"Green and gold till the club is sold. Love United, Hate Glazer." Man Utd fans protest the Glazer regime at Old Trafford. January 24th, 2009.

Photo credit: Green&Gold_LUHG on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

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Yesterday’s diagram may have helped explain to readers smarter than yours truly the financial situation at Manchester United, as the club embarks on a bond issue. And there is much more in the papers today about the details of the club’s financial situation.

One passage from the bond issue document has been picked up on by the Guardian, noting the line saying the issue “will limit our ability to sell or transfer, but not prohibit us from selling or transferring, our training ground or our stadium”.

Curiously, the piece focuses solely on the prospect of Man Utd losing control of their training ground, and does not mention the stadium itself. In either case, it appears United would lease back the property, and it seems unlikely either step would be taken unless the financial situation worsens.

That, though, is not far-fetched, as the document itself explains. The bond issue notes legally had to explain the risk in Manchester United as a business, and these are very well analysed (as ever) by David Conn. From Alex Ferguson’s impending retirement to “strong competition” from other clubs enjoying “recent investment from wealthy team owners”, there are many scenarios addressed in stark black and white that detail what could essentially bring down a club currently wallowing in £700m of debt.

The Telegraph, meanwhile, focuses on the document’s emphasis on revenue generation through increasing ticket prices: “The prospectus highlights match-day income as a key plank of the club’s income, and suggests that further rises are likely. The document even talks with some pride of rises in excess of inflation.”

The Independent notes that the document warns investors about UEFA’s new financial fair play requirements, which by 2012 will require clubs entering the Champions League to be debt-free, ending “success on credit”:

While United run at an operating profit, it is the repayments on the loans taken out by the Glazers that drag them down. As United say in the bond prospectus: “These rules are intended to discourage clubs from continually operating at a loss. There is a risk that, in conjunction with increasing player salaries and transfer fees, the financial fair play initiative could limit our ability to acquire or retain top players and, therefore, materially adversely affect the performance of our first team.”

The bond prospectus also revealed that the Glazers now have a facility that allows the parent company to take up to £70m from the club’s profits to pay down the £202m debt on the family’s payment-in-kind loans. This is the part of the debt that the American owners are personally liable for and taking money out of United’s profits to pay it is likely to go down as badly with Uefa as it does with the fans.

With the Glazer debt now at more than £700m and no Ronaldo to sell next summer to balance the books, it would appear that United will attract the interest of Uefa if they are still under the same ownership come 2013. Their business plan includes a £75m rolling credit line which United could use in the transfer market. Buying players on credit is the exact opposite of what Platini wants clubs to do.

Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea, and Sheikh Mansour, Manchester City’s owner, have both converted their extraordinary investment in their clubs into equity in order to fall into line with the new Uefa rules. Making the debt disappear at United will require much wealthier owners than the Glazers.

There are few ways United could raise that much money fast. But United fans will surely be concerned that the club’s ownership of both their training ground and their stadium could change in not-too-distant future, should one of the negative scenarios so well explained by United themselves unfold.

Worldwide News

• And in another move guaranteed to piss off loyal fans, Liverpool have confirmed they will sell naming rights to their new stadium….if they ever get it built, that is. Financially, of course, it makes sense. But the news breaking just days after Tom Hicks Jr called a fan a fuck-face, well, that’s yet more brilliant PR out of what we can still call Anfield for now.
• Jeff Carlisle has a piece up at ESPN Soccernet on the US World Cup bid cities list, with the focus unsurprisingly on the exclusion of Chicago. Our piece yesterday on this, with the finger pointed firmly at Mayor Daley, has attracted a lot of attention, with many still wanting to blame the USSF instead. This afternoon the USSF is hosting a media conference call on the selections, so we’ll be sure to report on their defense of the decision.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Today, a Manchester United postcard from the 1910-11 season, part of the “Strength & Health Series”. Man Utd won the First Division that season for only the second time ever, under manager Ernest Mangnall, a year after moving to their new ground: Old Trafford. Their strength would not last long, though, as they did not win another top flight championship for a further 41 years.

Postcard used with permission from manchesterunitedman1 on Flickr. Got any historical football postcards you’d like to share on Pitch Invasion? Drop me a line.

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In the end, my wife was right (shh). We were both sitting at home yesterday afternoon (don’t ask), and I wanted to put on the Man Utd-Wolves game at Old Trafford on the TV. Hell, it was bonus Premier League midweek football, right? Well, quite frankly, she wasn’t having it. I should note at this point she is a Celtic, Tottenham and Chicago Fire fan, so she is far from opposed to the beautiful game in principle at all. But she said this game was pointless, she had no interest in these teams, and it was going to be boring anyway. So the Travel Channel won the day instead.

Now, I can’t speak to the actual action, but the 3-0 scoreline to Man Utd and the fact Wolves changed their entire outfield team from the one that beat Spurs at the weekend suggests she made the right call in choosing Anthony Bourdain over that. The game was pointless. “Forty two quid to watch the reserves” came the frustrated chant from the away fans who had traveled to Manchester, with Wolves CEO Jez Moxey today offering heartfelt emotional support to them by saying “We have no plans to refund the £42 that they were chanting about, although we do have an empathy with them.”

Ah, that’s nice, then. The league, meanwhile, has asked Wolves for an explanation of the team fielded, since somewhere in the arcane rules they never enforce there’s a dusty line about teams needing to field their best teams available. Which is why all Wolves have been saying since is that they fielded their best team available, even though that’s patently not true. This, of course, is not the same as saying it wasn’t the best decision for Wolves in the longer view of the season (200% disagrees, though).

All in all, I bet some of those Wolves fans wish they had a wife like mine and had sat on their sofas watching the Travel Channel instead of, well, actually travelling.

Worldwide News

• Poor Watford are on the brink of going under financially, facing administration (“The Championship side’s parent company, Watford Leisure, has been asked to pay back £4.9m in loans before the close of business on Wednesday”), with their entire board resigning yesterday. Let this be another salutory reminder of the economic issues plaguing English football: it’s just over two years since Watford were in the supposed promised land of the Premier League, after all. A promotion and relegation system is all very nice and all in competitive terms, but without more revenue sharing or a salary cap, it’s also a disaster waiting to happen for club after club.
• England’s potential World Cup host cities have been revealed, and the Guardian has one of their nice interactive maps to look at. I’m most depressed to see Milton Keynes included.
• An Argentinian fans’ group is forming promising to clean up hooliganism in the game, and is looking for some government support. I’d be very curious to learn more about this, beyond this rather pithy piece. Anyone?
• Paul Doyle has a pretty good piece on the hypocritical English attitude to diving: “why is diving by English footballers so often overlooked? English footballers are as hypocritical as randy clergymen when it comes to preaching one thing and doing another.”
• UEFA.com has the details on this year’s revenue distribution in the Champions League, so here’s what Liverpool missed out (excluding even performance bonuses from the group stage): “the 16 teams that reached the first knockout round will each collect €3m, the eight quarter-finalists €3.3m apiece, and the four semi-finalists €4m each. The winners of the final in Madrid on 22 May will pocket €9m and the runners-up €5.2m.”
• Premier League managers are once again moaning about losing players to the African Nations Cup, as if the tournament has suddenly sprung up on them and been scheduled just to mess with the Premier League calendar. How rude of an entire continent to mess with England.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Our Manchester theme of the week continues, and United fans welcome City to their stadium with a not-so-subtle dig.

Photo credit: theandrewstewartshowiii on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

But what most outlets didn’t report on was the response of Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, who argue it’s Old Trafford’s own draconian “safety” policies that are ruining the atmosphere. “‘You can’t stand up to make a noise,” IMUSA spokesman Colin Hendrie said. “If you try to stand up, you’ve got stewards who are ejecting you, they’re taking your season ticket away from you. It’s almost like a police state in a football ground now and if you do stand up, people will take your arm, put it behind the back of your neck and throw you out of the ground.”

This is not just a knee-jerk defense, but a campaign IMUSA have been working on for some time, and are specially focused on for 2008, as their website explains. IMUSA has called for safe standing areas to be introduced, and has pressed the club to check the stewards’ powers for ejecting fans for over-enthusiasm.

Hendrie concluded, “Under those circumstances, what atmosphere does he (Ferguson) want? The only atmosphere we’ve got is one where we’re a little bit frightened of losing £1,000 for the season ticket we’ve paid for.”

Photo credit: Derek Holtham