why don't soccer fans want this? i gather that he owns the team or something.

English people assume he wants to drive the team into the gound. Plus they hate the US so that don't help. I think they see it as a point personal pride that their team isn't owned by a yank.

All Glazer will do is be ManU's Roman Abramovich and bring them back to glory.

The fans think that he is spending too much money and thus will nto be able to buy enought players. But the thing is their squad is stacked.

that's what i was thinking, Chelsea's owned by a russian so what difference does it make.

Russia ain't the US.

I guess.

if the guy can take a sorry-ass franchise with a gay pirate for a logo to the super bowl i think that he can figure out soccer pretty quick. they should just relax, go limp and take it.

I'm pretty sure ManU is the most storied of all Premiership teams not to mention the most lucrative. Possibly in the world. I don't think most Americans, not just New Englanders, would be too pleased if a foreigner purchased the Spankees or the Red Sox. We sell our golf courses and that's about it.

seriously? i don't think that anyone would care or even notice.

as stated before, the guys an american, and is looking at man u strictly as a business opportunity. man u has millions of fans around the world, and a very strong supporters organization. they will not take this laying down.

what the fuck are they going to do? if man u wins they'll line up to polish his knob.

firstly, stop going to games (and it isnt an empty threat, they actually wont go). second, i believe they can vote out the chairman. i dont know the makeup of man u, but there are hundreds of clubs around europe that have votes from supporters organizations about who the chairman should be. third, from the business side, they could go back to being a plc. i dont know what doing it entails, or if they could, but it seems like a possibility.

they probably shouldn't sell everything to him then. thanks for explaining it to me but man this makes soccer sound even dumber. thank god no one here gives a damn about it.

Once he has 75% control they can't do a damn thing. He currently has 74.6%.

Just read the story 'Man U fans vow to Fight Takeover' on cnn. If anything, shouldn't the hooligans be more upset with the team's Board and majority owners who sold it to Glazer? This might actually make a story if he was Argentine.

Let the BBC explain...

Manchester United has been a well-run club, which has invested in the Old Trafford Stadium and players without getting itself into debt.

Mr Glazer's bid involves borrowing large amounts of money to finance any takeover, although the levels have been cut from the amount of debt he carried in his initial approaches to the club last year.

There is a fear now that he will eventually gain such a large shareholding that he can collapse his debt onto the club.

Should Mr Glazer increase his holding to 75% or more, then he can rewrite the company's articles - effectively giving him carte blanche to run the company as he wants.

Mr Glazer is now just barely short of that 75% level of shares.

If he can get 90%, he can make a compulsory purchase and scoop up the other 10% of the club's shares.

what konstantinl (i mean the bbc) said. i think it's mostly about glazer bringing hundreds of millions in debt for what has been one of the most profitable sports franchises in the world and in the black for some time now.

on the other hand, the gm of the bucs has come out and said that glazer has been good for their management--but honestly, what else is gonna say about his boss?

c.

oh yeah and there's this too (from soccernet.com):

If you're talking ex-GM McKay, then his word's right as rain. At least the St. Pete Times always made him out to be a standout individual while I was living in Fla. Went to school with Glazer's granddaughter. Didn't know her well, but she was known in most circles as the campus bicycle. So the family has that going for them, too.

wow, thanks for the explanation konstantin. i didnt realize he was taking out loans to finance his take over. that makes things much, much worse.

moxie, i actually think it was the current gm--or maybe it was someone else in management. anyway, i think this says it all from the united fans' perspective.

c.

UEFA is also planning on changing their debt plan in the next year or so and Man Utd may have too much debt to be allowed in European competitions.

If Man Utd is banned from European competition it will sting the pocket books quite a bit.

It may seem outlandish but it could happen.

Running and NFL franchise and running a european football team are quite different. There is a salary cap in the NFL that won't be in play in europe and the transfer market is decidedly different as well. The fear is that Glazer won't invest as much in new players because he'll be strapped with debt for quite some time. Man Utd has lost a hold on the premiership already and are pretty much the third best club. If Man Utd form continues to slip and lose fans all over the world (considering people love them so much because they were winners) streams of lost revenue from replica jerseys, sponsers and european competitions will clearly hurt them.

I read someone make the comment that they could end up being the next version of Leeds Utd which seems quite far fetched.

Screw them anyways. I can't stand Man Utd. Ipswich will hopefully be up next year to put them in their place. Which is middle of the table next year with all this upheaval.

Isn't Manchester Utd's 9-0 win against Ipswich a few years back still the Premiership record?

everybody knows that man city is the only real team in manchester. since man u doesnt actually play in manchester.

And to think i used to like you.