Manchester United

I agree, this is like saying the United States isn’t rich because we are trillions in debt.

Actually, that’s not true. This is a few years old, but it explains the debts at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Arsenal (still at the time paying off the stadium). The debts at the Spanish clubs are calculated differently. United’s cash flow to debt ratio is far worse than the Spanish clubs. Plus, they have special deals with the Spanish banks and they receive fully half of league television revenues. As you can see here, United’s debt is much more troubling than either Real Madrid or Barcelona. And their debt has only grown since these calculations were made in 2012.

The Truth About Debt At Barcelona And Real Madrid

Plus everyone that supports you is a complete dick. So yeah apt analogy.

A4tt just makes analogies look hard.

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Kronke took a loan and absolutely would have leveraged it against Arsenal had he been able to do so (would need to be a 90%+ shareholder to do so). He’s not repaying it from the Arsenal coffers but that’s possibly only a timing thing because if/when he can do so in the future he will.

Don’t see the problem with owners leveraging clubs for loans or taking money from the revenue.

Fans are too emotional & expect owners to do charity to the club.

This is a capitalist world where every investment is supposed to get you a return.

But he didn’t. The Glazers did. And that’s the difference.

No, he couldn’t. That’s the difference. The day will come.

United also did a share issue that raised 500m quid and gave away less than 10% of the club and brought their debt down by half. Something they could easily do again and likely will. Their debt, much like our current debt, is an absolute non issue.

But the Glazers didn’t put a penny of their own money into the club. They used the club itself to secure the debt they used to buy it. And according to the Manchester United Supporters Trust, they’ve taken £1 billion from the club.

Glazer family have ‘drained £1billion from Manchester United’

Kronke hasnt put a penny into the club either.

The Glazer are taking money from their business but the entire time they have been there they have also invested heavily in terms of player purchases and wages. The only difference is they took the cash pile rather than leave it sitting there. I doubt there has been a single player in the Glazer era that they refused to sign due to finances.

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One thing he can’t do is mortgage the club in order to raise the money to buy it.

Also, the club’s debt has increased since they went public. And they sold 6 percent of the club to a hedge fund, which must be reassuring. Take a look at the thing I linked above about the finances and the cash flow to debt ratio.

I dont see any difference between being owned by a billionaire or a hedge fund to be honest.

In Arsenal’s situation supporters perceive the lack of spending as a coordinated effort by the ownership/management to make money for themselves rather than spending it on transfers - of course this isn’t the case because the club hasn’t be used as leverage and no dividends have been taken out from the club.

I believe our transfer policy is solely dictated by Wenger and not by the board to keep spending to a minimum. Our transfer policy will change after Wenger and I believe the board will back the next manager fully in terms of spending so long as it’s within our means, just like they’ve done with Wenger.

United fans sit back and accept the fact that the Glazers are actively pilfering their club for their own gain because of the huge post SAF spending. It’s perceived as “ambition” and a desire to win so they don’t complain.

With Arsenal we’re a self sustaining club, it’s important that the money we generate is used solely for the benefit of the club and not for somebodies personal gain. As far as Kronke’s investment goes, the club is worth more now than when he brought in. He’s will seen a massive return on his original investment if he ever chooses to sell his stake. He hasn’t put any of his own cash in the club and he hasn’t taken anything out which seems fair to me

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I agee with everything you’ve said. :thumbsup:

I really hope this is the case in terms of the spending being solely dictated by Wenger, because when he finally does leave then things have the potential to improve.

Rather be owned by a hedgie honestly. The people that run hedge funds are the brightest investment minds in the business.

The guy after Wenger will be under a huge expectation to perform and he won’t have Wenger’s security, The transfer policy will change on that basis.

Post Wenger we’ll be seeing alot more money generated from players outgoings, more established signings and more decisiveness in the market.

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That article argues that debts at Madrid and Barca are not a big deal, even if they are large on paper. It definitely does not show that United’s debt is particularly problematic or will hamper them substantially.

Sorry, but arguing that United’s finances are not strong or that they are in for some kind of massive fall because of their debt is just unsustainable. They are a financial behemoth in the football world, mainly due to their amazing commercial revenue growth (much of which occurred after that article was published by the way).

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I think this is an important point. Our net spend over the last 3-4 years has actually been fairly high. We aren’t on the same plane as United or City but we’ve spent more than Chelsea or Liverpool. A big difference, however, is that our spend on new acquisitions has been lower because we’ve been unwilling to sell. A manager who isn’t so personally attached to certain players would have flogged off Theo last summer and Ramsey this summer and then taken the 70M from those sales and done something useful with it.

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Yes this caution with money is Definitely Wenger. He actually shot himself in the foot recently in an interview when he said something to the effect that Gazidis was actually ready to spend and go out there buy buy buy and Wenger said he had to ‘calm him down’ and that he didn’t want the club doing that. So it does seem that Gazidis etc give him the money and give him ideas of players we can get, but wenger is constantly being like ‘hold your horses this player will be expensive’ Funny world we live in when the owners seemingly do want to spend but the manager has other ideas, normally its the other way around!

The quote @Maverick79 was referring to.

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