From the 'The Campaign' section of the NOT FOR $AL£ website:

To visit the website, please click here.

Why is our club Not For Sale?

Since 1998 Manchester United supporters who own shares in the club have been committed to preserving its history and tradition from those who see it as nothing more than a financial investment.

How it began
In 1998, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, through his company BSkyB, proposed to purchase Manchester United plc outright. A group of concerned supporters who owned shares in the Club banded together to fight the takeover on grounds that it would be highly detrimental to supporters. They called themselves Shareholders United Against Murdoch (SUAM).

Together the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, SUAM played a vital vital role in defeating Murdoch’s bid. And they did it with far fewer members and far smaller a shareholding than today’s organization, now called simply Shareholders United.

We have succeeded before and we WILL succeed again.

If investors are allowed to buy the club, supporters could lose everything. First, you would lose the accountability the club has - legally, financially, and ethically - to its supporters.

Legally
Regardless of your feelings about the plc, the club’s current structure allows ordinary supporters – people who actually care about the club and its footballing success – to own shares. Ownership carries legal rights and makes the club’s management beholden to YOU. If the club is taken private, you lose these rights.

Financially
Similarly, a public company has the responsibility to prudently manage, accurate track, and frequently report its finances to its owners and its regulators. This “open book” policy ensures the club’s solvency and viability as an ongoing concern. If the club is taken private, it not only needn’t disclose its finances, it also need not manage them wisely.

Ethically
Manchester United FC is first and foremost a football club with a long and incontestable link to its supporters. If investors are allowed to take over the club, personal profit gets prioritised over football.

Next, you would lose monetarily as these investors would begin fleecing fans to pay for their excess and fatten their own wallets.

You lose
Because of United’s high valuation, anyone attempting to buy the club would likely need additional financing – a loan – to complete the transaction. Whom do you think is going bear the burden of paying it off? You don’t really think the money is going to come out of their pockets do you? An investor would be borrowing against future earnings. OUR EARNINGS.

And when these same Investors promise big swoops in the transfer market, who do you think will be underwriting at least part of those costs?

What many supporters misunderstand is that if someone were to spend millions to buy our club, this would not put a single penny of NEW money into Manchester United. The buyers would simply be buying shares off other shareholders.

People think - mistakenly - that a takeover will bring a cash injection into the club. We already make excess profits but big shareholders (like Malcolm Glazer) cream them off in dividends. Imagine how much more would go out if he owned the club himself? If we need a cash injection we should suspend the dividend that Glazer has been only to happy to take. And if we need more money a new issue of shares would bring NEW money into the club and give supporters the chance to get something in return instead of just paying through increased ticket prices.

Finally, if an Investor were to take the club private you can say goodbye to sensible prices. United’s ticket prices presently are among the cheapest because supporter-shareholders make this issue a priority with the club’s management. At Stamford Bridge their cheapest seats go for £40. Guess why? You'll see the same thing with merchandise prices and TV subscriptions as well.

Finally, you would lose spiritually as the investors, realising their money cannot guarantee success, continue to extract money from the club allowing it to decay both competitively and financially.

To visit the website, please click here.