Manchester United R.I.P.
Andy Newman
To understand the
shocking significance of Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Manchester United it is
necessary to understand that this is a full scale onslaught upon a cultural
institution of world wide significance. Glazer must be stopped, and some fans
have announced they intend to disrupt the FA cup final in Cardiff on Saturday,
although the demonstration at Southampton last Saturday was smaller than
expected, as perhaps many Man U fans do not understand the significance of
Glazer's move.
On 6th
February 1958 a BEA charter aircraft carrying 43 passengers crashed in a
blizzard at Munich. Twenty three of the passengers lost their lives in a
disaster that would forever invest Manchester United with the charisma of
tragedy. The cream of Matt Busby's young team were taken, including 29 year old
Roger Byrne who had played for England 33 times, and the legendary 21 year old
Duncan Edwards.
It
is a lasting tribute to Busby that he rebuilt the team to be the top English
club in the 1960s. It is also a remarkable personal achievement by crash
survivor Bobby Charlton that just 8 years later he would hold the Jules Rimet
trophy. The team that Busby created from the ashes on Munich would later include
perhaps the greatest individual genius to play for an English club, George Best.
Of course even in the
"good old days" Football was always basically a business, and Munich widow,
Elizabeth Wood, has campaigned to expose the injustice of how United shoddily
treated the families of the dead and injured. They didn't even pay for relatives
to visit their loved ones in Munich hospitals.
Nevertheless, Munich
expresses the soul of football, and even though most football fans are repelled
by Man U's relentless merchandising, they are still the club that best
articulate the myths of sport. Even in the modern era, Alex Fergusson's triumph
of creating a team of youngsters who would storm the heights of sporting
achievement in 1995 shows that money alone still does not determine success on
the football field.
It is a mystery to me
why so many socialists express no interest in sport, ignoring the fact that
sport is ideologically and practically at the heart of civil society. The story
of Manchester United perfectly exemplifies the appeal of competitive sport, and
sport fills the hearts and souls of millions of working class enthusiasts,
whether from the grandstands, or from their sofa in front of the TV.
Arguably sport is an
aberration produced by capitalist society. It subverts play, which has multiple
outcomes, into an almost militarised competition of maximum physical effort,
what was once described by a French Marxist as a prison of measured time and
space. The tribal identification of fans to particular teams is also an
expression of alienation, where individuals sublimate their private hopes, fears
and aspirations into a public and vicarious collective escapism.
But competitive sport
cannot escape two subversive components. Firstly the outcomes must be unknown
and determined ultimately on the field, and secondly mass popular sport can
never dispense with the ingredient of play. (And sports without play, such as
athletics, are not popular with spectators unless heavily hyped by the context
of a wider spectacle such as the Olympics)
The requirement that
outcomes must be unpredictable is of course institutionalised (and indeed
mitigated) by the betting industry, but nevertheless constitutes a considerable
financial risk for businesses investing in sports institutions. For example
Southampton will lose millions of pounds by being relegated from the
Premiership, losing TV income, corporate sponsorship, and gate receipts; but if
they wish to regain promotion they must aspire to the same squad size and
quality of players. Yet without this business uncertainty the sport struggles to
retain the interest and loyalty of fans.
For example, longer
term league competitions average out the degree of individual uncertainty and
give an advantage to the better financed and more skilful teams. So although
individual league games may be unpredictable, the overall result of the league
is usually a competition between a few super-clubs; and the only way to break
into that elite is by massive financial expenditure, as we have seen recently at
Chelsea.
But knockout
tournaments gain a much bigger audience, for example both the FA cup
competition, and international tournaments such as the World Cup or European
Championship raise a heightened degree of identification, not only because the
local or national team may be competing, but also because the result is much
more susceptible to individual luck, passion or skill, and the element of play
reasserts itself. This is even though the level of skill and technical
entertainment would be more consistently high in matches between leading
contenders in a league competition.
And play and
uncertainty is also very important in understanding the popularity of those few
players whose individual skill is so great that it transcends the limitations of
the sport, for example: Ferenc Puskas, Pele, George Best or Diego Maradona:
players whose individual skill was sufficient to turn a match, or even a
tournament on their own, or who invented new and unexpected moves. Even more
flawed individuals, like Paul Gascoigne, who were less consistent but never lost
the element of play and spontaneity, are more popular than reliable workhorses
like Alan Shearer. As long as there is an element of play in sport then the
dream of supporting a football team also includes the dream that individual
human actions can make a difference. The fantasy of being the striker who scores
the wining goal is a fantasy that the world could be a different and better
place, and you as an individual are not powerless to affect that outcome. Surely
no-one fantasises about being the Russian mafia boss who wins the title by
investing hundreds of millions of pounds?
It is also hard to
imagine that anyone fantasises about sport without play. It is important to
distinguish here between play and skill. Play requires that the risks are taken
because unpredictable moves endanger negative as well as positive outcomes;
whereas skill is merely the technique required to achieve the maximum abstract
physical effort required for success. Every single day thousands of people kick
footballs around in their local park because they enjoy playing, but it is hard
to imagine anyone emulating Ellen Macarthur, perhaps by taking some B&Q carrier
bags into the shower, turning it on and staying there for 71 days, however much
we may admire her sailing skill
The English
premiership, along with the lower divisions, institutionalises the uncertainty
by allowing promotion and relegation. Without relegation and promotion there
would be closed leagues like in the US for baseball and American Football. The
closed league system reduces the financial risks for the businesses that invest
in sport, but at the expense of removing uncertainty and therefore reducing the
scope for play and individual skill to assert itself.
The
purchase of Manchester United by Malcolm Glazer is therefore of immense
significance. This is not simply a change of ownership but a potential
revolution in the organisation of European sport. As he has secured 75%
ownership through the stock market he is able to transfer the debt raised to
purchase United onto the club itself. This is a standard procedure in the
rapacious mergers and acquisitions model of American corporations. All the risk
will reside with Manchester United, and Glazer's parent organisation is
protected. But Glazer is not an asset stripper; he will transfer £540 million of
debt onto United requiring £46 million per year in interest to be repaid by the
club, on the understanding that he can boost the business so that it can afford
to repay him. But in the last financial year Manchester United, one of the
world's most profitable clubs, made only £19.4 million net profit! Even before
depreciation and amortisation of player acquisition costs the gross profits were
only £58.3 million.
Glazer's business model
only makes sense if he has an informed expectation that he can break out of the
Premiership's collective TV deal, which shares funds equally between the
premiership clubs, and also includes a significant payout to the Professional
Footballers Association. Manchester United will need to negotiate individual TV
rights to get the revenue to repay Glazer. It will also need to maximise the
potential revenue, and they can get a lot more TV money for playing PSV
Eindhoven, Rangers or Benfica, than they can for a game against Fulham or
Portsmouth. Removal from the national leagues may even mean they would refuse to
compete in competitions like the FA cup.
The prospect of a
closed European super-league would not only remove the best clubs and most
skilful players, so they would never come and play away matches in far flung
provincial towns; it would also take money away from the lower clubs plunging
many into even deeper financial crisis. Without local clubs developing local
youngsters through youth squads, etc, the game would more and more rely upon the
import of foreign super players. Further distancing the game from the day to day
dreams and aspirations of the fans. It is a lot easier for a British teenager to
fantasise that they might become the next Paul Scholes than they might become
the next Ronaldo.
It is remarkable that
the Labour government, so in love with the ideology of the free market, does not
recognise that the free market also includes the prospect of monopolies
subverting competition. Whether we like sport as individuals or not, the present
structure of competitive football is loved by millions; and Glazer's plans are
an act of philistine corporate vandalism. To understand just how supine the
Labour government is, note that in order to prevent Glazer's takeover all they
had to do was lend the fans' collective, Shareholders United, enough money for
an additional 10% stake in the club; that would have prevented Glazer reaching
75%.
It is not too late for
the government to act through a partial nationalisation of Manchester United,
purchasing a 25% stake. But New Labour will of course do nothing, as they
worship the gods of greed and corporate power above all else. Does anyone
remember how the song went back in 1997, "Things can only get better"?
May 2005