As a fixture with Liverpool looms, the mood around Old Trafford couldn’t be gloomier.
Re-visiting the last time fans planned a protest against the owners of the club is a reminder that the current rancour against the Glazer ownership isn’t a one off and there is no love lost between fan contingent and ownership.
What led things to boil over 12 months ago was the astonishing announcement that Manchester United, without informing the manager at the time, players or any staff at all had joined the European Super League. Remember that?
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Feels like a fever dream now, but twelve of Europe’s biggest clubs attempted to breakaway from the UEFA Champions League and their own country association to form their own ‘closed shop’ league without relegation, attempting to abstract more revenue for commercial gain, with the idea of simply jousting each other every week as opposed to the current league format.
The proposed plans would’ve scrapped the current football association formats, affecting the football pyramid enormously.
The attempt was done in such a haphazard, stealthy manner it was met with extreme uproar. As if Manchester United fans who’ve justifiably had a rocky relationship with their ownership needed another reason to loathe the Glazers. Joel Glazer, part owner of the club, was vice-chairman and leader in the campaign for the proposal.
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For three days the footballing world was thrown into chaos (yes that’s how long it lasted). Meetings were held in every league at board level, politicians got involved to lambast the plans, statements were released by each first-tier league at their disgust not only at the idea of leaving them but the conniving manner in which the plans completely left associations in the dark.
Just three days later as a result of widespread condemnation and scenes where just about everyone in football talked of how bad it was the campaign came crashing down.
The six English clubs withdrew first then the rest of the clubs one by one, before leaving just three. Although the withdrawal was swift, two weeks later with the Super League disbanded, Manchester United supporters protested before a home game with Liverpool.
Gaining entry into the training ground then the actual stadium storming the pitch in extraordinary scenes, with a separate group of protestors outside the Lowry Hotel where players were staying. Eventually the ruckus had caused the scheduled game vs Liverpool to be cancelled as fans hugged and cheered the cancellation.
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Ironically, one ponders what would’ve occurred had the game gone ahead with United in good form sitting pretty in 2nd unbeaten in 12 winning five of their previous six. Liverpool had drawn their last two and had recovered somewhat in an injury-hit season, but playing United at the time may have yielded different results.
As it so happened, Liverpool secured Champions League football, but it is tempting to ponder whether United could’ve made a dent in their hopes.
The Super League debacle was a bitter reminder of the only thing that seems to be important to the Glazers when it comes to owning the Manchester club: profit. A gluttonous power grab, a disregard for the ripple effects potentially caused in the navel-gaze of money.
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Of course the Glazer ownership did what it always does in the midst of outcry in a rush to clean things up. Signed a few players, organized a phone call with fans saying they will now all of a sudden encourage communication. As voices and anger soared in the protests in 2021 aimed at the Glazers the same will occur in the protests in 2022.
Fans weren’t happy at the running of the club when they were doing well in 2021 and they are seething with what’s going on in 2022. The Glazers are up to their old tricks, rushing around signing whoever they can (when they could’ve done this earlier) because they sense fans' indignation increasing once again.
The sheer nerve and audacity of a proposal as such in a time where COVID-19 was rampant across the world, fans had lost the option to see their football team meanwhile voracious owners plotted ways to line up their pockets. The ripple effects on the teams below would’ve increased the widening austerity between the clubs.
The Glazers were part of a contingent that wanted to guarantee the money kept rolling in without the true hard-fought ups and downs that come with football.
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It is striking how poorly thought out the plan was and how quickly it disintegrated. There wasn’t even a commercial broadcaster on board, and after the uproar there was not going to be one. But it’s noticeable that these owners simply lacked the maids touch or thought process as to where the project was going; they simply saw the word ‘profit’ in flashing lights.
But then, owning Manchester United for the Glazers is that, it’s a cash cow, a business asset that makes them profit, except this particular business touches millions and possibly now a billion lives, but this particular fact doesn’t seem to matter to them. Let’s face it these club owners don’t bid for football clubs because they have posters of footballers on their walls growing up.
The protests at least were a chance for United fans to move the needle, getting one of the biggest games in football cancelled will forever be a moment because it shook the Glazers out of their radio silence. If fans could get a game called off it meant angering the TV broadcasters peeved they would have to change things around.
The Hut Group, a British retailer, also withdrew their 200m sponsorship with the club in the wake of the protests. The 2021 protests were bad for business, fans know the Glazers don’t even pretend to care about what happens on the pitch until they absolutely need to.
The protests in 2021 were a response to a callous, bafflingly out of touch move to change the game as we know it for billionaires' insatiable appetite for money. The scheduled protest in 2022 in the same fixture is a reminder that a year on fans remain at odds with the Glazers and rightfully so.
Topics: Manchester United, Liverpool, Premier League
Dharnish Iqbal