‘Have you noticed how things just happen to the directors of Manchester United? They are the boardroom equivalents of Forrest Gump, at the centre of everything yet strangely innocent, disengaged and unknowing. Since summer 2001, the club have spent £161.77 million on players. In that time, seismic events, upheavals and huge changes have taken place; Machiavellian plots have been schemed, leading characters emerged and retreated, there have been feuds and fights, triumph and catastrophe, and none of it seems to make an impression. Think of the past year: the spectre of Malcolm Glazer, the increasing fear that an era of unparalleled domination is coming to an end, the chief executive jumping ship to rivals in London, the main shareholders on the warpath and the FA openly hostile. It all washes over the board at United. Friday is the annual meeting at Old Trafford. What is there to do? Run, Forrest, run.
“You have to do the best with what God gave you.”
Since buying Ruud van Nistelrooy, Manchester United have spent £66.3 million on strikers alone, to be rewarded with 11 league goals in 12 games this season (or one fewer than Crystal Palace, Manchester City and Charlton Athletic). Chelsea have spent wildly but constructed a team that is top of the table. United’s comparable outlay has failed not only to maintain the standards of what was until recently the best team in the country, it is now producing the poorest goalscoring return of any club in the top 13. Only six teams have scored fewer than United this season — the bottom four, plus Tottenham Hotspur and Birmingham City. For the first time since the Champions League accepted four teams from one country, there are grounds for speculation over whether Manchester United will qualify for next season’s tournament. Yet had John Magnier and J. P. McManus, the major shareholders, not intervened, motivated largely by an incidental grudge over a racehorse, Sir Alex Ferguson would be less than 12 months into a three-year contract and painfully difficult to shift, whatever this season brings. If United’s fortunes do not improve and the club are driven to find a replacement as manager in the summer, the room to manoeuvre will have come despite the actions of the board, not because of them.
“That’s how I got my name: Forrest Gump. Mama said the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don’t make no sense.”
Like being railroaded into buying Wayne Rooney. Right player, right club, wrong time. Manchester United rushed into paying a peak price of £27 million for a teenage striker who was not fit, having spent almost £20 million on support for Van Nistelrooy in the previous eight months. It was an unnecessary move, sparked when Paul Stretford, Rooney’s agent, called United’s bluff by flagging up interest from Newcastle United. Rooney is a fine player, but United had more pressing needs. Roy Keane, their most important player since Eric Cantona, is now being allowed to wind to an inelegant stop without adequate replacement. A top-quality successor should cost almost as much as Rooney — but have the board put all their eggs in Stretford’s basket?
“I got a call from him saying we don’t have to worry about money no more. And I said: ‘That’s good.’ One less thing.”
While Ferguson struggles with complacency on the field, shareholders must ponder whether similar self-satisfaction has set in at board level. In the past year, United gave £5.5 million to agents (possibly rising to £8.5 million with bonuses) to attract players, most of whom stated they would have walked on hot coals to Old Trafford. Rodger Linse, Van Nistelrooy ’s agent, is due £1.202 million for persuading him to sign a new contract, despite the player’s insistence that he wanted to stay. Cristiano Ronaldo joined from United’s feeder club, Sporting Lisbon, and still £1.1 million was paid to Giovanni Branchi; Pini Zahavi drew £500,000 for getting rid of Juan Sebastián Verón. Would it not have been cheaper for David Gill to ring round personally? What is a chief executive for if not to negotiate transfers and salaries? Still, one less thing.
“Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
Except Manchester United do, now. From the FA, it gets the shaft — at every opportunity since the Rio Ferdinand affair. Arsenal turn the tunnel at Old Trafford into a remake of Animal House and the FA chooses to have a word with Arsène Wenger about his post-match interview, while banning Van Nistelrooy for three matches. Nobody at Soho Square will admit to score-settling, but the contempt the United board showed for the governing body when Ferdinand missed a drugs test — starting with Gill’s first contact with Mark Palios, through Ferguson’s conversations with Sven-Göran Eriksson and on to director Maurice Watkins’s handling of the matter legally — may turn out to be the clumsiest political move since Peter Mandelson went house-hunting.
Recruitment officer: “Have you given any thought to your future, son?” Forrest Gump: “Thought?”
Losing Peter Kenyon to Chelsea was not disastrous, but United’s unwariness smacked of an organisation without its finger on the pulse. Kenyon and Chelsea then hijacked the deal for Arjen Robben, the Holland winger, after United’s ham-fisted negotiations contrived to upset PSV Eindhoven (a similar mistake had been made with Ronaldinho and Paris Saint-Germain). Right now, Robben is proving crucial to Chelsea’s title pretensions, just as he would have been the perfect heir to Ryan Giggs on the left of United’s midfield, and perhaps the key to their faltering season. In years to come, the loss of Robben may prove more significant than Kenyon’s change of camps. United seemed unprepared for either.
“Stupid is as stupid does.”
Allowing your most powerful shareholders to argue with your wilful manager over a matter unrelated to the football club. Stupid. Letting the row escalate, failing to spot the danger signals and foolishly insisting it remains a personal matter. Stupider. Watching dumbly as it reaches war footing, seeping into every aspect of club business, resulting in investigations into financial, business and team matters, boardroom mutiny, disruption, public humiliation and a very uneasy truce. Stupidest.
“I don’t know if we each have a destiny or if we’re all floating around accidental — like on a breeze.”
What is Glazer’s next move as he plots to seize control of Manchester United? The board is guessing. At what stage would Magnier and McManus be prepared to sell their major shareholding? The board does not know. What steps are being taken to ward off this hostile takeover? In a game of chess, United’s directors would be trying to protect the king from attack with three pawns and a knight.
Checkmate. Even experts in corporate law largely talk of United defending their position by attempting to win hearts and minds, rather than by outwitting Glazer in any business arena. They stop short of conceding that resistance is futile, because Glazer needs 75 per cent to mount a leverage bid (rough translation: he doesn’t really have the money and needs to borrow against the company he is buying to get it), but the boardroom position is not strong. United are largely owned by a small group of men who have no intention of setting foot inside Old Trafford and whose relationship with the directors is distant and cold. Gill has met the Glazer family but claims he did not discuss their intentions towards his football club.
Meanwhile, since last year, the United board has largely communicated with Magnier and McManus through lawyers. This is staggeringly naive. A hostile takeover by an unwelcome candidate has been an accident waiting to happen since United floated in 1991. A more streetwise group would have spotted the signs long ago and made it their business to forge cordial, open relationships with the leading contenders. Instead, United directors stood idly by while two leading financial players were sued by the manager and turned into hate figures by supporters. They met the third as recently as last summer but were apparently struck dumb. Now, they twist in the wind, with no clue of who might cut them down. Forrest managed only to get capped in the ass in Vietnam. At Manchester United that would make him brains of the operation.