phenomenal deal. The deal that was done has caused untold havoc to Manchester United as a football club. As a business, it's still there.

But, you know, the current minority shareholder has said in recent weeks that the club was running out of cash on the Glazers' watch. The club that has been monetised to the back teeth was running out of cash because of the mismanagement of an absent ownership group. That is exactly what we said was going to happen. It was an undervalued asset that they then sweated. You know, I can remember sitting down with Peter Kenyon

after we defeated Murdoch, saying to him, look, we need to do something now to protect the club for the future. And that's, again, a huge regret. Manchester United's in the mess it's in now because of inaction and myopia and because of the avarice of people who see Manchester United purely as a cash machine, not as a football club that is central to people's lives. Sorry, I can't do this. Just hold on.

I went to a gig at Victoria Warehouse last night and I walked past Old Trafford to see what those people have done to that football club. It's still hers. Well, gosh, to some degree, maybe I'm conflicted. I mean, because I have lived through 32 years of 24-7 deeply involved in professional finance. I think in terms of ruthless execution of the private equity model, annoyingly brilliant.

The amount of leverage they took to acquire such an astonishing brand at the time where there was this explosion in global media rights, ruthlessly brilliant. As to whether it's morally acceptable, it's a very tricky question. I personally often think for something...

And I'm hesitating because I have my bias about how important football is relative to other sports, but that's because I love football and I love United. But I do think there is something still quite unique about match-daying football attendance and a lot of support for clubs being deeply rooted, the area where they're from and generations of families that go with it.

to apply such remarkably ruthless techniques to profit from is right, let's put it like this, in my view, right at the extreme as to what the regulators should allow. But I quickly add, and hence the contradiction at least, and maybe conflict, this is happening at a time where the growth of the private equity, which is effectively a polite way of

describing leverage capital despite 2008 and the financial crisis has been enormous and so it's pretty common in many many forms of industry and as you guys probably follow much more than me in other areas of football and remarkably and growingly in a number of other areas of sports ownership which in many ways astonishes me.

The one thing that was interesting, and it moved quite quickly after this as well, which even surprised them, I think, was the question of the power of the sale of the Premier League's television rights, both domestically and internationally. Because, as you know, we were in discussions at that time for the next three years. But then the deal after that as well became...

quite a significant deal and they got returns from that that they never expected. But I also think at that time it was moving more towards the business and a lot of what I call football as it were motivated people who came into football to manage the football in all its various aspects, financial, legals, our clubs were run, actually were being pushed out

And I think then what we found, and I think you see that in the structure of the European Super League. Now, this is a cultural shift

of football, the Premier League became so successful and I was involved from a government point of view making sure that we a supported the Premier League but also make sure that community football got a first slice of the rewards of those television deals through the Football Foundation, through the community funds and the like. And I think we were quite successful in doing that because we did support

even may I say so, against sometimes number 10's view of the collective selling rights and the so-called monopoly that the Premier League had. It was not universally accepted in government as a good thing. But nevertheless, I think that we were able to deliver a deal for football, for the communities and for the academies.

and the Premier League became the Super League. The European Super League, cited by Richard Caborn, was an attempt by a collection of wealthy clubs to form a new pan-continental competition in April 2021. Joe Glazer was named as a vice-chairman of the project. Featuring 15 permanent founding members who would not be removed or relegated regardless of their performance, it sparked near-universal fury amongst fans.

Angry scenes followed, including the postponement of a Premier League fixture at Old Trafford against Liverpool when a group of supporters broke into the stadium during Covid-19 lockdown protocols. Although these protests were unprecedented in many ways, they did have echoes of the Glazer family's first ever appearance at Old Trafford.

Were you there the night that the Glazers first came to Old Trafford and then had to kind of get escorted out in an ambulance or in a police van? We're not quite sure, I suppose. Back of a van. Back of a van. Yeah, were you there that night? I was, yeah. What do you remember of it? I remember people phoning up and saying that the Glazers were at Old Trafford and that people were being called down to let them know what we thought of them. A few hundred people turned up. We were on the forecourt in front of the old ticket office at the time.

People were barricading the roads, trying to stop them coming out. A bit of a desperate attempt, really, but people were trying to do something. They just wanted to do something. People were angry. Then the police turned up with dogs and tried to clear people off, and then a van came screeching out up the access road and away from the ground. It was United fans, people who live locally, just letting them know they weren't just going to walk into...

Manchester United Football Club and take it over and everybody welcome them. They weren't welcome. And for 20 years, United fans have let them know that they're not welcome. They've never been welcome in Manchester. They never will be welcome in Manchester. And they know that, but they don't care because Manchester United is a piggy bank for them, paying them cash, giving them kudos in the circles they move in. They don't care about Man United. They care about themselves and the cash that they can take out of it.

Thank you for listening to part one of this special extra edition of Talk of the Devils. Join us for part two, which will follow 24 hours after this episode, when Andy and Laurie will be back to reflect on the events of 2005, and our US-based colleague Adam Crafton will help us analyse the relationship between the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and also forecast the future of Manchester United's ownership. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to. It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs in

innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse.

Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong, a new podcast that explores the all-too-human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Doctors, PhDs, all around superheroes. From HuffPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong? wherever you get your podcasts.

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