Manchester United fans “marched to Old Trafford to protest the club’s ownership” yesterday “in the face of ticket price rises, job cuts and onfield decline,” according to James Robson of the AP. A pre-arranged demonstration was attended by “thousands” of supporters ahead of the Premier League game against Arsenal, with lit flares and raised banners demanding a change of ownership at the record 20-time English champion. Fans were asked to wear black in “solidarity,” and they marched through the streets surrounding ManU’s Old Trafford ground and up to the stadium before kickoff. Both co-owner Jim Ratcliffe and director Edward Glazer were in attendance for the match (AP, 3/9). THE GUARDIAN’s Jamie Jackson noted the protest started at the Tollgate pub at about 3:15 pm. They marched the mile to Old Trafford along Talbot Road, Warwick Road and Sir Matt Busby Way, arriving 20 minutes later, the route to the stadium “blocked off to traffic by a sizeable police presence.” Some protesters held placards that read “death by 1,000 cuts” in reference to Ratcliffe’s cost-cutting measures. The “anti-Glazers sentiment” continued during the game (THE GUARDIAN, 3/9).
HOPELESS: In Manchester, Tyrone Marshall writes, “any hope that Ineos' arrival as minority investors last February would herald a new dawn has been quickly washed away.” The hope has been “extinguished.” A first half “pockmarked by chants against the Glazers from the Stretford End” led the TV director to “focus a close-up on Ratcliffe in the stands.” But the “forehead on show in the seat in front of Ratcliffe” was that of a Glazer -- not Joel or Avram, but the “more indistinguishable Edward, an extremely rare attendee at United games.” This anger “just cannot be ignored.” Critics will “scoff that this wouldn’t be happening if United weren’t mid-table in the Premier League, but it’s about so much more than football.” It is “about the debt the Glazers have saddled United with in a takeover that should bring eternal shame to the football authorities in this country.” The Glazers have “ripped a hole in this club,” but it is Ratcliffe who is now “stripping it of its soul. Redundancies, cutbacks, petty penny-pinching -- it has been a year that has left United with a hollow feeling” (MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS, 3/10).
CHANGE NEEDED: ManU manager Ruben Amorim said that fans “deserve better from the team” following their 1-1 draw with Arsenal. Amorim said, “This club will never die, that is clear. You feel it in the streets. This is a big business and maybe all the fans in this league sometimes feel it is harder to go to the games and pay for tickets” (REUTERS, 3/9).
NOT GETTING IT DONE: WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Joshua Robinson wrote the “crisis” at ManU “runs so deep that it’s taking emergency measures everywhere it can to cut costs,” despite record investment less than two years ago from Ratcliffe, who paid $1.3B for a 25% stake. Since then, results have “only gone backwards.” The club has continued a streak of losing money every year since 2019. And while money goes out for “correcting course” on the pitch, the club is “trying to find ways to save cash away from it.” Last month, ManU announced around 200 layoffs, beyond the 250 jobs it had already cut in 2024. The club also announced plans to close its staff cafeteria and ended its policy of serving free lunches to non-players at the practice facility. Even so, ManU is “nowhere near” a Champions League qualifying berth for next season. The club “seems farther away from a revival than ever” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/9).
