This week marks 20 years since the Glazer family acquired a controlling stake in Manchester United, going on to complete one of the most controversial takeovers in football history.
To mark such a significant moment, The Athletic will be running a series of articles and podcasts about the takeover and the 20 years since to go deep into what happened, the consequences for Manchester United and what happens next.
It began yesterday with the retelling of the original takeover and the family who bought United and continues here with an exploration of what the Glazers plan to do next at Manchester United.
As much as it may pain supporters, two decades after their highly controversial £790million takeover, the Glazer family still wields ample influence at Manchester United.
There has, for example, recently been the formation of a chairman’s council, including INEOS figures Sir Dave Brailsford and Rob Nevin, their appointed chief executive Omar Berrada, but then also Mitchell Nusbaum, long-serving Glazer family lawyer and associate.
Nusbaum was pictured sitting alongside Joel Glazer, his fellow co-chairman Avram Glazer and chief operating officer Collette Roche during the Europa League quarter-final first leg in Lyon, shortly after an executive committee meeting (ExCo) in London.
Commercial matters remain of keen interest, too. New chief business officer Marc Armstrong, who has the job of reinvigorating a stagnant stream of income, was summoned Stateside to visit Joel in March alongside Berrada.
You would expect nothing less from a family who are still the single largest shareholders and hold more than two-thirds of the voting power at board level. You also might expect quite a bit more.
But then the Glazers have been true to their word since striking the deal and allowing Sir Jim Ratcliffe to take the wheel. In the words of one person familiar with the organisation, “he’s running everything”. They, like some other people spoken to for this piece, were speaking on condition of anonymity to protect relationships.
It is a far cry from only a few years ago when Joel’s desire to be across every aspect of the club’s operations would involve multiple daily calls to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, spending eight hours a day working on United business from his office in Washington, DC.
Avram has typically been the next most involved. Along with Joel, the 64-year-old had oversight on the much-maligned £60million ($80m at current rates) signing of Casemiro from Real Madrid on a four-year contract with the option of a further year, only a few months before the club was put up for sale. It was a transfer that was of such a scale financially, £350,000 per week contract included, people close to the club suspect it was given the go ahead by the Glazers because of the need to reach the Champions League and make United as appealing to buyers as possible.
At that point, some say the siblings were beginning to pare back their influence on day-to-day operations at Old Trafford, delegating more responsibility following the fallout from the European Super League and Woodward’s subsequent exit, but even now, Joel is said to be still “daily obsessed” with United.
The other four siblings are just as engaged as ever — which is to say, hardly at all. Edward Glazer is a more frequent visitor to Old Trafford than many realise, though, going unnoticed by supporters and journalists alike due to his lower profile.
The youngest of the six at 55 years old, Edward was spotted at The Ivy restaurant in Manchester’s city centre in March before attending the 1-1 draw against Arsenal.
The lesser recognised Edward Glazer at Old Trafford in March (Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
Bryan Glazer was a key influence behind United’s shift in commercial strategy in the years immediately after the takeover and was frequently seen alongside Joel and Avram on club business, although his involvement has dwindled since.
In those early days, it was not unknown for Bryan, Edward, their brother Kevin, and sister Darcie Glazer Kassewitz, who holds the second-most shares of the siblings, behind Joel, to all attend board meetings, with even Darcie’s husband present on occasions.
That was then. Now, it is not so hard to see why each of those four siblings happily accepted $151.5m from Ratcliffe in return for a portion of their shares, the petrochemicals billionaire paying a combined $909.2m to the six Glazers in total.
Despite his deeper emotional investment in United, perhaps those 151.5 reasons were all Joel required to strike a deal, too, although there were clearly other advantages.
The theory that the Glazers were seeking a human shield against the brickbats is downplayed by some people familiar with the situation, who are quick to note the siblings’ thick skin.
But even they admit Ratcliffe’s arrival has taken at least some of the scrutiny off the family, and others believe he provides a useful diversion away from attention on them and sponsors, which have previously borne the brunt of fan protest.
Ratcliffe with Avram Glazer at Wembley last year (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
Ultimately, there was recognition on the Glazers’ part that Ratcliffe’s $1.6bn investment for a mere 28.9 per cent stake required a significant level of influence in return.
The petrochemicals billionaire’s desire to have control over sporting operations was clear throughout the negotiations, and after years of underachievement on the pitch, handing over the reins made sense.
In reality, Ratcliffe’s remit has extended far beyond that — most notably in the drive to cut costs and increase revenues across all aspects of the club’s operations, including those that the Glazers were thought reluctant to touch.
Staff at Old Trafford, Carrington and the club’s London office are currently being put through a second round of redundancies in the space of a year, which could, once complete, result in as many as 450 job losses since Ratcliffe’s arrival.
No department has been safe, not even United’s commercial team — a key driver of the club’s revenue growth over the past two decades and long held to be one of the few aspects of the club’s operations that thrived under the Glazers.
Yet a department rated internally as having a better understanding of global sport sponsorship than leading industry firms IMG, CAA and Wasserman has been gutted without Glazer intervention.
Victoria Timpson and Ali Edge, CEO and director of alliances and partnerships respectively, left the club last year. This summer, they will be followed out of Old Trafford by James Holroyd, chief commercial development officer, and Florence Lafaye, commercial director. Timpson negotiated the $75million-per-year Snapdragon shirt sponsorship. Holroyd, who helped secure the £90m per year Adidas kit deal, has been hired as Burnley’s chief executive for next season.
Ratcliffe was aghast at the level of the expenses being covered by United and commercial executives now fly economy to meetings abroad. Some believe that could have an impact on United’s partnerships in the long run. “It’s a subtle thing,” says one person familiar with the situation. “But you can’t sell a £100m sponsorship deal behaving as if you’re selling typewriters.” The club is without a training kit sponsor for next season, for instance.
Not that the siblings are opposed to cutting costs and, if necessary, jobs. Under Glazer control, United would regularly review staffing levels and trim where necessary, but did so through subtler methods, such as withholding promotions or bonuses to push staff towards an exit.
Such techniques could be more costly in the long run, increasing the risk of litigation, but avoided the wider uncertainty and damage to morale of a redundancy programme. The Glazers were also acutely aware of the inherent negative perception of them due to the manner of their takeover, say people familiar with the situation, and how significant cuts would have exacerbated that image.
United’s mid-season ticket price hike, which saw concessions for children and over-65s eliminated and the cost of all remaining unsold tickets fixed at £66, also raised eyebrows. A five per cent increase on season tickets for the 2025-26 campaign followed.
That was the third successive season ticket price rise in as many years, the other two predating Ratcliffe’s arrival, which proved that the Glazers were not afraid to pass rising costs onto those in the Stretford End either.
Still, those rises followed 11 consecutive years of freezes at Old Trafford, described as a core Glazer policy and a point of pride, albeit between 2005 and 2011 they raised the average ticket price by around six per cent a year, almost double the rate of inflation in the UK over the same period. However, suddenly and drastically introducing a mid-season increase was viewed as something that would not have happened before Ratcliffe assumed control.
Although there is no sense that the Glazers privately oppose such methods, there is surprise at their tacit endorsement by handing over more than sporting control to Ratcliffe and standing by as he pursued a far more aggressive approach to cost-cutting than the siblings ever deemed necessary.
The Glazers remain unpopular, even while Ratcliffe is running much of the operation (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
“The realisation has to be that they completely buy into Jim’s vision,” says one source, reasoning that the degree of trust during the strategic review process allowed for a broadening of Ratcliffe’s initial remit.
Others wonder whether a souring of relations is inevitable at some point, though, and contrast Ratcliffe’s uncompromising style of doing business with the Glazers’ more considered and refined approach, one that was often criticised as being meticulous to a fault. While Ratcliffe seems to thrive in conflict, the Glazers do not like confrontation.
Some people familiar with the situation say they have already observed ripples of discontent and feel that Ratcliffe’s desire to hold ExCos in different locations, primarily suited to him, such as Monaco, has ruffled feathers, making it slightly more inconvenient for the Glazers to attend.
Ratcliffe’s claim that United were at risk of ‘going bust by Christmas’ during his round of interviews this year, widely viewed as out of step with reality, is said by people familiar with the matter not to have sat easily with the family either.
The comments came only weeks after United’s second quarter results, taking in the period up until December 31, in which auditors confirmed that the club would be able to meet all “its obligations when they fall due for a period of at least 12 months after the date of this report”.
Such a frank approach is a marked contrast to the Glazers’ reluctance to communicate on matters related to United, either with journalists or fans.
In Ratcliffe’s defence, and as uncomfortable as it may be for the Glazers, the family know full well that United’s financial health has sharply deteriorated since the Covid-19 pandemic. That was, after all, a major factor behind their decision to go ahead with a strategic review in the first place.
Cash reserves of £307.6m were rapidly depleted during a season played behind closed doors, falling to just £51.5m within a year. They have barely been replenished as spending on transfer fees and player salaries has risen unabated.
Additionally, the sale price Chelsea fetched in 2022 — £2.5billion plus £1.75bn investment — prompted debate among those in the hierarchy over what that would mean United are worth. Ratcliffe’s late bid for Chelsea in that process would not have gone unnoticed by the Glazer family.
There is also the cost of the four-letter word most closely associated with the Glazers’ ownership: debt.
The family’s 2005 leveraged buyout placed a club that had previously been debt-free since 1931 in the red for £580m. United’s debt pile stands at £731.5m, not including more than £300m owed in transfer fees to other clubs.
Last season, the cost of servicing that financial debt through interest payments hit £37.2m, the most in nearly a decade, and had already reached £17m by the midway point of the current campaign.
The prevailing view following United’s last debt refinancing in 2015 was that such costs would remain manageable, yet they will almost certainly rise when the only tranche of the club’s debt that carries a fixed interest rate matures in two years and will require renegotiation.
That complicates Ratcliffe’s ambitions for a new 100,000-capacity stadium. When the INEOS founder unveiled his plans at the petrochemical company’s offices in Knightsbridge in March, the announcement did not carry any comment from a Glazer family member.
Perhaps that should not come as a surprise. Building a ‘Wembley of the North’ has been Ratcliffe’s pet project from the moment his feet were under the table at United.
Some people familiar with the organisation say the Glazers often investigated the potential for a New Trafford, with claims they even reserved space for a newly built stadium when planning land purchases around the existing site. Yet they regularly ran up against the question of funding and financing. Accomplishing such a project while putting a successful or at least competitive side out on the pitch was viewed as too difficult.
A view of Ratcliffe’s proposed new Old Trafford (Manchester United/Foster & Partners)
That remains the single biggest obstacle to Ratcliffe’s vision, too, and will almost inevitably involve adding more debt, but people familiar with the matter suggest that as a new stadium would increase the value of an asset that is still Glazer-owned, the siblings have reasoned there is no harm in letting their minority partner try.
Unveiling plans for a new stadium before financing had been secured or there was anything tangible to say on government input felt to some experienced observers like a strategic move by Ratcliffe to change fan sentiment after he had been criticised for ticket price rises and mass redundancies. Ratcliffe hinted in his media interviews that the negative media affects him. “If (the criticism) reached the extent that the Glazer family have been abused, I’d have to say, ‘Look, enough’s enough guys, let somebody else do this’,” he told the BBC. United insist the announcement was made due to the momentum of the project after the Old Trafford task force returned its findings.
As part of acquiring his stake, Ratcliffe has already injected $300m into United’s coffers for the “redevelopment and renovation” of Old Trafford. Although much of that cash has already been swallowed up covering mounting costs, the intention is for it to be recovered and spent on the stadium project.
It is worth noting, too, that last year’s 14D-9 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the deal’s agreement revealed Ratcliffe’s $300m investment was stipulated by the Glazers, who demanded a “substantial primary investment” as a condition of accepting his offer (albeit they wanted to make up for the Covid-19 shortfall).
That lends credence to the theory that by having Ratcliffe invest, amid a shallow pool of potential suitors, the Glazers have primed their minority partner to buy the club outright in future.
Two people who either work with or used to work for the club have thought privately that the Glazers allowing Ratcliffe to make sweeping changes at United, many of which go against their ethos and fundamentally affect their stake, would make greater sense if there was a verbal agreement for a future transfer of the remaining Class B shares. However, such an unwritten code would be against SEC rules and, regardless, United categorically deny any verbal agreement exists.
“Joel cares about United, but he cares about getting money for his family,” says one person familiar with the situation.
That the Glazers were open to a full sale is a matter of record, not only because that possibility was mentioned when announcing the strategic review.
The same filing to the SEC also revealed that in May 2023, after rejecting a revised offer from Sheikh Jassim, the Glazers indicated to the Qatari royal that “a price of $35.25 per ordinary share would be considered” — valuing a full sale of the club at $5.8bn. Jassim consistently failed to provide proof of funds.
Ratcliffe, however, consistently stopped short of offering to buy the club in full. His initial preference, as confirmed by the SEC filing, was to purchase a controlling stake by buying only the Glazers’ Class B shares, which carry 10 times the voting power of United’s publicly traded Class A shares.
United’s board rejected that proposal as it would have invited litigation from Class A shareholders, an issue that Richard Arnold, the chief executive at the time, and Joel fell out over. Arnold, with fiduciary duties to United, believed the Glazers had announced their intention to sell the club, so they should honour that to the market.
Arnold disagreed with Joel Glazer (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
Once it became clear that the Glazers could not countenance any deal that treated Class A and B shareholders differently, Ratcliffe offered to buy 25 per cent of each category, rising to 28.9 per cent — the minority stake that the two parties ultimately shook hands on.
“That told you that he couldn’t afford to buy the whole club and so, irrelevant of the Qatari approach and stance, he defaulted to that because it’s the only way he could get any involvement,” says Lord Jim O’Neill.
Formerly Goldman Sachs’ chief economist, O’Neill is also a one-time United director and a Red Knight — the collective of wealthy, influential United supporters who attempted to buy the club from the Glazers in 2010.
“Whether (Ratcliffe) knew or not at the time, he basically gave the Glazer family what they wanted,” O’Neill adds. “To have significant ownership but a very large amount of cash that could be split up between the six siblings and keep some of them happy that aren’t too interested in Manchester United, other than the ability to take money.”
To some, this reluctance to immediately pursue a full takeover is enough reason to question whether Ratcliffe has the means or the motivation to return to the negotiating table and buy the Glazers’ remaining shares.
The existing agreement did not include any formal mechanism for Ratcliffe to push through a full sale, although it did provide a right of first offer, allowing him to counter any bid that the Glazers receive for their Class B shares. The siblings have the same right over any offer Ratcliffe receives, too.
Yet only the Glazers have the power of drag-along rights, which will soon allow the family to compel Ratcliffe to join in a full sale of the club if he fails to match any offer they receive from a third party for their shares.
The drag-along rights will come into effect in around three months — a year and a half after Ratcliffe made his minority investment.
If the Glazers were to compel their joint-partner to sell before the third anniversary of the deal, Ratcliffe would be due at least $33 per share for his stake and make all his money back. Beyond that point, however, he could be dragged along for whatever price the Glazers are willing to accept.
That raises the potential for Ratcliffe’s minority stake to be swept from underneath him, potentially after spades are in the ground on any new stadium, or even once it is fully open and operational. Under the terms of the existing agreement, it is a prospect that cannot be discounted.
Only the Glazers know whether that would ever appeal should the opportunity arise, and as several people familiar with the matter stress, only the siblings themselves know their long-term intentions.
As far as Ratcliffe’s plans go, INEOS has been shedding interests in other sports. There was the acrimonious split between Sir Ben Ainslie and Ratcliffe over the British team in the America’s Cup, while INEOS is in a legal dispute with New Zealand Rugby over the failure to pay the latest instalment of its £3.7m-a-year sponsorship deal.
INEOS is also ending its commercial agreement with Tottenham Hotspur, which sees the company’s logo on dugout seats and advertising boards at their north London stadium, two years ahead of time.
In response to the New Zealand case, INEOS cited “high taxes” and “the deindustrialisation of Europe” causing issues for the chemicals industry, stating: ”We have had to implement cost-saving measures across the business.”
Two leading credit agencies downgraded their outlook for INEOS to “negative” because of significant debt piles. Ratcliffe’s personal investment in United was transferred to INEOS in December 2024.
One person familiar with the business separates the Glazers’ ownership to date into phases — post-takeover, with Sir Alex Ferguson still bringing success but little in the way of succession planning; post-Ferguson, when progress off the pitch commercially was not matched on it; and post-Covid-19, when the balance sheet has taken as many beatings as the club’s beleaguered managers.
The question, they say, is whether the upheaval of the past year is the beginning of the post-Glazer era or if there is a post-Ratcliffe era to come. “Maybe there is another phase coming.”
For now, Ratcliffe’s arrival has provided an opportunity for the Glazers to step back from the day-to-day, shuffle slightly out of the spotlight, pocket a cool $151.5m each, and see whether a different hand at the tiller could reap better results on and off the pitch.
The jury, on both those counts, is out, making the future far from certain.
Additional reporting: Adam Crafton
Tomorrow: Welcome to Tampa, the US city where the Glazers have a different reputation.
(Top photo: Lucy North/PA Images, Mike Egerton/EMPICS, Michael Driver | MI News/NurPhoto/Getty Images, Michael Regan/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)