Manchester United news and links

United are aiming to go top again with a win at Molineux this weekend.

Sir Alex Ferguson will up his search for a long-term successor for Paul Scholes this summer.


The United manager is ready to spend after losing faith in Anderson and abandoning the signing of Adem Ljajic.

This week’s business stories in pictures

Everton teen star says he’s in no hurry to follow Rooney to United.

Bank’s chief economist under pressure over his involvement with Red Knights’ bid for Manchester United

Goldman Sachs is considering forcing Jim O’Neill, the bank’s chief economist, to choose between his job and his involvement with the Red Knights group of financiers and businessmen, who are seeking to wrest control of Manchester United football club from the Glazer family. O’Neill is thought likely to respond to such an ultimatum by resigning.

The Glazers, who insist that the club is not for sale, are clients of Goldman and have threatened to withdraw their custom from the bank. It is understood that senior figures at Goldman believe O’Neill has overstepped the mark by taking a leading role with the Knights, and that his involvement threatens to embarrass the bank, which in January helped United raise £500m via an issue of bonds.

O’Neill has insisted that he has taken the role in a “personal capacity” but Goldman has been irritated by his failure to seek clearance from bosses to work on what this week became a high-profile deal.

Tensions were first inflamed when O’Neill, an avid United supporter and a non-executive director of the club before the Glazers’ takeover, told the Bloomberg news agency at the time of the bond issue: “There is too much leverage going on with Man United. It’s not a good thing. I’m not a buyer of the bond. I value my long-term support for Man United better than anything else.”

Those remarks are said to have angered Lloyd Blankfein, the bank’s chairman and chief executive.

The son of a postman, O’Neill grew up in south Manchester, where he studied at the local comprehensive and developed a passion for football, turning down a place at a private school because they didn’t take the game seriously.

Today, O’Neill is regarded as one of the world’s leading commentators on global economics, having devised the acronym Bric in 2001 to underline the shift of economic power from the west to Brazil, Russia, India and China – a trend that defines modern, international economics.

Persuading the Glazer family to sell United is no easy task, and today a spokesman for the Glazers said: “Manchester United is the most valuable sports asset in the world. Why would we want to sell unless we were considering an exit from sport altogether?” In the US, the Glazers own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the American football team.

Other members of the Red Knights group attempting to put together a £1bn-plus bid for United include Keith Harris, a former football club chairman and head of the broker Seymour Pierce, and Paul Marshall, founder of the London hedge fund Marshall Wace. Also involved are Mark Rawlinson, of Freshfields, the law firm, and Richard Hytner, of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

But the Red Knights face opposition from David Gill, the club’s chief executive, who has cast doubt on their ability to table a firm bid.

“They hope to bring together 40 high-net-worth individuals, each contributing upwards of £20m towards the buyout, the balance of a £1bn offer being made up of debt,” he said. “I don’t know how it would work. I’ve been to a lot of clubs in Europe and the best clubs, the better-run clubs, have clear, single decision-making [processes]. It’s quick and efficient.

“I don’t see how if you’ve got a number of very wealthy people being involved, [they would also] want to be involved in the decision making.”

The Glazers acquired United in 2005 via a highly leveraged deal that left the club and family with borrowings in excess of £700m. The Red Knights are backed by tens of thousands of fans who are angry that so much of the club’s cashflow must go towards servicing debt, which they say impairs its ability to buy star players.

The economist doesn’t deserve to be sent off for declaring his support for Manchester United

Rule one of Goldman Sachs’s business principles states: “Our clients’ interests always come first.” Rule two starts: “Our assets are our people.” So what happens when these principles collide? We may be about to find out because Jim O’Neill, Goldman’s highly regarded chief economist, has clearly irritated many of his senior colleagues by making life uncomfortable for the Glazer family, owners of Manchester United and clients of the bank.

O’Neill says he is acting in “a personal capacity” in putting himself forward as a “Red Knight” aiming to reclaim the club for the fans. That’s not the way the Glazers see things, and a few of the top brass at Goldman seem inclined to agree with the family from Florida.

You can understand why Goldman might be miffed. The bank has just sponsored a £500m fundraising by Manchester United and Goldman still holds some of the bonds on its own book. Yet O’Neill has declared: “I’m not a buyer of the bond. I value my long-term support for Man United better than anything else.”

In that case, Goldman’s moral policemen might reply, you really ought to have read that section of the same business principles that says: “We have no room for those who put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the firm and its clients.”

In a rational world, Goldman wouldn’t be so uptight. It would accept that O’Neill is entitled to his opinions, consider the affair a minor matter and understand that the football bug, once caught, is impossible to shake.

But Goldman is not like that. The current position – a stand-off between the Red Knights and the Glazers – is probably tolerable when viewed from New York. Conflict would be inevitable, however, if the Glazers continue to insist that United is not for sale and if the Red Knights respond by calling on fans to boycott games. Such a plotline seems increasingly likely.

The elegant solution would be to ask O’Neill to take a sabbatical for a short time if he wishes to continue to help the Red Knights. He is, after all, far more important to Goldman’s long-term interests than the Glazers ever will be. Besides, the popular view is that the Red brigade is doing God’s work.

Antonio’s debut campaign has been great to date - our free video shows why.

Eleven United players represented nine different countries on Wednesday night.

Wayne Rooney is scoring goals through sheer instinct, according to former Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.


Rooney netted his 28th goal of the season on Sunday to seal United’s 2-1 victory over Aston Villa in the Carling Cup final at Wembley.

David Gill’s reaction to the Red Knights’ takeover plan is widely reported.

United are benefiting from Rooney’s early start in senior football.

The Premier League title race countdown has begun and it’s not going to be an easy ride for United fans.


Here, M.E.N. United reporter Stuart Mathieson makes his prediction for the Reds, Chelsea and Arsenal’s remaining fixtures.

Sir Alex is wary of Arsenal’s title threat but insists United ‘won’t give in’.

• Untapped millions to be made from internet, says source
• Mystery surrounds Portsmouth’s executive director

When the Red Knight group announced its intention to bid for Manchester United the Glazer family instantly responded by saying: “The club is not for sale.” Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?

But pause for a second and consider that perhaps United really are not for sale. Yes, they have suffered short-term financial difficulties, laid bare by the bond issue last month, but there are clues to the Glazers’ intentions in the timing of the extension of the club’s debt-maturity dates to 2017.

By then United’s access to new media markets will have widened dramatically with the development of high-bandwidth data services across the world. American markets recognise the value of this impending development.

Three years ago the New York Yankees were valued at $1.5bn (£1bn) and at the same time their Yesnetwork internet system at $3.5bn (£2.3bn). With Manchester United, a global brand with a global following, that value could be even greater.

“At the moment the internet is dominated by pornography,” said one senior football figure with a successful internet background at the Soccerex conference yesterday. “But football will build communities. Within five to 10 years there will be stadiums with full connectivity. People watching their football delivered through the internet will be communicating with people in the ground while betting on their iPhones. If every football fan in China and India is paying a few dollars a month for it, all the top clubs will be worth billions.

“And the Glazers get it.”

Which would suggest that with the Red Knights talking up a bid of around £1.5bn, the club is not for sale.

Another Portsmouth mystery

Portsmouth’s executive director, Mark Jacob, has parted company with his law firm, Fuglers, to devote himself to Fratton Park – which is odd, given that the club is in administration and directors’ prospects at Pompey do not look good. Could it be linked to the suggestion that Jacob had been suspended from the firm over allegations of wrongdoing? Digger asked Fuglers partner David Berens about this on 9 February and he said he was “duty bound to decline to comment” on questions “relating to confidential and privileged information.” Jacob added: “I have no comment to make about matters that are privileged and confidential in relation to both clients and indeed the practice.” Now, though, Jacob says he has resigned. So Digger asked Berens again this week about the alleged suspension. He said: “The matters of which you ask are subject to client privilege and obligations of client confidentiality. We do not wish to be obstructive but our hands are effectively tied.” Make of that what you will.

John McCririck put out to pasture

One of television sport’s most colourful figures is being “sidelined”. The Channel Four betting analyst John McCririck will no longer be seen on Saturday afternoon broadcasts, having been shunted to the morning slot. “I have been cut right back on a Saturday,” said McCririck. “Clearly Andrew Thompson and the people at Channel Four think the afternoon programme is better without me. That’s the management decision. I’ve been sidelined.” Thompson, effectively still C4’s head of sport despite performing the role from a consultancy position, said: “John remains an important part of our team.”

David Davies explains his taste for haste

David Davies has always been very clear that the outcomes of his controversial review into the crown jewels of British sport were entirely his preserve. Take his comment from last November: “I can say categorically that in no circumstances at any time did anyone remotely connected to government suggest anything to me.” So readers of the Davies interview in this month’s FC Business magazine will be surprised to read his explanation for not looking at the economic impact of his proposals: “If we took into consideration how much money a sport would theoretically lose, we would have been here for far longer and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport were keen to get a definitive list before the election.” Well how about that?

This may go down as a watershed moment in many football fans’ increasingly fractious relationships with the people who own their clubs

The intersections of American politics and English football have traditionally been on the rare side, unless you count Tony Crosland dragging Henry Kissinger to a couple of matches in 1976. The good doctor saw Grimsby Town play Gillingham, and Chelsea at home to Wolves, with Crosland vowing to take over the public address system at the latter game to pay lavish tribute to the soon-to-retire US secretary of state. There is, alas, no record of how the Stamford Bridge crowd reacted to a match build-up featuring the foreign secretary lauding this faintly polarising figure over a squeaky Tannoy, but the fact that many of us would prefer even that to listening to Richard Keys is a real testament to Sky’s ability to push the envelope.

To the present day, though, and the impressive news that the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust (Must) has engaged Blue State Digital, the internet strategy firm which masterminded Barack Obama’s ground-breaking online campaign for the White House. For some, it might feel a little early to slap the irksome game-changer label on this development, despite Sunday’s green-and-gold Carling Cup protest. But if the arrangement realises its potential, then the last week will go down as a watershed moment in many football fans’ increasingly fractious relationships with the people who own their clubs.

Across the political and commercial spectrum, established orders are being rocked by grassrootsy movements who have the power to make life immensely difficult for those previously able to operate regardlessly, and there is no reason why football should not become a powerful example of this. Dissatisfaction with an owner is nothing new, naturally – but Must’s decision acknowledges that for all their homespun charm, reactions like raging into a pint or painting the words “GLAZERS GO HOME” on an old sheet will only take you so far.

That Blue State Digital will grow Must’s supporter base rapidly seems a gimme – but what was transformational about their management of the Obama campaign was less the number of people signed up, extraordinary though those figures were, and more the way in which they managed to connect, organise and mobilise that community to take real action.

Whether Must’s campaign will be the start of English football’s Tea Party movement is impossible to call, but it clearly seeks to effect more lasting change than getting Rage Against the Machine to outsell Joe McElderry. Must’s long-term aim is nothing less than supporter ownership of Manchester United. Inevitably, the short-term outcome will be far less radical, even if those cringemakingly self-styled Red Knights do somehow mount a successful bid. But in retaining the services of gilt-edged political operators, this group of fans have taken a step which should trouble even the most hard-boiled of owners.

That said, neophobes will be glad that a bit of heritage politics is still being played. Must are planning to talk to Liverpool fans about a joint protest against their respective owners when the sides meet later this month – a striking example of Kissinger’s fabled realpolitik, if ever there was one.

Body talk

Forgive me. When last week I mentioned the demographic which only tunes in to sport for the kiss-and-tells and the apologies, I should obviously have stated that Fleet Street fulfils this unnecessary function better than anyone. And as if by magic, the Bridge/Terry handshake saga became a dry run for what can traditionally be expected during the World Cup, coaxing as it did a whole host of non-sporting commentators to cast Wry Glances at the usually infra dig business of football.

Ideally, come June, these expert interventions will be grouped under the banner “The View From Up Here”, with those from whom we can expect to hear more when the tournament begins including the likes of the Evening Standard’s Sam Leith, who appeared to think the Chelsea v Man City game had happened at night and seemed wholly unfamiliar with the practice of the club captain leading out two child mascots. My absolute favourite, though, was “body language expert” Judi James, who explained in the Sun that Wayne Bridge declining to shake John Terry’s hand was a “rejection”.

Thanking you, Judi. I’d had a lot of trouble parsing the gesture, eventually giving up on the conundrum as one for Bletchley Park. Let’s hope Judi will be on hand for England’s quarter-final exit, to explain that pictures of players weeping great snotty tears is a sign that they would have preferred to advance further in the competition.

• Consortium in talks with potential overseas investors
• Inquiries from Europe, Asia and the Middle East

Wealthy foreign investors have approached the Red Knights group of City financiers and businessmen looking to wrest control of Manchester United from the Glazer family. Interest from European, Asian and Middle Eastern multimillionaires in a possible takeover of United has boosted hopes the Red Knights can raise sufficient cash to tempt the Glazers to sell.

It is understood that talks between the Red Knights and overseas parties are at an early stage, but that the British side is looking for a foreign or domestic “anchor investor” willing to pay as much as £600m.

One analyst said: “If they can find an overseas sugar daddy who is prepared to adopt a passive role in the running of the club, a bid becomes a real possibility.”

It is thought that foreign investors from Qatar, Russia, India and Hong Kong have made contact with the Red Knights with a view to involvement in a bid.

Observers say that the Glazers may find it hard to resist an offer for Manchester United of about £1.2bn, allowing them to make a huge profit on the £800m they paid for the club in 2005, primarily via debt. But the American family would collect only part of the consideration, as United’s borrowings top £700m.

The Red Knights consortium is led by Jim O’Neill, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, Keith Harris, chairman of City broker Seymour Pierce and Paul Marshall, founder of London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace. All are avid United fans.

A bid for United could include a share issue to supporters to raise up to 25% of the funds needed to bankroll a takeover of the club. Fans may receive sufficient voting rights to enable them to have a big say over strategy and block any future takeover. “Some form of collective ownership by supporters is an option under active consideration,” claimed a source close to the O’Neill consortium.

But the precise way a bid could be structured is still being discussed by the Red Knights, who must look at how to buy out bondholders who have invested in £500m of United debt in return for interest payments of about 9%. The debt can be traded in the bond market, where speculators were today piling into United bonds, pushing up the price from 93p to 95p, amid hopes a bid could materialise. Should a takeover deal be struck, bondholders will be paid out at 101p for every bond they own, yielding a significant profit for those investors who bought in at 93p. But the Red Knights may offer bondholders a stake in the new company to encourage them to settle for a lower payment.

Under the terms of the bond, which was launched in January, the Glazers can take about £80m out of the club cashflow over the next seven years to pay themselves dividends and management fees. In addition, proceeds from the bond can be used to pay down £200m owed by the family to hedge-fund lenders who provided cash at the time of the bid for United five years ago, but at penal rates of interest.

Critics of the Glazers complain that the family has taken a company that was almost debt-free in 2005 and loaded it with hundreds of millions in liabilities. With interest payments only just covered by profits, it is argued that United will never be able to pay off its borrowings. Analysts have estimated that between 2005 and 2009, Red Football Joint Venture, the Glazer holding company, has spent £260m servicing its debts.

Supporters of the Glazers argue that they have been successful in boosting the club’s revenues through ticket price hikes and higher media revenues. They have left manager Sir Alex Ferguson to get on with the business of winning on the field, where the club’s prowess is legendary. But the worry is that if United’s sporting fortune took a turn for the worse, it could forfeit media revenue and find itself overwhelmed by its debt mountain.

The Glazers have never been liked by fans, and hostility to them has restricted their attendance at matches. Protests dogged the first year after they took over the club and have reignited lately.

As a symbol of opposition, the Manchester United Supporters Trust has been encouraging fans to forsake United’s traditional red colours and wear green and gold scarves, the colours of the club when it was known as Newton Heath until 1902.

The scarves were much in evidence ]

Barça: more than a club

In 2003, when Barcelona’s chairman Joan Laporta, right, won the club’s elections, he said Manchester United’s business model was to be followed. Now it’s United that’s looking south; the Red Knights want to emulate Barça’s ownership model. Barça belongs to its 100,000-strong club members, including, famously, the Pope, who force the elected officials to reinvest all profits. “It’s never appropriate for a football club to be publicly traded because there’s a split of interest between the shareholders and the fans – the first want a return, while the fans want the club to perform as well as possible,” says Larry Schechter, a US financier whose boutique investment bank has helped raise money for German clubs. The secret, observers say, is that Barça ensures that it appoints top-quality lawyers and financiers to run the club. “By collective membership I am not talking of some kind of illusory workers’ committee,” says Jimmy Burns, author of Barça: a People’s Passion. “The club has an elected president who in turn appoints an executive board who include professional and money-minded people.”

Barça’s commitment to club members and its 6 million-strong Catalan fan base keeps it loyal to its motto Més Que un Club – more than a club. “It’s a whole cultural, social phenomenon that reaches out across borders,” Burns says. Barça relies on the same revenue streams as British clubs, but Burns believes its model could be adopted by Premiership teams “with a strong sense of their own identity, rooted in local history which arguably could and should lend itself to a more accountable system of ownership”.

Barça is rooted in Spanish history as the club suffered during the Spanish civil war and under the dictatorship of Franco. Its history gives Barça an extra strength relative to arch-rival Real Madrid, which is also owned by fans. “The difference perhaps lies in Real Madrid not relying as much as Barça does on home-grown talent,” Burns adds. “I would argue that the Barça model has a tendency to produce very good teams, while the Real Madrid model can produce a gathering of very good individual players. Give me the Barça musketeers any day.” Elena Moya

• Manager ‘comfortable’ under Glazers, says chief executive
• £81m from Cristiano Ronaldo sale ‘is in the bank account’

Manchester United’s chief executive, David Gill, said tonight he is “confident” that the club’s beleaguered American owners, the Glazer family, retain the support of Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager who has won 26 trophies in 24 years at Old Trafford.

“We have regular meetings, we talk about the team, development of the players, what the targets are,” Gill told the Soccerex conference in Manchester. “He [Ferguson] is very comfortable with it.

“He would not be shy in saying he wasn’t comfortable and we need to buy a player. We are a successful team and the way it’s moved on since Cristiano [Ronaldo] left after six very successful years with us demonstrated why he’s comfortable with what he’s got.”

Gill said that the proceeds of the £81m sale of Ronaldo to Real Madrid have been ringfenced for squad strengthening. He also said that the club’s £709m debt was serviceable and that it was only because of Ferguson’s thrift that the funds for player recruitment have not been spent. Asked if there was still money for United to maintain their recent primacy in the Premier League, Gill said: “Without doubt.”

He said: “We’re looking at players all the time. The money from Ronaldo is in the bank account, let’s be clear on that. Alex has been very clear, he’s not going to go out and pay for a player just because everyone else thinks we should do that. He’s a Scot, he wants value for money. He’s not going to waste it.”

Gill said the £10m purchase of the central defender Chris Smalling, who will join United from Fulham in the summer, was evidence of continued investment in the playing squad.

“The owners understand that you have to invest in the product if you want to be successful and they will support that investment,” he said. “When we bought Nani and Anderson three years ago we spent a lot of money in 24 hours. They know that’s required and they have the money to do that. Alex will not be shy in saying we need that money.”

Asked about the Red Knights City consortium that wants to buy out the Glazers, Gill said: “They have their views and they are sensible, intelligent people. But the structure we have in place today, we can live with it.”

Last night, the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust revealed that their membership has doubled to more than 100,000 people in the past 48 hours in support of the Red Knights’ takeover plan.

• Group’s proposal would not work, says chief executive
• Keith Harris dismissed as a publicity seeker

Manchester United’s chief executive, David Gill, last night rounded on the figurehead of the Red Knights group that claims to be preparing a bid for the club. Keith Harris, the former Football League chairman whose Seymour Pierce stockbroker has been at the centre of several club takeovers, was dismissed by Gill as a publicity seeker.

“Keith Harris will go anywhere there is publicity and we accept that; it’s his modus operandi,” said Gill. “But if you look at his track record in football it is nothing to write home about.”

Gill was referring to Harris’s recent attempts to find buyers for football clubs. He has not completed a takeover deal since putting Thaksin Shinawatra in control of United’s rival Manchester City almost three years ago. Even that was undone after 14 months when it became clear that Thaksin’s conviction on charges of corruption meant he would fail the Premier League’s fit and proper persons test.

However, Gill’s attack on the man fronting the Red Knights shows Old Trafford is feeling the pressure from the group of wealthy bankers and the fans’ green-and-gold protests. “It affects us,” he conceded.

Despite the hostility towards Harris, prompted by the latter’s call last month for supporters to boycott the club, Gill was complimentary about the other figures involved in the Red Knights group. They include blue-chip corporate notables such as the former United director and Goldman Sachs chief economist, Jim O’Neill, and the club’s former legal adviser, the Freshfields partner Mark Rawlinson, who he described as “credible people”.

“They are not misguided,” said Gill. “They have their own views and they are sensible, intelligent people. But the structure we have in place today, we can live with it. Our financial results and our financial projections demonstrate that.”

United’s six-month figures to the year-end 2009 were released on Tuesday and reflected a much-improved picture on the previous year, with pre-tax earnings of £56.5m, up from £36.5m.

Speaking at the Soccerex conference in an interview with Matt Lorenzo, who has been a friend of O’Neill’s since their time together at Sheffield University, Gill insisted the Glazers would not relinquish control of the club. “The [Glazer] family aren’t sellers,” he said. “There has been no indication to me they want to sell. The Red Knights can come with a proposal but they won’t sell the asset. It won’t go anywhere.”

Despite a doubling of the membership of the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust movement on the back of the Red Knights’ announcement, Gill was dismissive of their scheme. They hope to bring together 40 high-net-worth individuals, each contributing upwards of £20m towards the buyout, the balance of a £1bn offer being made up of debt. “I don’t know how it would work,” he said. “I’ve been involved in football since 1997 and travelled a lot with Manchester United. I’ve been to a lot of clubs in Europe and the best clubs, the better-run clubs have clear, single decision-making [processes], it’s quick and efficient.

“I don’t see how if you’ve got a number of very wealthy people being involved – they don’t become wealthy through luck – those sort of people want to be involved in the decision making,

“The key clubs, [Roman] Abramovich at Chelsea, Mansour [Al-Nahyan] at Manchester City, [Silvio] Berlusconi in Milan, even the key decision maker at Madrid is not all those fans, it’s the president. I’m not sure what the endgame is but the endgame is irrelevant because the owners are long-term investors and want to keep the club for many years to come.”

One difference between the Glazers and the examples Gill cited, with the exception of Mansour, is their low profile. Yet Gill made a virtue of that. “They watch every game on the television and I think they have been supportive,” he said. “We’ve got many examples of owners who have come in and run a club, picked the team, been very visible at the ground and in the press.

“They’ve taken the view that they’re not here to do that. They’ve got a good management team in place, a fantastic manager in Sir Alex Ferguson. In order to control the asset and get the most of the asset they have those people there to manage the business that they’ve bought but I don’t think their lack of attendance should be taken that they’re not very passionate about the club and very interested in how they do. That isn’t the case.”

In the past Gill had been highly critical of the leveraged Glazer business plan that has now caused so much anger among the club’s supporters. But despite the fact this is at the root of the current rebellion by fans, Gill defended the American owners.

“When they first approached us in September 2004, we looked at it [their offer] and we felt at the time that the level of debt they were proposing and business plan underpinning that debt were too aggressive,” he said.

“We were public in terms of our opposition to that and they revisited those plans, changed the structure of the financing, revisited the business plans underpinning that financing and that culminated in the takeover in 2005.

“We didn’t as a board, recommend the offer, it didn’t go with a board recommendation but as directors we were obliged to put it to the shareholders and they accepted that and so we move on.”

Gill’s challenge is that a significant number of fans will not move on until the Glazers move out.

Manchester United chief executive David Gill has told the Red Knights the Glazer family won’t sell the club.


The United chief executive insists the American owners are running the Reds “in the right way”, defended the club’s £709m debt and questioned the practicality of the Red Knights’ plans for a takeover.

Man Utd chief executive David Gill says the club’s owners, the Glazers, are “running the club the right way”.

• Gill questions practicality of Red Knights bid
• ‘The Glazers are running the club in the right way’

Manchester United’s chief executive, David Gill, today said the Glazers do not want to sell the club and questioned the practicality of the Red Knights’ possible takeover bid.

The Red Knights are targeting the Glazer family’s debts as part of a potential takeover, but Gill said the Glazers were not interested in selling and are running the club in the right way.

He said at the Soccerex conference in Manchester: “The owners are very long-term owners and have shown that with Tampa Bay, which they took over in 1994-5. They are not sellers, that’s not saying people like these Red Knights can’t come forward with some ideas.

“But there is no indication to mean that they want to sell and in that case they cannot buy the asset, it’s not for sale. The Glazers have no wish to sell and from our perspective they are running the club in the right way.”

Gill questioned how a Red Knights takeover would work at United. “The Red Knights proposal, the idea of having 20, 30 or 40 very wealthy people running Manchester United, I don’t know how it would work in practice.

“The better-run clubs are where there is clear single decision-making and it’s quick and efficient – Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, Silvio Berlusconi at Milan. Having a number of wealthy people involved – they will all want to be involved in decision-making.

“I’m not sure what their endgame is but the endgame is irrelevant. The vast majority of fans of Manchester United should be happy with what we are doing and staying at the top of domestic and world football.”

Gill said there were bound to be dissenters among United’s large fanbase but that manager Sir Alex Ferguson was very comfortable with the ownership situation.

He added: “We have 330 million followers around the world, that’s a key strength and within that it’s highly likely you will have some dissenters and some people who are not happy with what’s going on and would like to change it.

He also insisted the £80m transfer fee from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo was still available for Ferguson to spend on top players.

“Without doubt,” he said. “We are looking at players all the time, the money from Ronaldo is sitting there in the bank account, we have been clear on that.

“But Alex has been very clear he is not going out to chase and overpay for a player just because everyone else thinks we should. He’s a Scot, he wants value for money.

“We have spent a lot of money on Chris Smalling [from Fulham] and that’s the sort of player we want to bring in – a young player who we feel will develop as a player and hopefully give us service for many, many years to come.”

Gill accepted some of those involved in Red Knights were credible but was scathing about the merchant banker Keith Harris, the former Football League chairman who has been involved in a number of takeover bids of top-flight clubs and who had called on fans to boycott United matches.

He said: “We are aware of Jim O’Neill [Goldman Sachs economic adviser] in that he was on our board before the takeover, Mark Rawlinson was our adviser at Freshfields [law firm].

“Keith Harris will go anywhere there is publicity around, we know that and we accept that, that’s his modus operandi but if you looks at his track record in football I don’t think it’s anything to write home about.

“These are credible people and have every right to do what they think is in the interest of the club.

“But that’s not going to take them anywhere if the Glazers don’t want to sell, and they have no wish to sell and from our perspective they are running the club in the right way.”

He also defended the Glazers’ lack of attendance at United matches and insisted the debts - £507m in bonds with the Glazers’ personal PIK debts around £202m – are serviceable.

Gill said: “They don’t come to many games but they are very passionate about the club, they do understand what’s required to run a successful sports team, that you have to invest in the product, on the pitch, in the training ground and in the stadium, they watch every match on TV and I think they have been supportive.

“You have many examples of owners who come in and try to pick the team, be very visible, and they have taken the view they are not there to do that.

“I don’t think their lack of attendance should be interpreted as that they are not passionate about the club.”

Gill said the clubs’ debts were easily covered by the income.

He added: “We have an element of the debt that is very easily serviced by the cashflows of Manchester United, we are in a sport that is getting bigger all the time and as one of the leading clubs we should benefit from that growth.

“We believe we have a much more appropriate and flexible financial structure in place.

“In an ideal world people would like to not have a mortgage on their house but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the benefits of living in that house and can’t afford that house.”

Many of United’s stars are in international action on Wednesday night.

The more David Cameron tries to shrug it off, the more people wonder what hold Lord Ashcroft has over him – or the party

What a cheering story on today’s Guardian City pages, one which salutes the power of great wealth to do good as well as harm, a power that capitalism has been in danger of smothering by its own shortsighted greed in recent years.

Today’s reports lay out the prospect that a group of hardcore Manchester United fans in the City, men with the smarts and the money to do it, are serious about prising their club out of the grisly hands of the Glazer family. It’s cheering, healthy even, to be reminded that great wealth can do fine things if used with an eye to the greater good.

Saving an iconic (dreadful word, sorry) football club is not quite on the scale of Bill and Melinda Gates giving their billions to alleviate avoidable disease and hunger in Africa, but it’s on the right lines. As Nils Pratley points out, no one except managers and players really make money out of football.

Plenty of such altruism happens all the time. Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha (it’s like being a zillionaire but staying in Exeter), arguably the world’s greatest private investor, has settled modest sums on his children and giving the bulk to the Gates Foundation. He reckons Bill and Mel know better how to spend it.

Which brings me to Lord Ashcroft’s case. How? I’ll explain in a moment. But, even making generous allowances for pre-election politicking over his tax status, it is a pretty remarkable story.

As details tumble out, it becomes less clear what key players understood by the Tory deputy chairman’s “clear and unequivocal assurance that I have decided to take up permanent residence in the UK again” before getting that peerage in 2000.

So no, David Cameron, the media are not flogging a dead horse. This nag has several laps to run before – as may happen – it falls spectacularly at Becher’s Brook for reasons yet to be disclosed.

The Times, which has old scores to settle, goes after the peer again today. The Daily Telegraph – so outraged over MPs’ dodgy expenses claims, which are themselves a by-product of the loadsamoney culture – has been burying the story.

So does the Daily Mail, which prints an attack on Lib-Lab hypocrisy in taking money from non-doms. It’s written by Stephen Glover, co-founder or the Independent ex-editor of the Independent on Sunday and a pretty resourceful hatchet man on a good day. Today’s is a pretty feeble piece and ducks the main issue.

That issue is Ashcroft’s importance to the Tory project since 1997, quite unlike Lord Paul or other Labour-donor non-doms. It is not just the scale of his donations that matter, massaged down by selective quotation though they are by Tory HQ, but his access to policymaking – and policymakers – and his substantial control over marginal-seats policy.

It is a key factor in the coming general election, one which may decide the outcome in the Tory direction, despite the narrowing polls. Rival parties will be able to say – are saying – that Ashcroft is using what should have been taxpayers’ money to finance his campaign in the marginals.

Legal, I hasten to add, but not wholesome. It is possible, as some pundits claim, that few voters (”they’re all the same”) give a toss about it all. But as I wrote here on Monday the controversy may reinforce disquiet about the Cameroon metropolitan elite, which plays by rules that make even MPs’ duck-houses-on-expenses folly look quite modest.

But it gets worse. The more David Cameron tries to shrug it off, the more people wonder what hold Ashcroft has over him – or the party.

I put it that way because – with the clear exception of straight-arrow Sir George Young (who blurted out the truth on Newsnight) top Tories seem afraid of Ashcroft, their judgment warped.

Was this not the Cameron who ruthlessly purged dodgy expense claimants and the Monaco-residing Lord Laidlaw? Yes. So why is Michael Ashcroft still at his large desk in party HQ?

Good question, Mike, and there are plenty of Ukip-friendly Tories out there who don’t like Dave – see last week’s blog here – and may know some answers. These are the kind of people who understand money.

Hague’s judgment, already under fire over his Eurosceptic manoeuvres, looks ropier by virtue of his supine bag-carrying for Ashcroft. Perhaps that’s why he clings to Europe-bashing – as an insurance policy? Just a thought.

A final Buffett-linked thought on the character question is this. Ashcroft does not have two heads, and can be charm itself when it suits him.

Starting from modest beginnings he made a great fortune, most of it after he left London, where his business dealing puzzled many analysts – as they still do in Belize, his spiritual home, so he says.

Good for him, you might say; he can chip in to save Man U from the Glazers. I might agree if I knew more reassuring details about how he operates.

But one of Ashcroft’s hobbies is collecting Victoria Crosses. He has acquired 152, the world’s largest collection of Britain’s highest medal for gallantry in battle, awarded since 1854 to men who performed extraordinary acts of courage – as Johnson Beharry did in Basra.

He has even given £5m to help create a special gallery for VCs – including his own collection – at the Imperial War Museum in south London. I read somewhere that it might become the Ashcroft Gallery. But the VC is identified with courage, and courage is something money cannot buy. It would be inappropriate to say the least.

And Warren Buffett wouldn’t do it.

Who’s going to get your vote in our latest Player of the Month poll?

Today’s Mill was disappointed to discover they aren’t really selling Marmite fabric softener

If there is one thing the Mill hates, it’s broccoli. Unfortunately there isn’t one thing we hate, there are several, so instead of boring you with the full list we’ll stick to the one that’s got our goat this morning: incorrect use of acronyms. For once the Mill’s rage was not prompted by a colleague’s reference to their “PIN number” (Personal Identification Number Number?), but instead by that most common source of footballing grievances: the WAG.

“Steven Gerrard pledges to leave WAG at home,” tooted the Times’s headline this morning, sending the Mill’s gossip-o-meter into overdrive. His wife and girlfriend? Did Alex Curran know about this other lady? More pressingly, how did the Sun not?

It turns out, though, that he was in fact just referring to his wife, who will apparently not bother travelling to South Africa unless England reach at least the semi-finals. A sensible decision, or a tacit acknowledgement that the England captaincy has now been so devalued that even the wife of the armband-wearer isn’t impressed? The important point is that Stevie G’s news is no longer the day’s top tattle, and has instead been supplanted by Daily Mail’s claim that Manchester City are lining up a bid for Gonzalo Higuaín.

Yes, El Pipita is apparently right cheesed off with his latest contract offer from Real Madrid. Currently the team’s top scorer this season – with 16 goals – but among the worse-paid players on the team – picking up £800,000 a season – he is now considering his options elsewhere. This has put City on “high alert”, though most of the directors has long since stopped paying attention to the warning system after Garry Cook set off the alarms three times in a day to let people know he was about to do a cannonball in the team pool.

Over at Manchester United, meanwhile, Nani has taken his first step towards assuming control of the club’s transfer policy by suggesting that they sign Sporting Lisbon’s Miguel Veloso. Whether they have two groats to rub together this summer, much less to spend on midfielders they don’t really need, however, may depend on the Red Knights’ mooted takeover bid.

One player who won’t be back at United is David Beckham, who is definitely going back to Major League Soccer after the World Cup, according to the league’s commissioner, Don Garber. The USA midfielder Stuart Holden will be staying in Bolton on a new, permanent, deal, however. Or at least he will if Owen Coyle has anything to do with it.

Elsewhere, Everton have been sniffing around West Brom’s Graeme Dorrans, Wigan and Stoke want to show Dusko Tosic there’s more to life in the Premier League than failing to get properly registered at Portsmouth and Roberto Mancini wants to coach Italy some day.

Nani says former Sporting team-mate would be a great asset for United.

A first major trophy, and the Man of the Match, shows the strides Antonio has made.

I HAVE gone from interviewing Socrates in sunny Brazil to Altrincham’s manager Graham Heathcote at a murky Moss Lane.


Debt-free Alty punch well above their weight in football’s fifth tier. They are 11th in the Blue Square Premier, a fine achievement given they are one of just four part-time teams in a league which includes two previous League Cup winners - Oxford United and Luton Town.

SO the Red Knights may well one day ride into town and save United from the Glazers and all that nasty debt. But before they do, M.E.N. Sport makes this noble plea: Identify yourselves.


One of the biggest problems the Glazers have had is convincing the United faithful of their intentions particularly during these days of global recession.

THE Red Knights will mount up and arm themselves ready for battle if United fans prove they are behind the consortium’s plans to oust the Glazers.


Reds supporters will have to sign up with the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) to declare their allegiance if they want the group of welathy businessman to proceed with their plans.

Owen Gibson on Red Knights’ bid for Manchester United

Assistant boss Mike Phelan says the season’s in for a fascinating finish.

Already as many as 50 Manchester United fans have pledged to come up with £10m-£15m and more are coming forward

The substance of the men who attended Monday’s meeting of the Red Knights should reassure Manchester United supporters that the mountainous task of replacing the Glazers can possibly be scaled, although these are the early days of planning the ascent.

Jim O’Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, and Mark Rawlinson, head of corporate law at Freshfields, possess expertise and personal history, having respectively been on and advised the United board in 2005, when the directors tried and ultimately failed to fend off the Glazers’ debt-laden takeover.

While in January Paul Marshall, co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace, wrote, when the Glazers launched their prospectus to borrow £500m in bonds, that United’s finances are “worse than disastrous” and that the club should, like FC Barcelona, become owned by supporters.

If the trio’s involvement, and that collective viewpoint, seem remarkable, they encapsulate how far football supporters have come from the subspecies of popular stereotype in the grim 80s. It illustrates, too, that even financiers recognise that not everything in society is up for grabs and that some things, like football clubs, are treasures worth protecting, not there for the looting.

How they try to pull off the most expensive and far-reaching takeover in football history remains to be worked out. It was significant that in their statement yesterday the Red Knights said they are “supportive of current management”.

Indeed O’Neill is a friend of Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill, the chief executive, so you would imagine he has at least spoken to them in advance of effectively confirming that he is involved. Whatever Ferguson and Gill insist about their freedoms under the Glazers, both men would surely be happier working under an ownership structure not laden with debt, rooted in the fans of the club.

The Red Knights’ statement was explicit enough to say they are “looking into the feasibility of … a proposal to be put to the Glazer family regarding the ownership of Manchester United”.

However, it was notable that no solid detail was released about how this might be achieved. The onus was put on fans to support the idea and bring the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust (Must) up to 100,000 online members.

There are several reasons for this: the Red Knights feel that the vocal campaign against the Glazers, heralded by fans wearing the green and gold colours of the club’s Newton Heath predecessor, should now become more focused around an alternative future.

Fans will eventually be asked to contribute financially towards buying a stake and, probably at some strategic point, to withhold their custom. Hence Duncan Drasdo, Must’s chief executive, saying it is “essential for a majority of two key groups, the Old Trafford season ticket holders and those with executive facilities, to show their appetite for participation”.

While Must pushes on with that membership drive, the Red Knights will consider how they might buy out a family which maintains it will not sell football’s most bounteous cash cow.

The Red Knights are understood to have an affiliation of around 50 United supporters rich enough to contribute £10m-£15m each. The publicity yesterday prompted many more, apparently from all over the world, to get in touch.

There will be further, lower levels at which people will be invited to contribute, including a scheme to enable ordinary fans without vast wealth to build up a collective stake.

Their ideal solution is to make the Glazers an offer large enough to give them a profit palatable to both sides on the £272m the family paid to buy the club in 2005. The other £559m out of the total £831m price, including professionals’ fees, was all borrowed then loaded on to the club to pay off. The Glazers may want £500m profit; the Red Knights might consider £100m more than adequate.

The bid would also need to buy out the payment in kind loans (piks) owed to hedge funds, which accrue that credit-card 14.25% interest rate. With rolled-up interest, the total owed is now £200m.

The bidders may not feel as compelled to pay off the £500m bond. Although it is still debt imposed by the Glazers to fund their own takeover, that hideous practice which has United supporters in outrage, O’Neill and his men may feel they can live with some debt left in the club.

If the Glazers will not sell, other options will be considered. One is to buy the piks on the open market, which could put the Red Knights in a position of strength, particularly if United were to default on any payments.

Crucial to the credibility of any bid is that the Red Knights put their own money forward, are not looking for a fat return, and mean what they say: that they are fans who merely want to see their club liberated from a dismal financial draining.

If a credible bid can be constructed, and the fans rally round to support it, perhaps enlightenment really can dawn at Old Trafford, where in recent years so many people have paid so much money ultimately to make a profit for six members of just one family in Florida.

The Manchester United star on life outside football, the World Cup Wags – and finding out he was England’s new captain from the TV news

I’ve only just arrived in Alderley Edge, the village in Cheshire where Premier League footballers live in pavilioned splendour, when some bloke in an Audi sports car charging out of the car park at 70mph almost mows me down. Welcome to Wag Central, where the Range Rovers all have tinted windows and only the toughest and brashest survive.

The Wags are out in force in the Village Café (next to a boutique called POSH): improbably thin, with luxuriant hair, cradling coffees and small children. I’m here to meet Rio Ferdinand, but the injury-plagued England captain has gone to see his osteopath and put our meeting back two hours, so I wait, drinking sauvignon in the Bubble Room bistro.

It’s a tense time to be doing this interview. The papers are full of worries that Ferdinand’s chronic back injury will mean he has to restrict his appearances for both Manchester United and England, prompting concerns about his involvement in the World Cup in South Africa in the summer. Even more pressingly, the England left-back Wayne Bridge has announced this morning that he no longer wishes to play for his country, because it would mean playing alongside John Terry, his former friend and team-mate who broke football’s code of honour by having an affair with Bridge’s former partner, Vanessa Perroncel. I wonder whether Ferdinand will show up.

The meeting has been brokered by the designer Ian O’Connor, who is launching a range of footwear and bags called Five by Rio Ferdinand: “A fashion/lifestyle brand for people that aspire to be like Rio.” As footballers go, Ferdinand is a Renaissance figure. He has his own digital magazine, also called Five (his shirt number at Manchester United); he owns a record company; last year he co-produced a film called Dead Man Running; and he will now have what O’Connor calls a “hands-on role” in developing the new brand. Move over David Beckham.

Ferdinand is a further hour or so late, but then there’s a blur of activity as he pulls up outside in a sleek Audi – happily, not the one that almost hit me earlier. Ferdinand has presence – I am struck by his bulging biceps – but he doesn’t swagger. He is wary, especially when he hears O’Connor has brought a camera crew along, but seems as grounded as those who know him claim. He plonks his orthopaedic cushion on the seat next to me and we can begin, the rules of the game dictating that I show a passionate interest in his new brand before raising thornier subjects.

I ask what it’s like to become a brand. “I’ll let you know in a couple of months when the sales come through,” he says. “It’s exciting to walk into a shop and see a shoe with your name and your stamp on it. My dad was a tailor; he used to have blazers that he’d made, and as a kid I’d be thinking to myself, ‘If only he’d had his name initialled on the inside.’”

‘Hello! doesn’t interest me’

Ferdinand is 31, an age when footballers start to have intimations of mortality, so getting involved in the fashion business may be a way of preparing for life after sport. “I’d love to be able to continue this if it goes well,” he says, “but I don’t sit there and think this is going to lead me into the next stage of my life. If it continues after my football, then great. If it doesn’t, then it’s an experience. But in terms of football, I’m not really thinking beyond the next two weeks.” He will not say whether fashion is likely to be the core of his life beyond the game. “I don’t know; I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole myself into just one box. I’m a person that is a free spirit, and I don’t like to be put into a box and kept to one thing.”

Ferdinand speaks quickly and fluently, with a soft south London accent – he was born and raised on a tough estate in Peckham – and seems genuinely engaged. “I could have done fashion years ago,” he says. “I’ve had lots of offers to do different things, but I never wanted to do it because I don’t think I really knew what I liked. Now I’ve got a better idea of what I like personally.” His deal with O’Connor gives him input into the design and an equity stake in the business; he isn’t just a frontman.

“I get offered a lot of things, often a lot more financially rewarding than this, but I don’t take up 90% of them. I only do things that interest me. Hello! and OK! magazine don’t interest me.” He made a point of not inviting either magazine to his glitzy, and hugely expensive, wedding in the British Virgin Islands last year, when he married the distinctly non-waggish Rebecca Ellison (she was an accountant when they met). “I don’t do stuff like that,” he says. “It’s not my game.”

Product placement negotiated, I ask about his bad back. “I’ve had a little setback this week, but it’s not too serious and fingers crossed I should be OK.” He insists the media obits of his career are premature, and that he’ll be fit for the whole World Cup. “With injuries, one day it feels bad; the next day the football’s great.” England fans will hope he’s right: the cultured centre-half is a key figure in manager Fabio Capello’s plans and, as the new captain in place of the tabloid- tormented Terry, his authority will be crucial. (Ferdinand knows what it’s like to be caught in a tabloid storm, after a missed drugs test in 2003 saw him banned from playing for club and country for eight months.)

He is curiously reluctant to talk about being England captain. “I haven’t spoken to the manager yet,” he says, matter-of-factly. “The team hasn’t been briefed on anything. We haven’t spoken to the manager; he hasn’t spoken to the players; he does it a certain way.” I express surprise: surely when Ferdinand was made captain in early February, Capello told him personally? “No, we have to wait until we go with the squad. I found out I was captain from the TV.” He has since had it confirmed by the FA, but not by Capello himself. He seems to want to hear it from the boss before it has any reality, and the situation is complicated by the fact that his injury means he won’t be playing in tonight’s friendly against Egypt. Steven Gerrard will captain the team in his place.

What’s the Italian like as a manager? “Brilliant,” says Ferdinand. “He’s similar to the gaffer we’ve got at United. The best thing about him is he’s black and white. You know exactly what he wants from you before you go out on the pitch, and that’s what we’ve lacked in the last few campaigns. He says, ‘This is what I want, this is what I expect, this is what I demand’ – and if you can’t do it, regardless of who you are, you won’t play.”

You’ve lost one of your key defenders today, I say, alluding to Bridge. “Have we?” says Ferdinand. “Yes, Wayne Bridge,” I say, “he’s not going to play in the World Cup.” “Why’s that?” “Because of the situation,” I say tactfully. The news broke six hours ago, and it seems scarcely credible that Ferdinand doesn’t know, but his look of surprise and the way he is blowing out his cheeks suggests that is, indeed, the case. Perhaps Alderley Edge is cut off from the outside world. If he does know and is putting on an act, he should be appearing in movies, not producing them. “I don’t want to comment on anything like that,” he says, when he has recovered his balance. “I want to speak to him myself before I’ll believe it. He hasn’t said anything to me.”

Ferdinand is no fan of the Wag scene – likened by Capello this week to a “virus” – and was critical of their omnipresence in Germany in 2006. “The whole circus that followed the England squad last time at the World Cup was a joke,” he tells me, “and I wouldn’t like to see that again. It’s a distraction and is detrimental to our chances. I’d rather go to the World Cup, say to yourself ‘Block off four weeks or whatever it is to win the World Cup’, and not see your family. I love my kids [he has two young sons] and my missus as much as anybody else, but if it meant me winning the World Cup and not seeing them for four weeks, I’d take that.” The Wags will be going to South Africa, but he reckons their profile will be lower – there will be less mass shopping, and Capello won’t let them near the players as much as in Germany.

‘Two different kinds of captain’

Can England win the World Cup, or will they buckle under the weight of expectation? “I don’t really like to talk up our chances – we’ve done it so many times over the last few tournaments,” says Ferdinand. “When Steve McClaren and Sven-Göran Eriksson came in, we said, ‘This is a new era, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that’ – and it does nothing. We get caught up in the hype and euphoria of England, the country expects and whatnot. We’re going [to South Africa] to perform, we did well in the qualifying campaign, and if we can take that form into the World Cup we’ve got a good chance. But to say that we’re going to do this or that is, one, disrespectful to our opponents and, two, puts pressure on ourselves.”

But how will the supposed “golden generation” – Beckham, Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Ferdinand himself, all now in the latter stages of their gilded careers – feel if they miss out again? “You don’t play just to get a cap or to be there. You play to win and to achieve something, and if I was to finish my career with England and not even to have got to a final, I’d be very disappointed.”

For Ferdinand there will be the added pressure of leading the team for the first time in a major championship. It seems that only British teams, with their innate faith in command figures, take the issue of captaincy so seriously. “There are different types of leaders,” he says. “There’s the guy that shouts and screams, and the guy that leads by example. Tony Adams was a shouter; Bobby Moore led by example. They were two different types of captain, but both were successful.”

So which will Ferdinand be? “I do a bit of both. I lead by example, but when somebody needs to be told I never shirk that responsibility. I’m normally one of the loudest in the changing room – not only talking about football but in general terms, and I won’t be changing. That’s the way I am; I’ve been like that since I was a kid.”

What about when Alex Ferguson is giving one of his famously direct team talks – does Ferdinand shut up then? “The manager’s the manager and his word is gospel, but over the years he respects anybody who questions what he does to a certain extent. A manager who doesn’t allow his players to have an opinion won’t be successful – you need strong characters in the dressing room and United have had that over the years, from Roy Keane to Giggsy [Ryan Giggs] and myself. It’s the quality of our manager that he allows you to have an opinion and a say in what happens – but he makes the final decision.”

In South Africa much will hinge on the form of another strident United character, Wayne Rooney. “On current form he’s the best player in the world; there’s no one as good as him at scoring goals.” Might he be crushed by the burden of being England’s talisman? “Wayne plays with that for Man United week in, week out,” says Ferdinand. “He’s been accustomed to that since he was 16 years old, so the expectation is not a problem.”

Ferdinand likes to stress how ordinary his life is – as ordinary, anyway, as it can be when you earn £125,000 a week and are feted wherever you go. “I think I’ve been on three red carpets in my whole life, contrary to what everybody believes.” He rubs shoulders with Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke and rapper 50 Cent, who appeared in Dead Man Running, but says they are associates rather than close friends. “I only really meet people like that through business. James Corden [star of Gavin & Stacey] is probably the only one I’d really socialise with. All the other guys I’ve met through doing interviews with my magazine or other business ventures.”

How do you stay grounded in this soap-opera world? “By staying close to your friends and having a good family around you,” he says. “If you surrender those relationships you grew up with and become cocooned in a world where you just go to football, come home, go shopping, go to restaurants, go to clubs, you can easily fall into that trap. But if you get the right people around you, they can shield you from that.” Anyway, he says, it’s the lesser players who spend all their time in nightclubs – most of the top ones are too knackered.

Ferdinand says he enjoys the adulation of fans – “if someone’s not asking me for an autograph then I’ve got to worry because I must be [playing] shit” – but recalls one unlikely-sounding holiday when it became too much. “We went to Prestatyn a little while ago [for a caravan holiday], but it wasn’t a good experience because there were too many people there. I look forward to doing things like that when I’ve finished football and there’s another centre-half playing for Man United, and he’s the person in the spotlight.”

Ferdinand attributes his level-headedness to his parents. His father, Julian, is from St Lucia; his mother, Janice, is Anglo-Irish. They separated when he was 14, but his father lived closed by and took him to football training. Ferdinand’s younger brother, Anton, is also a Premier League player (for Sunderland) and played for the England under-21 team. The estate on which they grew up had a tough reputation, but Ferdinand enjoyed living there. “I wouldn’t change it if I had to do it again; I wouldn’t change it at all,” he says, lamenting the fact that the old community spirit is dying. “The estates now are like ghost towns,” he says.

He attended the same school as Stephen Lawrence, the Blackheath Bluecoat school in Greenwich. “I was about four years younger than him, but I used to mess around with him and his mates, and I knew who he was when it all happened. I remember that day vividly – the headteacher calling school off and saying why. The first reaction from everyone was what was [Stephen] doing there at that time of night? It was renowned as a racist area. I wouldn’t have walked around there at that time.”

Did Ferdinand experience racism? “Yeah, but that’s part and parcel of growing up as a kid. Where we were it was a really mixed culture on the estate, but if you travelled to different areas of south London, there was racism. Certain areas of Bermondsey late at night you wouldn’t go, but as a kid I didn’t think anything of that. It just seemed normal.”

If he hadn’t been a footballer, Ferdinand thinks he would have been a youth worker, and he has channelled that interest into a foundation called Live the Dream, aimed at mentoring children in deprived areas. “That’s definitely something I’ll be involved in when I’ve finished playing football; I’m hoping to get Comic Relief and Sport Relief on board to help me run it and give it a more polished finish.” But he only wants to help those who’ll help themselves. “There are too many excuses nowadays. I know it’s hard to get work in the climate of today, and people say ‘It’s easy for you to say that’, but hard work is always the key to anything. No one gets anywhere without having to work hard and sacrifice something.”

That’s the lesson he draws from his own singlemindedness as an adolescent. “I always wanted to be a professional footballer, and there was nothing really going to get in my way. I used to leave my mates on the estate – they were messing around and stuff – and take trains and buses to get to West Ham [the club for which he signed at the age of 15]. That was my life when I was growing up.”

He had a wild period in his late teens, when he admits he was overfond of fast cars and hot nightclubs, but his parents warned him he would end up squandering his talents. “That’s why I left London to go to Leeds [in 2000],” he says. “That summer I didn’t get in the England side at the European Championships, and that hit home. I could have stayed in London – Chelsea had matched the bid from Leeds – but I wanted to leave for the benefit of my career.” Two years later he moved to Manchester United, the club with which he is indelibly associated and where, despite rumours linking him with Tottenham, he hopes to finish his career. “They’ll have to kick me out for me to leave,” he says.

And when his playing career finally does end, will he stay in football – or opt for film, fashion and the foundation? “I don’t know. Some days I wake up and think I want to be a manager; other days I think, do I really still want to be involved in the intensity of the game and the spotlight?” I remind him that great players rarely make great managers. “That’s been the case so far, but it’s all for change isn’t it?”

Ferdinand is getting restless, but is too polite to suggest we wind up, so the PR woman says it for him. He has been getting calls from his wife and doing some surreptitious texting, and I suggest that the three people he has to respond to are his missus, Sir Alex and Capello. “They ain’t got my number, the other two,” he says with his lop-sided grin.

• For the nearest stockist of Five by Rio Ferdinand call 0844 811 0535.

The Manchester United forward’s latest addition to his armoury is another step on the path to greatness

The Germans have a knack for bestowing their football players with pithy nicknames: Kaiser for Franz Beckenbauer, Bomber for Gerd Müller and Afro-Paule for the magnificently hirsute Paul Breitner. But my favourite has always been Kopfballungeheuer, the Header Beast, for Horst Hrubesch, the striker with an amazing gift for scoring headed goals with bullet-like power and precision.

Trawling the internet after the Carling Cup final I was intrigued to note that a website had marked the development of one of our own and decided to elevate him on to the tubby Hamburg forward’s pedestal. There’s only one Kaiser but the match report’s headline, Kopfballungeheuer Rooney, suggests that Manchester United’s No10 has stolen Hrubesch’s moniker and mantle.

Over the past few months Wayne Rooney has become remarkably adept at scoring with headers. He has showcased a full range of deft, cushioned deflections, ones drilled powerfully off his forehead, loopers off the side of his head and snide, little glancers. Against West Ham United he even managed one from the most sublime category, the diving header, and though it does not rank as high as Allan Clarke’s for Leeds United in the 1972 FA Cup final win over Arsenal, Keith Houchen’s for Coventry City against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley in 1987 or the majestic, graceful swoop of Michel Platini’s goal for France against Yugoslavia in the 1984 European Championship, it did illustrate how much progress Rooney is making in refining his repertoire.

In the defeat of Milan at San Siro he even showed that he is perfecting the scientifically dubious art of hanging in the air. Everton’s Tim Cahill is the current master of that and it allows him to spring up a split-second earlier than his marker anticipates and gives him an advantage over defenders whose height would normally allow them to snuff out the Australian’s aerial threat. Gary Speed also used to be very good in the air, brilliantly timing his run and jump, bravely craning his neck to nip in front of a centre-half’s challenge and taking a smack in the back of the head as an acceptable price to pay.

Courage on the field comes in many forms – risking taking a kick in the tackle, being hungry for the ball however tight the situation and having the technique and temperament to deal with it without panic – but it would be difficult to dispute that those players who were willing to launch headfirst into challenges were the most intrepid of all. Some, of course, had to, having realised they were far more comfortable heading it than kicking it. Andy Gray or Lee Chapman, for example, must have regularly had grass burns on their noses so low did they stoop to head crosses in preference to throwing out a foot at the ball.

Duncan Ferguson was a fearless attacking header of the ball and so was Jack Charlton. Earlier in his career Charlton sometimes played as an emergency centre-forward but the majority of his hundred-plus goals for Leeds and England were scored with his head from set-pieces while playing at centre-half. No wonder the opposition referred to him as the “effing giraffe”. Even if at the age of 74 he was pushed on to the pitch at corners like a siege engine I would not put it past him to remain pretty effective.

Give him an opportunity with his head and he would usually bury it but he was less confident with the ball at his feet. During the 1966 World Cup final, with the score at 1-1, he was disturbed to find it approaching him in West Germany’s penalty area on the rebound from Wolfgang Weber’s block. At first, in Brian Glanville’s evocative phrase, “it rose tantalisingly in the air as though on a jet of water in a shooting gallery”. But when it dipped and Charlton realised he was going to have to kick it he felt frozen. To his immense relief Martin Peters took the initiative and, with a crisp half-volley, put England ahead.

Heading is a skill that does not enjoy the same cachet as passing and shooting, especially among those puritans and pedants who say things such as “it’s called football for a reason”. Indeed, there’s that old north-west English insult for someone who is a bit daft – “head-the-ball”.

Rooney has shown, however, with his dedication to practice and numerous games of head tennis and headers and volleys that honing his craft and broadening his armoury brings huge rewards. Given his unrelenting quest for improvement one can only speculate what he will turn to next – cultivating scoring with his thighs and knees or, like Ian Rush towards the end of his career, polishing his ability to bundle the ball over the line with his arse. Now, that would really make him the complete player.

Plus: Clubs named after people (3); Barcelona’s imperious streak; and Maggie Thatcher’s boys taking a hell of a beating in a Knowledge anniversary special. Send your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk

“Wayne Bridge’s decision to withdraw from England’s World Cup squad set me thinking about other players who were team-mates despite being sworn enemies,” writes Lex Sim. “One well-known example is the Tommy Smith-Emlyn Hughes feud of the 1970s, although the circumstances were different, and Smith and Hughes played together for years in a very successful side. Are there others?”

Infighting? Team-mates at war? Sworn enemies in the same side? Holland seems to be the obvious place to start. Trouble in the Dutch camp goes way back, with tension between Ajax players and non-Ajax players alleged even at the 1974 World Cup.

Perhaps the starkest example of Holland team-mates failing to get along came at Euro 96. The problems at the tournament had been a long time brewing and the catalyst was the situation at Ajax where young black players – Edgar Davids, Michael Reiziger and Patrick Kluivert among them – were being paid around 20% that of Ronald de Boer, Danny Blind and co. Clarence Seedorf, firm friends with Davids and Kluivert, had jumped ship to Sampdoria two years earlier after De Boer was handed the right-midfield role at Ajax when it had allegedly been promised to Seedorf. The latter blamed Blind, De Boer and the coach, Louis van Gaal.

With that background it was little surprise that trouble flared at the tournament. Blind, the captain, was suspended from the opening game against Scotland but publicly criticised Seedorf and Davids after the disappointing draw. Seedorf hit back at the “lack of respect”. Then Davids was dropped for the game against Switzerland. He reacted by telling Dutch newspapers that the coach, Guus Hiddink, “should not put his head in the ass of some players” – a reference to Davids’s Ajax team-mates De Boer and Blind – and was summarily kicked out of the squad. But despite the exit of his friend and the ongoing animosity in the squad, Seedorf still managed an hour on the same pitch as Blind and De Boer in the quarter-final defeat to France.

Though the tension between Lothar Matthäus and Stefan Effenberg never manifested itself on the pitch either with Bayern Munich or the national side, the German midfielders never really saw eye-to-eye. Effenberg reserved special opprobrium for Matthäus in his 2003 autobiography, I Showed Them All, calling the former Germany captain “a big mouth” and a “quitter”, and including a chapter entitled “What Lothar Matthäus knows about football” which consisted simply of a blank page (Perhaps an hommage to The Clown Prince of Soccer, the 1955 autobiography of the Sunderland and England striker Len Shackleton which contained a chapter headed “The Average Director’s Knowledge of Football” followed by a similarly blank page).

The West Brom cult hero Bob Taylor was thought to be inadvertently behind the breakdown of Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham’s relationship at Manchester United. The on-loan striker opened the scoring for Bolton Wanderers at Old Trafford back in February 1998, a goal that led to a dressing-room squabble between Cole and Sheringham as to who was responsible.

However Cole has since revealed that the ill-feeling, on his part at least, stretched back to his England debut. “I walked on to the pitch, 60,000 or so watching,” he said. “Sheringham is coming off. I expect a brief handshake, a ‘Good luck, Coley’, something. I am ready to shake. He snubs me. He actively snubs me, for no reason I was ever aware of then or since. He walks off.

“I was embarrassed. I was confused. And there you have it. From that moment on, I knew Sheringham was not for me.”

Any more for any more? Send them to the usual address.

CLUBS NAMED AFTER PEOPLE (3)

We’ve looked at this topic for the past two weeks, but the emails keep coming …

Kastrioti Kruja “Named after Gjergj Kastrioti, Albania’s national hero, who led the Albanian resistance against the Turkish invasion from the castle of Kruja,” writes Dritan Ikonomi. “Skenderbeu of Korce are also named after him, but with the name that Turks gave to Gjergj Kastrioti when he was a soldier in Turkey.”

Colón An Argentinian club not named in honour of part of the digestive system but for Christopher Columbus, or, as he’s known in Spanish, Cristóbal Colón.

José Gálvez “There is surely only one team in the world that has changed its name from that of one real person to that of another,” writes Richard Ailes. “José Gálvez of Peru began life as Manuel Rivera, in honour of the most successful footballer their town of Chimbote had yet produced. Manuel Rivera even signed Manuel Rivera for his final season, in 1960. But in 1963, the Peruvian Football Federation decreed that no team could carry the name of a living person and thus the same year, Manuel Rivera became José Gálvez.

“Arguably, however, the story doesn’t end there. As in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, Peruvians carry both a paternal and a maternal surname, and though it is common to drop the latter, it can also create ambiguity. Thus, ‘José Gálvez’ could refer to any one of three eminent (and related) Peruvian personages: poet and politician José Gálvez Barrenech, who had died just six years before; José Gálvez Egúsquiza, a politician and hero of the Battle of the Second of May against Spain; or José Gálvez Moreno, a hero of the war against Chile in 1879. My research has failed to provide a definitive answer to the question of which of the above was intended to be honoured, and thus I would like to think that the ambiguity is deliberate, and that, over the course of its 59 year history, José Gálvez FBC has actually been named after four different real people.”

Tottenham Hotspur It is believed Spurs derive their name from Sir Henry Percy aka Harry Hotspur.

Spartak Moscow “Spartak Moscow and all the other clubs with the prefix in eastern Europe are named after everyone’s favorite slave-turned-military genius, Spartacus,” writes Tom Wonder.

BARCELONA’S IMPERIOUS STREAK

“Barcelona had not fallen behind in a game this season prior to their defeat against Atlético Madrid,” wrote Michael Powell a fortnight ago. “Is this a record? Unbeaten runs are one thing, but 21 games without ever having been a goal down must be pretty unique?”

We doff our collective cap to Daniel Storey, who has plundered the statistical archives to come up with two examples exceeding Barcelona’s feat:

In 2007-08, CSKA Sofia went 27 league games without falling behind, after doing so on the first game of the season. It wasn’t until Enyo Krastovchev scored for Levski Sofia in the 29th league fixture that they were behind.

And beating that, overlapping the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, Al-Ahly in Egypt went 32 league games without falling behind, before Ahmed Mohammadi scored for Ghazl Al Mehalla.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

This month the Knowledge celebrates its 10th birthday and in honour of that fact we’ll be delving into the column’s very earliest days for our archive slot this month. Here’s a question from the very first Knowledge, as penned by Scott Murray and Sean Ingle back in March 2000.

“I am having great difficulty in discovering the exact details of the speech that the Norwegian football commentator made after Norway’s unexpected victory against England in September 1981. I know that the speech includes the regurgitation of several important historical figures and ends with ‘your boys took one hell of a beating.’ What did he say?” enquires Mark Ford.

“Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Atlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana!!! [At this point the commentator rambles on in Norwegian for a couple of seconds] Maggie Thatcher. Can you hear me Maggie Thatcher? Your boys took a hell of a beating. Your boys took a hell of a beating.” All of which can be heard here.

For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive

Can you help?

“Have any football matches been captured on Google Earth?” noses Roderick Stewart. “Who won?”

“Which was the first pub to install a TV for watching sport?” asks Roland Tye. “When was it and what was the first event they showed?”

“With all the talk of Portsmouth being the first Premier League club to go into administration, and perhaps even worse down the line – winding up completely – I was wondering which club was the most successful ever which now doesn’t exist?” writes Noel Markham. “And what happened to their fans?”

“Having recently looked at the Eredivisie I noticed Ajax look set for another season without winning the league,” writes Mike Tomkins. “However, despite trailing the top two by more than five points, their goal difference is vastly superior to both of the sides above them. What is the greatest goal difference achieved by someone who did not go on to win the league?”

Send your questions and answers to the lovely people at knowledge@guardian.co.uk

• Manager a friend of key player in takeover
• Ferguson stays loyal to Glazers in public

One of the more intriguing issues of a potentially long and drawn-out takeover campaign is what Sir Alex Ferguson makes of one of his close allies emerging as the main player behind the plans to raise enough bags of gold to persuade the Glazer family to sever their ties with Manchester United.

Ferguson, as is so often the case, is understood to have had advance notice of Monday’s meeting of the Red Knights in London, which could easily be attributed to the fact that he and Jim O’Neill are old friends and colleagues and still regularly talk.

O’Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, got to know Ferguson through the manager’s son, Mark, and became a non-executive director at Old Trafford in November 2004 only to be removed from the board in one of the Glazers’ first acts after they took control six months later.

He has a grievance against the Americans and Ferguson is acutely aware of how the Manchester-born businessman, described after his appointment at Old Trafford as “a plain-speaking, self-made man”, feels about the club’s financial position under the current owners.

The sense of those at Monday’s talks was that it was barely conceivable that O’Neill had not informed the United manager of his intentions. Ferguson has angered many supporters by repeatedly siding with the Glazers, but what can be said for certain is that he has said nothing to put off O’Neill from exploring the possibilities of whether he and a variety of other wealthy supporters have the money in place for an aggressively styled takeover.

On the contrary, the fact that O’Neill is in the background is encouraging many of the people prominently involved to believe that Ferguson, the most influential person at Old Trafford, might actually be more receptive to their concerns than he has let on publicly.

Ferguson likes to be thought of as the former shop steward who would never be the boss’s man, but he can also be as adept as any politician when it comes to having a foot in two different camps.

The manager has fastidiously declined to say anything detrimental about the Glazers since they took control and, indeed, has spoken in their favour on several occasions, insisting that United are in capable hands and that the financial issues at Old Trafford have never affected him in the transfer market, contrary to popular opinion.

As an employee of the Glazers, it could be considered dangerous for him to denounce the men who pay his wages, just as it would be in any profession. Yet, privately, there is a feeling among some of the Red Knights that the manager is just trying to play a smart game in an invidious position.

Ferguson has stated recently that he “understands” the supporters’ concerns and he has written along the same lines to the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, in response to receiving an email from the organisation outlining its position.

A group of City moguls known as the Red Knights are considering a bid for Manchester United but, given the recent travails of Britain’s bankers, should fans be welcoming the news?

The key questions that have led supporters to crave a change at the top

Why did the Glazers have to refinance?

The Manchester United owners successfully replaced their £509m bank debt with a £512m bond in order to allow them to funnel money back to their Red Football Joint Venture parent company. In turn, that enables them to pay off the high-interest payment in kind loans that take the total debt secured on the club and the Glazers’ shareholding in it to £716m according to the most recent accounts. In the first year of the bond, the prospectus makes provision for releasing £95m immediately and up to £130m in total from the club’s cashflow.

How many of them are on the board?

Malcolm Glazer, the US tycoon who controversially seized control of United with a leveraged buyout in 2005, is now in his 80s and is reported to have suffered a stroke. His sons Joel and Avram Glazer are chairman and vice-chairman respectively of Manchester United Limited, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the club. They also sit on the board of Red Football Limited, its immediate parent company, along with his other children Bryan, Darcie, Edward and Kevin. Only Edward and Kevin are listed as having any outside business interests other than Manchester United or Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Both work for the family’s First Allied Corporation property group.

Are they running out of money?

The Glazers’ spokesman has refused to respond to speculation about their personal wealth. But many fans and financial analysts have surmised that the fact they took £22.9m in management fees and loans out of the club meant they needed ready access to liquid funds. The fact that Tampa Bay Bucaneers spent $30m (£20m) less than the maximum allowed on players’ salaries – money that can then be taken out of the club – added to the speculation, as did the economic crash that will have affected the family’s First Allied Corporation property empire. But beyond that speculation, the true picture remains unknown.

What is their plan?

Many senior figures in football thought their original plan was to buy the club, turbo-charge its revenues by raising ticket prices and overhauling its commercial operation before selling it on to a willing buyer. But the economic slump intervened and their immediate priority now appears to continue to grow revenues to the extent that they are able to continue to reinvest in the team while also taking cash out of the business and releasing enough to pay down their PIK loans.

Why would they sell?

Although they have largely dealt with pressure from fans by ignoring it, if the widespread loud protests continue and harden into boycotts and refusals to renew season tickets, it would surely begin to tell. Likewise, if the Red Knights came up with a figure that was impossible to ignore, they would consider it carefully.

Why might they stay put?

They continue to insist “Manchester United is not for sale”. Club insiders are satisfied it is only by continuing to invest in success on the pitch that the Glazers can achieve their goals. They claim the important measure is not overall debt or the repayments required but the free cashflow generated. Having succeeded in getting the bond issue away, the club will remain a money-making machine for the foreseeable future. In many ways, the refinancing has given them additional breathing space even if it has intensified protests from fans. They also believe there is further upside in continuing to overhaul the club’s commercial operations and selling sponsorship packages globally, while also considering the potential bonanza of selling their own TV rights or the possibility of a European league.

What happens next?

The phoney PR war will continue for some time, as the Red Knights finalise their proposals and work on several different financial models. Meanwhile, the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust will attempt to galvanise support from fans and the Glazers will continue to insist it is “business as usual”. The period at the end of the season, between the Champions League final and the start of the World Cup, could be the window in which a bid is launched.

Can Wayne inspire another Wembley victory, this time for his national team?

Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sachs economist emerges as champion to lead fight against Man United’s foreign owners

It may seem strange that the chief economist of Goldman Sachs is behind an audacious plot to wrest control of Manchester United from the American Glazer family.

But Jim O’Neill is a lifelong United supporter whose London office is decorated with splashes of cherry red memorabilia from Manchester United Football Club, where he was a non executive director until the Glazers’ £800m takeover in 2005.

Now he is spearheading an attempt by leading City luminaries, all fervent United supporters dubbed the Red Knights, to buy the club from the Glazers and hand supporters a golden share to give them a decisive say in its future.

The Glazers have said the club is not for sale, but O’Neill and his associates, including former Football League chairman Keith Harris, reckon that if they were able to offer the American family about £1bn, they might change their minds. Nearly £700m is needed to clear United’s debts, which were racked up when the Glazers made their bid.

Bill Shankly, the Legendary Liverpool manager, once declared his disappointment with those who suggested football was a matter of life and death: “I can assure you it is much more important than that”. O’Neill seems to share that sentiment. He recently surprised City colleagues by declaring his opposition to the club’s latest bond issue – despite the investment bank making millions in fees from the fundraising.

“There’s too much leverage going on with Manchester United,” said O’Neill, who appeared to have been caught off-guard when quizzed on the bond issue by Zijing Wu, a Bloomberg reporter, at the end of an eight minute interview on China’s currency policy.

“I value my long-term support for Manchester United better than anything else,” said O’Neill, perhaps momentarily forgetting that Goldman shared an estimated £15m in fees and expenses with other City advisers for work on the refinancing. The bank said O’Neill had been speaking in a personal capacity.

Little did the world know at the time that O’Neill was working informally with a group of City financiers who are looking at ways to buy United from the Glazers.

On Monday, they met at the offices of Freshfields, the law firm, to discuss the fledgling idea, which seeks to harness the disaffection of fans who want to see an end to the Glazer regime.

Among those present was Mark Rawlinson, the Freshfields partner and another Mancunian, who acted for the club when it was a public company and advised it in 2005 on its efforts to prevent the Glazers’ hostile takeover; Keith Harris, the football financier and chairman of Seymour Pierce investment bank who brought in Roman Abramovich to run Chelsea; and Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace, the hedge fund.

In recent weeks a groundswell of opinion has built up against the Glazers, who are rarely seen in public but did attend the English League Cup final at Wembley on Sunday as Manchester United beat Aston Villa 2-1.

They would have seen a large body of fans donning the original green and gold shirts of United’s founding club Newton Heath, one of the trademarks of the Manchester United Supporters Trust campaign.

Oliver Houston, a spokesman for the trust, said the Red Knights had their unequivocal backing and that his group had been involved in a series of meetings with them.

“These guys are Manchester United supporters to the core and they are talking about putting in their own money in any possible bid,” he said.

Houston admitted that the Red Knights are at the “early stages” but had appointed a team of lawyers and advisers to bolster their activities.

But persuading the Glazers to sell at a reasonable price is going to be far from easy. An analyst who is familiar with the way the Glazers operate said: “The way to do business with them is to do a quiet deal, away from the public spotlight because they are masters at squeezing water out of stone. Publicity only pushes the price up.”

Observers say there are several ways a transaction could be structured. One would be to bring in a rich individual as part of the bidding consortium who could wipe out debts of £715m, pay the Glazers about £500m and commit resources to further develop the club. A condition of such a deal could be to sell shares to the fans with sufficient voting rights to allow them to block any future sale and have a say in the running of the club. O’Neill, Marshall and Harris could take minority stakes.

An alternative would be to take control of the club and list it on the stock market, offering new shares to United fans who could one day own the club collectively in the way Barcelona is controlled by supporters.

The son of a postman, O’Neill grew up in south Manchester where he studied at the local comprehensive and developed a passion for football, turning down a place at a private school because they didn’t take the game seriously.

Today, O’Neill of Goldman Sachs is far from being an ordinary economist: he is regarded as one of the world’s leading commentators on global economics having devised the acronym BRIC in 2001 to underline the shift of economic power from the west to Brazil, Russia, India and China – a trend that defines modern, international economics.

As the head of economic research at the world’s most powerful investment bank, the financial media hangs on his every word, from the rise of China to the collapse of the US housing market.

Hank Potts at Barclays bank, an expert on football takeovers says: “Jim is an incredible operator with an enviable contacts book so I am sure that he is well positioned to bring in wealthy international investors who could support a bid for United.”

Gavyn Davies, his predecessor, who went on to chair the BBC, described him as “certainly the top foreign exchange economist anywhere in the world in the last decade.” Business Week, the US magazine, described O’Neill as “Goldman’s rock star.” O’Neill, who still speaks with a Mancunian accent, has a dry, self deprecating sense of humour and often irreverent manner. His father, who was from Moss Side, left school at 14 and was determined to give his son a good education. He was offered a place at a fee-paying school, but turned it down because football wasn’t a priority and went to Burnage comprehensive. From there he went to Sheffield University to study economics and geography, got drunk and played lots of football.

While there is widespread scepticism that a deal involving Manchester United is possible, financial analysts are impressed by O’Neill’s involvement. City folk view him as the golden child whose theories haven’t collapsed under the weight of the credit crunch.

Although everywhere has been hit by the world financial crisis, Asian and South American economies have emerged from the wreckage with their banking systems intact and with their economies growing at breakneck speed. That reinforces O’Neill’s view that developing countries can continue to prosper while the West struggles to emerge from recession.

But betting against the Glazers takes a certain leap of faith. Only time will tell whether O’Neill has got this one right.

Blog battle

An unknown 37-year-old Mayfair fund manager has, in less than three months, become a pivotal figure in the battle against the Glazers at Old Trafford. Andy Green – Andersred – hatched a plan to begin blogging on Manchester United’s finances (andersred.blogspot.com).

On the day he planned to write his first post, the Glazers announced that they planned to refinance £509m of the £716m debt they loaded on to the balance sheet to buy the club by issuing a bond. “Since 2005, the worst fears of supporters and commentators who opposed the takeover have been proved correct … the Glazer family are using the club as their personal piggy bank,” he wrote.

Green is a long-standing United fan and has 15 years’ experience in the investment world. Unpicking the small print of the bond document, he revealed that the Glazers had reserved the right to take up to £130m out of the club in the first year of the bond alone to begin repaying the 16.25% interest on the £202m in Payment in Kind loans secured on the club.

Green recently stepped out from behind his pseudonym when Manchester United’s chief executive, David Gill, said he would only respond to him after he did so. He has now been engaged by the Manchester United Supporters Trust to provide advice and insight to the campaign to persuade supporters to back the Red Knights’ plan to buy out the Glazers.

Bankers hoping to launch a £1bn bid to buy United are building on the efforts of fans to form a united front

The first public statement put out by the Red Knights about their plans to buy Manchester United prominently reflects the work carried out in the office block Mancunians know better as the place where you are sent to pay off fines if you forget to tax your car. Trafford House, the regional headquarters of the DVLA, is now the official base of the anti-Glazer movement, with Old Trafford rising in the distance from the windows of the third floor where the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust has developed contacts from Whitehall to Washington in their attempt to get rid of the men who have saddled their club with debts of £716m and rising.

Their work is voluntary and unpaid, even though the organisation is big enough now (approaching 54,300 members last night) to require a chief executive and a finance director and to have appointed Blue State Digital, the United States-based internet and technology firm used by Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign.

The list of patrons includes half a dozen MPs as well as former players including Harry Gregg and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Must, as they are commonly known, have shown that football supporters can have a collective voice – even if the men in power at Old Trafford did not allow them an automatic place when hand-picking who they wanted to quiz the chief executive, David Gill, on the club’s official fans’ forum.

Unwelcome at those events, the reputation of Must was reflected by the presence of some of their leading campaigners among the variety of wealthy and well-connected United fans, led by the Goldman Sachs chief economist, Jim O’Neill, who met in London on Monday to discuss putting together a £1bn takeover bid to persuade the Glazers to sell. The statement issued today on behalf of O’Neill and his associates promised “any new ownership model would aim not only to put the club on a sound financial footing, but also to put the supporters at the heart of everything the club does”.

It added: “For such a proposal to be viable, it would require the involvement and support of Manchester United supporters worldwide. As a first step, the Red Knights want supporters to demonstrate their commitment by joining the free online membership of the trust.”

The membership ticker at the top of MUST’s website immediately started to rise. The “initial target” now is to reach 100,000 members before the end of the season and, in the process, cut out some of the divisions that have previously existed in United’s family tree of supporters’ groups.

It is a complex process. United have three strong-voiced fanzines, Red News, Red Issue and United We Stand. As well as Must, there is also the Independent Manchester United Supporters’ Association (Imusa) and spin-off groups such as Stretford End Flags. There are websites such as Red Cafe and United Rant, plus a breakaway team in FC United of Manchester. Must’s objective is to bring everyone together and “envisage a future where the supporters have a meaningful ownership stake in the club”.

This labour of love started out as Shareholders United Against Murdoch in 1998, campaigning against Rupert Murdoch’s planned takeover, but became a supporters’ trust and changed its name after the Glazers’ takeover in 2005.

At a recent public meeting, ideas from the floor included inviting Eric Cantona to be the campaign figurehead. One member of the audience suggested writing to Sir Alex Ferguson to ask him to side with the fans and, if necessary, resign in protest, although that has had little support. There was also talk of a protest march on Sir Matt Busby Way before the Champions League tie against Milan next Wednesday. This idea, however, has been put on hold.

May the Red Knights oust the Glazers. But this campaign should encourage fans to demand real collective ownership

A consortium of City bankers is planning a £1bn takeover bid. Such news rarely sounds as promising as it will to Manchester United fans today. The deep antipathy to the Glazer family has hardened after the financial results of their ownership of the club were laid bare in January.

Yet optimism should be heavily tinged with caution. While Malcolm Glazer’s route to a takeover was to steadily buy up shares when it was a plc in 2005, the club is now his alone to sell or not. And though this consortium features influential financiers described as committed United fans, football is littered with the debris of owners, chairmen and directors who promised much and wreaked havoc at the likes of Newcastle, Leeds, and Portsmouth.

Even the name Red Knights evokes cringing memories of one Michael Knighton, who promised to take the club soaring from the clutches of the unpopular Martin Edwards early in Alex Ferguson’s time as manager.

There may be no such doubts over the credentials or affiliation of the likes of Jim O’Neill, a key player in any bid, but there still seems something unlikely about this Goldman Sachs chief economist endorsing the “collective ownership model” that would give ordinary fans a real stake in the club.

The major, overriding reason that United fans will be backing the Red Knights is simple: the endorsement, and partnership, of the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust (MUST), whose membership has swelled to 54,000 and is still growing.

Whether it succeeds in ousting the Glazers, the campaign has been an extraordinary one to see. Anti-Glazer feeling has been strong enough to provoke direct action from supporters before now, but it was muted on a wider level – partly by the defence mounted by Ferguson of his American bosses.

After years of subdued resentment, the massive profusion of green and gold – the colours worn by United in the days when they were Newton Heath – has suddenly made visible all that individual anger, the rage shared by the spectators in the next seats and rows. We might look like Norwich fans, but it has been inspiring and energising – the waving scarves and chants have helped create an atmosphere that has not been matched at Old Trafford in years.

The genius of the protest is in providing a way to demonstrate both passion for the club and dissociation from the specific, corporate elements that currently occupy the boardroom.

The green and gold symbolically bypasses the dilemma that Glazer has posed every United fan: do you continue to support, emotionally and financially, a team turned into a company-cum-brand or company run for the speculative financial benefit of a Florida-based family, when the profits are being leached away and the cost of your season ticket is being hiked year after year? Is it better to walk away and start again – as FC United of Manchester did?

Now, to some extent, it feels possible to voice that positive support and massive dissatisfaction at once, as the sight of thousands twirling green and gold scarfs back at the United players and manager parading the Carling Cup at Wembley on Sunday showed.

Whether such a brilliantly simple, visual campaign could work here without the ready-made crowd and constituency of a football club is difficult to know. Yet there are British parallels that go beyond the game: the mass of Labour supporters who have felt their party had been hijacked by a leadership alien to its values, or even those conservative homeowners who want banks for their pensions and mortgages but are outraged by the Fred Goodwins of the world.

In an era where it’s easy to believe, from the Iraq war to Cadbury, that most people are powerless in the face of bigger, shapeless forces, even wresting control of Manchester United away from the Glazers would feel a real victory – and a start. The detail that MUST has drawn on some of Obama’s campaign consultants should make fans recall that hope doesn’t necessarily deliver change. Putting one’s hope in a group of bankers may not prove enough, but the momentum the campaign already has could make supporters – of all clubs – believe that shared control is an achievable goal.

Following the announcement that a group of wealthy City bankers plans to launch a takeover attempt for Manchester United, sports correspondent Owen Gibson and head of business Dan Roberts give their views

Manchester United’s owners have strengthened their financial position despite the protests against them after releasing figures showing increases in revenue and profits.


With a group of financiers called the Red Knights confirming their interest in a possible takeover, the Glazer family can point to a rising turnover and profits at the club.

• Manchester United defender has a knee injury
• Brother Corry is called up in his place

Jonny Evans has pulled out of Northern Ireland’s friendly against Albania tomorrow. The Manchester United defender returned to his club after taking a knock on his knee during the Carling Cup victory over Aston Villa on Sunday at Wembley.

The decision was taken when he was re-assessed this morning by the Northern Ireland medical staff after missing training last night. However, there was no improvement overnight and Evans will continue treatment at his club.

Manager Nigel Worthington has called up Evans’ brother Corry, who is also a Manchester United player.

The 19-year-old is currently in San Marino with the Under-21 squad for a Uefa championship qualifier tonight and will join up with the senior squad on Wednesday.

Worthington is short of defenders as Aaron Hughes and Chris Baird have been rested, Gareth McAuley is injured and Shane Duffy has opted to play for the Republic of Ireland.

Gary Neville faces a career crossroads in the summer.


The 35-year-old United captain has become a bit-part player in Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad and has revealed he plans to review his Old Trafford future at the end of the season.

The ‘Red Knights’ have confirmed their intention to try to oust the owners of Manchester United.


Concerned by the huge amount of debt the Glazers’ took on to complete their controversial takeover in 2005, the Red Knights are intent on launching a takeover bid.

As the Red Knights propose their intentions to take over at Old Trafford we look at other ownership models

Leveraged ownership (Manchester United, Liverpool)

Both the Glazer family and Tom Hicks and George Gillett financed their takeovers by using their other assets as collateral for loans. In both cases the football clubs’ revenue potential has been used to service those debts

The sugar daddy (Manchester City, Chelsea)

While both clubs harbour ambitions of self sustainability their oligarch owners have at times operated a playful, money-no-object approach to financing their club

Owned by the fans (Barcelona, Real Madrid)

The club ownership is shared by its subscription-paying socios, many of whom are season ticket holders who have a major say on sponsorship, ticket prices and elect a president to run the club for them. Barcelona also use club monies to run loss-making, multi-sport clubs under the same banner

Ebbsfleet

A variation on the above model, in 2007 the website MyFootballClub took over the Kent-based club after 27,000 members each paid £35 to fund the deal. Members vote on transfers and selections

The German model

All German clubs are required to have at least 51 per cent member ownership although at several clubs the remainder of shares are held by one significant individual local business, notably Vfl Wolfsburg (Volkswagen) and Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Bayer)

The PLC (Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur)

In 1982 Tottenham became the first club to be listed on the stock exchange and several leading clubs have followed suit, with in most cases ownership comprising several large-scale shareholders and a large number of smaller investors, often who are fans

Franchise system (all MLS teams)

The MLS centrally controls all its teams with players negotiating their contract directly with the league. Clubs are run as franchise by private companies, who hold financial stake in the league itself

Wayne Rooney says team trophies not personal accolades fuel his scoring spree.