The Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) claim owners the Glazers have drained more than £1 billion from the club since taking it over, reports the Daily Star.
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On the ten year anniversary of the Americans taking over the Red Devils, the supporters group have chosen to remind fans of the controversy that has dogged the club since the Glazers took over. They bought the side for £790 million in 2005, and put the debt from the move on to the team.
This has angered some supporters so much that they have created a rival club named FC United as a result. However, United have continued to do well on the pitch despite their off field problems, with five Premier League titles and a Champions League coming during their tenure. Even so the trust are unhappy with the Glazers and believe that this success would have happened with or without them.
A MUST statement said: “Not investing a single penny might be considered an ‘ownership crime’ by fans at most clubs but far worse than that they (the Glazers) have actually extracted colossal sums from Manchester United.
“When all interest and charges on their leveraged buyout is added up, plus money they’ve paid themselves, plus related debt still on the club, they’ve taken more than £1BILLION and it’s still rising. No owner in the history of football in any country, ever, has taken so much money from a club.”
It continued: “When the Glazers took over in 2005 we already had an exciting young squad including Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. With continued investment that squad should have gone on to dominate Europe for years but the Glazer era squandered that golden chance and although still successful on the pitch it has to go down, in Europe in particular, as a decade of wasted opportunity.
“United should have knocked Liverpool off their European perch too by surpassing their five European Cups. It seems very likely we would have done had it not been for financial austerity imposed by the Glazers’ ownership.”