The Glazer family would need to turn Man Utd into a “profitable vehicle on an extreme level” to make the Premier League club worth around £10bn.
Man Utd have been up for sale for around six months. There has been a lot of interest in the club, with Sheikh Jassim and Sir Jim Ratcliffe keen to finalise a full sale to oust the Glazer family.
But it is yet to be seen whether the Glazer family are open to a full sale. They need an influx of investment to afford them the funds to modernize Old Trafford and the club’s Carrington training ground.
The current owners may opt to sell a minority stake in the Premier League club to an investment fund. This third party would purely be there to provide them with extra cash.
Earlier this month, it was claimed that the Glazer family are ‘increasingly confident of securing the outside investment’ needed to see them remain at Man Utd for another ten years, with their overall aim being to increase the club’s value to ‘at least £10bn’.
Speaking earlier this year, Gary Neville claimed that a minority takeover would be the “nightmare scenario” for United.
“One of the rumours we heard about before Christmas was that they were going to stay, and try and find ‘strategic investment’, which is something FSG [Fenway Sports Group] have mentioned at Liverpool,” Neville said.
“That means you buy part of the family out, you leave Joel and Avi Glazer in, but Joel and Avi will retain control of the club. That’s a nightmare scenario.”
Finance expert Kieran Maguire has now warned the Glazer family that it will be difficult for them to increase United’s value to £10bn.
“Manchester United in its present state is not worth £6billion let alone £10billion. The Glazers will be looking at Man United’s global audience and how to part with more cash,” Maguire told Football Insider.
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“If we take the 1.1 billion followers that Man United regularly cite in their annual report as a factor that they can monetise, then they only generate on average about 53p per fan every season.
“They only have to double that and suddenly they go from a £600million-a-year business to a £1.2bn-a-year business.
“If that became possible, the club would be a profitable vehicle on an extreme level – even if part of that money flows through to increased headcount and wages.
“However, opening that revenue stream has been the Pandora’s box that many big clubs have tried to crack over the last 20 years with no success.
“But in a world with everchanging technology, bringing Old Trafford to fans around the world might now be easier than bringing fans to Old Trafford.“
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