The Staggering Amount Man Utd Have Paid to Glazers Over Last 5 Years (and Why That's Bad)

Manchester United are financially worse off because of their owners, the Glazer family, who have been almost £90m by the club over the last few years. That is the polar opposite to the situation at Chelsea, where £440m has been invested by owner Roman Abramovich.

United are funded by one of the largest annual turnovers of any football club in the world, but that is where the money stops. All expenses and operating costs have to be covered by revenue and no money comes in from the Glazer clan, who also profit by way of annual dividends.

Analysis published on social media by @SwissRamble highlight the extent to which the club is being used as a cash cow. Between 2014 and 2019, United paid their owners a total of £89m.

That is £89m, earned from annual turnover, that the club is worse off as a direct result of the ownership model in place at Old Trafford. To put it into context, that is the same amount as the world record transfer fee the club paid for Paul Pogba in 2016, filling the pockets of already wealthy people, most of whom have little or no involvement in running the club.

It is not just that United have no additional financing coming in, they are losing money. The same data shows that owner financing Arsenal, for example, during the same period is zero. Money is not being invested in the Gunners by Stan Kroenke’s company, but it isn’t being taken out.

There are seven Premier League clubs whose owners have invested over £100m over the last five years – Chelsea, Everton, Aston Villa, Fulham, Brighton, Manchester City and Wolves. Some of that spend has gone on promotion efforts – and was a gamble – but directly compared to owner financing at Chelsea (£440m) or Manchester City (£142m), it makes for grim reading.

At Liverpool, owner financing accounted for £75m of gain during the period in question, while no other club in the Premier League has paid more money to its owner than United. Tottenham are the next biggest sufferers in that respect, at £40m worse off.

Owner financing at the highest level – ignoring those that have gambled large sums of money on promotion in the hope of recouping it and more as Premier League revenue – isn’t necessarily about spending on players, which could put the club in danger of contravening Financial Fair Play regulations, but improving infrastructure and facilities, which is exempt from the FFP microscope.

It is no secret that Old Trafford is in a state of relative disrepair compared to other major stadiums. There is a longstanding leak in the roof and it lacks the polished modernity that can be seen elsewhere in the Premier League.

A report back in February gave a conservative estimate from ‘corporate financiers who have detailed knowledge of the club’ that renovation works would cost £200m, potentially more.

The reaction to the data highlighting £89m taken out of the club and paid to the Glazers has resulted in #GlazersOut trending on Twitter and a fresh surge of protestation at the family’s ownership.

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