The Glazers, assuming they find a buyer, will depart Old Trafford as loathed by Manchester United fans as they were on arrival. They won’t give a damn, obviously. Malcolm Glazer, the penny-pinching patriarch who led the £800m takeover in 2005, was never hard to read and nor are his sons. They are interested in sporting success to the extent that it delivers financial success for them.
By the time Glazer died in 2014, the club’s equity was valued by the market at £1.5bn, which was a commercial triumph given the thin sliver of hard cash, as opposed oodles of debt, that supported the buyout. Leverage turned a good investment into an excellent one – for the Glazers, that is, rather than the club.
