Owners only care about the ‘brand’

IF you think the Glazers are overly bothered about paying a £15million severance sum to Jose Mourinho, then consider this.

On January 4, they will pay themselves a £22m dividend. The total paid to the Glazers and other investors in 2017/18 was £22m (approximately £18m to them), £23m in 2016/17 and £20m the previous year.

And it was only just over a year ago when the Glazers’ company sold 4.3m United shares for £56m. Oh and by the way, Jose’s golden farewell will simply be added on to the club’s £485m debt.

Those borrowings can be managed because United remain a commercial giant. But the club became so big because under Sir Alex Ferguson the team played with a trophy-winning style admired worldwide.

Desperate for United to remain a cash cow, the Glazers and their chief banker Ed Woodward (above) maybe realise now they need to get back there.

It has not happened in the five years since Fergie retired, but the longer the mediocrity continued, the stronger the chances of the ‘brand’ being damaged. And the ‘brand’ is the be-all and end-all to the Glazers.

Responding to an investor’s query at a New York conference call, Woodward had this to say back in May.

“Playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business.”

Nauseatingly grim to fans, but Woodward was surely assuming playing performance would at least be high enough to keep them at football’s top table.

That would not have been the long-term case under Mourinho and that is why he’s been sacked.