What next for the Glazers at Man United?

Talk of the Devils: The Athletic FC's Manchester United show

The Athletic

Sports, Soccer,

4.6 • 639 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the second of a two-part Talk of the Devils Extra, a detailed history of the controversial purchase and subsequent ownership of Manchester United by American investor Malcolm Glazer and his six children.

Part one, referenced heavily in this conversation, tells the story of the Glazer takeover in 2005 with contributions from three key perspectives; fan activist Andy Walsh, former Labour Minister for Sport Richard Caborn, and ex-United board member, economist Jim O'Neill.

Now we will bring the story up to the present day, analyse the impact of the Glazer era, the relationship between the Glazers and minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, get a glimpse of the Glazers in Tampa Bay, and try to forecast the future of United's ownership.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic FC Podcast Network.
0:06.1	Welcome to this talk of the devil's extra part two of our special episodes
0:28.1	marking 20 years of glazer ownership at Manchester United.
0:32.4	In part one, which you should go back and listen to if you missed it before listening to
0:36.5	this, we recounted the tale of how the takeover came to be with contributions from all different sides of the story.
0:43.2	We had fan activist and FC United founder Andy Walsh, former Minister for Sport Richard Kaybourne,
0:49.2	and leading economist and ex-United board member Jim O'Neill.
0:53.0	We'll be hearing more from those three over the course of this show.
0:56.6	But first, let me welcome in my talk of the devil's colleagues, Andy Mitten and Laurie Whitwell.
1:01.6	And also joining us from the US is athletic writer Adam Crafton,
1:05.7	someone who's written, of course, extensively on business operations at Manchester United
1:10.3	and has also recently been to Tampa
1:12.7	to assess the glazer's impact over there. Gentlemen, welcome. We're going to look at the club in
1:18.2	2025 in just a moment, but first, let's go back to 2005 again and listening to part one and the
1:24.3	story of the takeover, was there anything in particular that stuck out to you
1:28.6	or maybe that you viewed differently now than you did back then? Andy, I'll start with you
1:32.9	because you were actually a proper adult when this all happened back in 2005. And I remember
1:38.3	it and you were still kids. Richard Caborn having reservations, I feel, saying that what he did then was the right
1:48.4	decision at the time, but now those decisions may not have aged well. The vindication that
1:56.4	the fan protests of the time, the concerns of the time came to pass.
2:07.1	I'm fascinated that 20 years on, a subject that you feel like, you know, inside out, you keep learning new details.
2:08.6	Sometimes in our game, things sort of seep out years after the event.
	...

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