The Malcolm Glazer Takeover

The Malcolm Glazer Takeover

In late 2004, Malcolm Glazer, an American billionaire who also owned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, made a bid to take over the club. The bid was extremely controversial due to his plan to saddle the club with millions of pounds in debt. Glazer was also seen as wanting the profit from Manchester United's worldwide popularity, rather than investing out of a sincere love of the club and the sport. Glazer began buying up shares of United and managed to oust three directors from the board in November 2004, but his takeover bid seemed to have stalled as a 28.7% stake held by Irish horse-racing tycoons John Magnier and JP McManus seemed secure.

The football world was thus shocked when, on May 12th, 2005, Magnier and McManus sold their stake to Glazer for £3 a share, giving Glazer the majority shareholding. This immediately sparked angry protests from United fans, who protested angrily that their club was "not for sale" and burned season ticket renewal forms. On May 16th, 2005 Glazer took control of the 75% stake needed to delist the club from the stock exchange, which he has promised to do.

Under the shadow of this controversy, United went to the Millenium Stadium to defend the FA Cup. Despite clearly dominating the game, United were simply unlucky and they lost on penalties to arch-rivals Arsenal. This capped off a disappointing season where they finished third in the league, adrift of the champions, Roman Abramovich-bankrolled Chelsea.