Pretty obviously, this is related to the ongoing dispute between a faction of United supporters and the regime over issues including the club’s debt and rising ticket price burdens, as we’ve reported on again and again.

Graffiti around Manchester has long attacked the Glazer regime, but this is the first time Gill’s $1.5m property has been targeted. The Fight For United website explains the rationale for the graffiti:

In a gesture to show their disapproval of yet another episode in David Gill’s continuing display of contempt towards the legions of loyal Manchester United supporters, with his latest pro-Glazer “all is rosy in the United garden” nonsense, a group of fellow United fans paid a visit to the leafy lanes of Cheshire. Presumably, until now, this modern day Quisling would’ve felt nice and safe, far away from the high rise blocks, the council estates, and the tap-rooms of Greater Manchester hostelries, where the people he continues to betray, bemoan the death of what they have known, almost from birth, as their right to have the chance to support their beloved football team as they’ve done, father and son, for decade after decade, from the stands and terraces of Old Trafford.

British newspapers, including The Guardian, are unsurprisingly reporting the graffiti in rather more negative tones.

Manchester United supporters have attacked the house of the chief executive, David Gill, in protest over his support for the club’s owner Malcolm Glazer. Anti-Glazer slogans were daubed in red paint on the outside of the property in Bowden, Cheshire, with one message reading “Judas Gill”.

Gill chose not to make any response to the attack, which occurred late on Thursday evening, but he is understood to be shaken and thankful that he and his family were all out at the time. Maurice Watkins, the club’s solicitor and former director, was targeted for a similar attack two years ago when it emerged that he had sold the Glazer family some of his shares in the club.

What do you think of this escalation in the ongoing fight between United supporters and the Glazer regime?

Yet the debt taken on has hardly gone away, and United will need to continue a record-breaking profit pace to finance it. In today’s Telegraph, David Bond writes that:

In the year to June 2006, Red Football paid a total of £85.2m in interest. The 2007 figures are expected to show a fall but are still likely to be around £67m. The interest charges are likely to be made up of £42m in what accountants call “cash pay interest”. This is the actual interest which must be paid by cash generated from the football club business.

A further £27.2m is due on what are known as Payment in Kind loans – a more costly mix of debt and equity which the Glazers took out with three hedge funds to secure the money they needed to fund their United buy-out.

A large chunk of those loans were paid off in August 2006 when the club refinanced their borrowings, leaving the club with a larger sum to repay (£600m) in the end but lower annual interest repayments.

There were plans to refinance again last summer but they had to be shelved as the global credit crunch took hold. So until the market improves, United are faced with their hefty annual interest bills. And the £67m interest figure certainly puts United’s record breaking financial performance in a very different light.

Moreover, let’s remember that fans’ concerns were also based on the fact that despite the growing profitability of the Premier League, the size of the debt meant United fans’ faced ever increasing financial burdens to finance it. And this is exactly what has happened, with United fans revolting this season after they were forced to buy cup game tickets with their season tickets for the first time, and they’re continually harangued to buy buy buy at the “Supermarket of Dreams”. It’s no wonder they’ve gone quiet at Old Trafford, is it?

Photo credit: gordonm1 on Flickr.