It’s nearly 20 years since the American tycoon Malcolm Glazer bought his first stake in Manchester United – now his family’s controversial tenure at the club could finally be coming to an end.
Chants of “Love United, hate Glazers” are regularly heard at Old Trafford and news that the owners are exploring a salewill delight many United supporters.
Here, Sky News tells the story of the Glazers’ ownership of the Premier League club and explains why the family have been so unpopular with fans – even attracting criticism from one of their own star players, Cristiano Ronaldo, who left the club with immediate effect earlier today.
Image: Malcolm Glazer took control of Man United in 2005. Pic: AP
Glazers buy Man Utd – and saddle club with debt
Malcolm Glazer owned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an American football team that were then the Super Bowl champions, when he began his investment in United in March 2003.
At the time, United had dominated the Premier League and were one of the most successful clubs in the world, winning an array of silverware under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Glazer took full control of United in June 2005, but the deal was hugely unpopular with fans because it was financed primarily through loans secured against the club’s assets.
Within a year of the leveraged buyout, Glazer had two strokes and his six children – Avram, Joel, Bryan, Kevin, Darcie and Edward – ran United, all of them sitting on the board of directors.
Image: Avram Glazer, left, and Joel Glazer are executive co-chairmen of Manchester United
The Glazers’ £790m takeover loaded United with debt that is now around £500m. The club were debt-free before the takeover.
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Fans have been enraged by the more than £1bn it has cost the Glazers to service the debt, while cashing in themselves by receiving dividends from the club.
Image: Man United fans protest over Malcolm Glazer’s proposed takeover in 2004
Fan protests and FC United formed
The Glazer family’s first visit to Old Trafford ended in ugly and violent scenes in June 2005 as police clashed with supporters who had effectively barricaded United’s new owners inside the stadium.
Joel, Avram and Bryan Glazer reportedly had to be smuggled down the players’ tunnel and out of the ground in two police tactical aid vans for their own safety.
Image: Police clear a barricade to allow a van, supposedly carrying Joel Glazer, to leave Old Trafford in 2005
The Glazers’ controversial takeover prompted a group of disaffected Man United supporters to form a new football club.
FC United began their first season in 2005-06 and now compete in the Northern Premier League Premier Division, the seventh tier of the English football league system.
Success on the pitch
Under the continued management of Sir Alex, United initially remained successful under the Glazers’ ownership, winning five Premier League titles in seven seasons between 2007 and 2013.
With star players Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, United enjoyed a prolific three-year spell from 2007 to 2009, winning three Premier League titles, a Champions League trophy and the League Cup.
But fans’ anger at the Glazers remained.
Image: Man United fans wave green and gold scarves in protest at the Glazers in 2010
Green and gold scarf campaign
In 2010, United fans began donning yellow and green scarves to protest against the Glazers’ ownership.
United are known for their famous red shirts, but the club was originally founded, in 1878, under the name Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, which played in a bold yellow and green strip.
At the height of the protests, former United player David Beckham put on a green and gold scarf that was thrown on to the pitch during his return to Old Trafford with AC Milan in 2010.
That night, Joel and Avram Glazer were inside the stadium but Beckham later distanced himself from the protest, saying the ownership of United was “not my business”.
Red Knights takeover bid
A group of wealthy supporters were expected to make a bid of about £1bn for United in 2010, despite United insisting the Glazer family owners would “not entertain any offers”.
The Red Knights group, which included former Football League chairman Keith Harris and Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neil, said that one of its priorities was to reduce debt levels at the club.
The proposed bid was put on hold after the group said media speculation of “inflated valuation aspirations” had hampered its plans.
Post-Ferguson problems
Since Sir Alex called time on his illustrious managerial career nearly 10 years ago, United’s form has gone downhill.
Despite appointing high-profile managers such as Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal, the club has failed to win the Premier League since 2013 – while spending more than £1bn on players in that time.
United have also not won a trophy since their Europa League triumph in 2017.
To make matters worse, arch rivals Manchester City and Liverpool have enjoyed huge success as they regularly compete for Premier League and Champions League titles.
Image: Pic: AP
Malcolm Glazer death
Malcolm Glazer died in 2014 at the age of 85, having never visited Old Trafford during his ownership of the club.
Although he was a controversial figure in Manchester, tributes poured in from the US, where the businessman was hugely respected for turning Tampa Bay from a laughing stock into a Super Bowl-winning franchise.
After Glazer’s death, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said: “Malcolm Glazer was the guiding force behind the building of a Super Bowl-champion organisation.
European Super League anger
The Glazers attracted more fury from United fans after taking a leading role in attempts to form a European Super League last year.
United, along with Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham, caused outrage with their plans to join the breakaway competition, in which the founding members would be exempt from relegation.
The six English clubs had planned to set up the league with Spanish sides Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Real Madrid and Italy’s AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus, in a group that some nicknamed the “dirty dozen”.
Image: Fans stormed the Old Trafford pitch in May 2021
The proposal led to protests from football fans across England, with several hundred storming the Old Trafford pitch before United were due to play Liverpool, meaning the game had to be postponed.
After the clubs backed down Joel Glazer, who had been announced as a vice-chairman of the European Super League, “apologised unreservedly” to fans, saying: “We got it wrong.”
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Sky News questions Avram Glazer over Man Utd
After the scandal, United’s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward announced he would be leaving the club, having been an unpopular figure with fans after a series of expensive signings with precious little success.
Neville brands Glazers ‘scavengers’
Former Man United captain Gary Neville – who was a player at the club in 2005 when the Glazers took over – has been a vocal critic of the owners in recent months.
After the European Super League fiasco, Neville branded the Glazers “scavengers” who “need booting out of this football club and booting out of this country”.
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Gary Neville on the Glazers
“We have got to come together,” he told Sky Sports.
“It might be too late, there’ll be people at Manchester United, fans 15 years ago who will say it’s too late.
“It’s never too late, we have got to stop this. It is absolutely critical we do.”
Neville has claimed Old Trafford is “rusting”, with £1bn needed to rebuild the stadium, and the club is in a “mess”.
“When a business is failing and it’s not performing, it is the owners of that business [who are to blame],” Neville said after United were beaten 4-0 by Brentford this season.
“It is really simple. It is failing miserably.
“They took about £24m out of the club two months ago and they have now got a decrepit, rotting stadium, which is second-rate when it used to be the best in the world 15-20 years ago.
“You have got a football project where they haven’t got a clue.”
Neville said there has been a “toxic culture and atmosphere created at the club over a 10-year period” after the departures of Sir Alex and former United chief executive David Gill.
“It is a mess and it cannot carry on,” he added.
Ronaldo criticism
The latest high-profile criticism of the Glazers came from one of Manchester United’s very own star players.
The Portugal star, who returned to United last year after 12 years away, claimed the Glazers “don’t care about the club” and said it was a “marketing club”.
“They will get money from the marketing – the sport, it’s, they don’t really care, in my opinion,” he said.
Ronaldo also claimed United had not progressed as a club since the departure of Sir Alex in 2013.
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Ronaldo defends explosive interview
“Nothing changed. Surprisingly,” he said.
“Not only the pool, the jacuzzi, even the gym… Even some points, the technology, the kitchen, the chefs, which is, I appreciate, lovely persons.
“They stopped in a time, which surprised me a lot. I thought I will see different things… different, as I mentioned before, technology, infrastructure.
“But, unfortunately, we see many things that I used to see when I was 20, 21, 23. So, it surprised me a lot.”
Since the interview last week, the club’s lawyers had reportedly been looking at ways to bring Ronaldo’s time at the club to an end and on Tuesday it was announced that he was leaving “by mutual agreement, with immediate effect”.
Talk of sale and interest from Britain’s richest man
Bloomberg reported in August that the Glazer family were considering selling a minority stake in United and preliminary discussions had been held about bringing in a new investor.
It also emerged that one of Britain’s richest men, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a boyhood United fan and a proven investor in sport through his Ineos company, had expressed an interest in buying the club.
Image: Sir Jim Ratcliffe expressed an interest in buying Manchester United
In October, he revealed he had met the Glazer family and was told they were not interested in selling Manchester United.
“I met Joel and Avram, and they are the nicest people,” Sir Jim said.
“They are proper gentlemen, and they don’t want to sell it. It is owned by the six children of the father and they don’t want to sell.”
Donald Trump’s trade war escalation has sparked a global sell-off, with US stock markets seeing the biggest declines in a hit to values estimated above $2trn.
Tech and retail shares were among those worst hit when Wall Street opened for business, following on from a flight from risk across both Asia and Europe earlier in the day.
Analysis by the investment platform AJ Bell put the value of the peak losses among major indices at $2.2trn (£1.7trn).
The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite was down 5.8%, the S&P 500 by 4.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by just under 4% at the height of the declines. It left all three on course for their worst one-day losses since at least September 2022 though the sell-off later eased back slightly.
Analysts said the focus in the US was largely on the impact that the expanded tariff regime will have on the domestic economy but also effects on global sales given widespread anger abroad among the more than 180 nations and territories hit by reciprocal tariffs on Mr Trump‘s self-styled “liberation day”.
They are set to take effect next week, with tariffs on all car, steel and aluminium imports already in effect.
Price rises are a certainty in the world’s largest economy as the president’s additional tariffs kick in, with those charges expected to be passed on down supply chains to the end user.
The White House believes its tariffs regime will force employers to build factories and hire workers in the US to escape the charges.
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The latest numbers on tariffs
Economists warn the additional costs will add upward pressure to US inflation and potentially choke demand and hiring, ricking a slide towards recession.
Apple was among the biggest losers in cash terms in Thursday’s trading as its shares fell by almost 9%, leaving it on track for its worst daily performance since the start of the COVID pandemic.
Concerns among shareholders were said to include the prospects for US price hikes when its products are shipped to the US from Asia.
Other losers included Tesla, down by almost 6% and Nvidia down by more than 6%.
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PM: It’s ‘a new era’ for trade and economy
Many retail stocks including those for Target and Footlocker lost more than 10% of their respective market values.
The European Union is expected to retaliate in a bid to put pressure on the US to back down.
The prospect of a tit-for-tat trade war saw the CAC 40 in France and German DAX fall by more than 3.4% and 3% respectively.
The FTSE 100, which is internationally focused, was 1.6% lower by the close – a three-month low.
Financial stocks were worst hit with Asia-focused Standard Chartered bank enduring the worst fall in percentage terms of 13%, followed closely by its larger rival HSBC.
Among the stocks seeing big declines were those for big energy as oil Brent crude costs fell back by 6% to $70 due to expectations a trade war will hurt demand.
The more domestically relevant FTSE 250 was 2.2% lower.
A weakening dollar saw the pound briefly hit a six-month high against the US currency at $1.32.
There was a rush for safe haven gold earlier in the day as a new record high was struck though it was later trading down.
Sean Sun, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, said of the state of play: “Markets may actually be underreacting, especially if these rates turn out to be final, given the potential knock-on effects to global consumption and trade.”
He warned there was a big risk of escalation ahead through countermeasures against the US.
Sandra Ebner, senior economist at Union Investment, said: “We assume that the tariffs will not remain in place in the announced range, but will instead be a starting point for further negotiations.
“Trump has set a maximum demand from which the level of tariffs should decrease”.
She added: “Since the measures would not affect all regions and sectors equally, there will be winners and losers as in 2018 – although the losers are more likely to be in the EU than in North America.
“To protect companies in Europe from the effects of tariffs, the EU should not respond with high counter-tariffs. In any case, their impact in the US is not likely to be significant. It would be more efficient to provide targeted support to EU companies in the form of investment and stimulus.”
British companies and business groups have expressed alarm over President Donald Trump’s 10% tariff on UK goods entering the US – but cautioned against retaliatory measures.
It comes as Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds launched a consultation with firms on taxes the UK could implement in response to the new levies.
A 400-page list of 8,000 US goods that could be targeted by UK tariffs has been published, including items like whiskey and jeans.
On so-called “Liberation Day”, Mr Trump announced UK goods entering the US will be subject to a 10% tax while cars will be slapped with a 25% levy.
The government’s handling of tariff negotiations with the US to date has been praised by representative and industry bodies as being “cool” and “calm” – and they urged ministers to continue that approach by not retaliating.
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The latest numbers on tariffs
Business lobby group the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) said: “Retaliation will only add to supply chain disruption, slow down investment, and stoke volatility in prices”.
Industry body the British Retail Consortium (BRC) also cautioned: “Retaliatory tariffs should only be a last resort”.
‘Deeply troubling’
While a major category of exports, in the form of services – like finance and information technology (IT) – has been exempted from the tariffs, the impact on UK business is expected to be significant.
Mr Trump’s announcement was described as “deeply troubling for businesses” by the CBI’s chief executive Rain Newton-Smith.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) also said the tariffs were “a major blow” to small and medium companies (SMEs), as 59% of small UK exporters sell to the US. It called for emergency government aid to help those affected.
“Tariffs will cause untold damage to small businesses trying to trade their way into profit while the domestic economy remains flat,” the FSB’s policy chair Tina McKenzie said. “The fallout will stifle growth” and “hurt opportunities”, she added.
Companies will need to adapt and overcome, the British Export Association said, but added: “Unfortunately adaptation will come at a cost that not all businesses will be able to bear.”
Watch dealer and component seller Darren Townend told Sky News the 10% hit would be “painful” as “people will buy less”.
“I am a fan of Trump, but this is nuts,” he said. “I expect some bad months ahead.”
Industry body Make UK said the 25% tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium would in particular be devastating for UK manufacturing.
Cars hard hit
Carmakers are among the biggest losers from the world trade order reshuffle.
Auto industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the taxes were “deeply disappointing and potentially damaging measure”.
“These tariff costs cannot be absorbed by manufacturers”, SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said. “UK producers may have to review output in the face of constrained demand”.
The new taxes on cars took effect on Thursday morning, while the measures impacting car parts are due to come in on 3 May.
Economists immediately started scratching their heads when Donald Trump raised his tariffs placard in the Rose Garden on Wednesday.
On that list he detailed the rate the US believes it is being charged by each country, along with its response: A reciprocal tariff at half that rate.
So, take China for example. Donald Trump said his team had run the numbers and the world’s second-largest economy was implementing an effective tariff of 67% on US imports. The US is responding with 34%.
How did he come up with that 67%? This is where things get a bit murky. The US claims it studied its trading relationship with individual countries, examining non-tariff barriers as well as tariff barriers. That includes, for example, regulations that make it difficult for US exporters.
However, the actual methodology appears to be far cruder. Instead of responding to individual countries’ trade barriers, Trump is attacking those enjoying large trade surpluses with the US.
A formula released by the US trade representative laid this bare. It took the US’s trade deficit in goods with each country and divided that by imports from that country. That figure was then divided by two.
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So, in the case of China, which has a trade surplus of $295bn on total US exports of $438bn, that gives a ratio of 68%. The US divided that by two, giving a reciprocal tariff of 34%.
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PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
This is a blunt measure which targets big importers to the US, irrespective of the trade barriers they have erected. This is all part of Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the country’s deficit – although it’s US consumers who will end up paying the price.
But what about the small number of countries where the US has a trade surplus? Shouldn’t they actually be benefiting from all of this?
That includes the UK, with whom the US has a surplus (by its own calculations) of $12bn. By its own reciprocal tariff formula, the UK should be benefitting from a “negative tariff” of 9%.
Instead, it has been hit by a 10% baseline tariff. Number 10 may be breathing a sigh of relief – the US could, after all, have gone after us for our 20% VAT rate on imports, which it takes issue with – but, by Trump’s own measure, we haven’t got off as lightly as we should have.