Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
United have been force for good in pandemic.. pity Glazers continue to cash in while debt rises
LET’S get one thing straight. No one is having a good coronavirus crisis.
Most are doing what comes naturally and would never invite praise.
And what comes naturally is to help others. That is known simply as civilised society.
But there is no doubt Manchester United – along with most other football clubs – have embraced their responsibilities to the community, the country and beyond.
Such has been the game’s response to the pandemic, United’s commitment to provide help – financial and otherwise – is the norm rather than the exception.
But that does not mean it should go unnoticed.
United donated meals, gifts and merchandise to NHS workers, as well as putting a fleet of vehicles and drivers at their disposal.
More than £300,000 has gone towards helping vulnerable families in Manchester and the surrounding areas, while more than £1million is being made in goodwill payments to 3,000 casual match-day staff.
Permanent staff have been protected without the use of the furlough scheme. And, before the lockdown, fans who had booked to travel to Austria for a Europa League game against LASK Linz, which was moved behind closed doors, were compensated in full by the club.
United, executive vicechairman Ed Woodward and the Glazers have, again like so many, responded to this crisis in exemplary fashion.
But the figures donated and committed by United remain only a fraction of the dividends paid to the Glazer family.
The latest came slap-bang in the middle of this crisis. Announced last month, the club were due to make a payment to their owners of £11million on June 3, a couple of days ago.
Of that £11m, about £8m was going to the Glazers. At the start of the year, the Glazers pocketed a dividend of the same amount.
United’s latest financial figures and plans were announced a couple of weeks ago, but it seems supporters are becoming immune to the dispiriting message they send out. Plenty of Glazer dividends like the one paid on Wednesday, more debt loaded on to the club – £429m at the last count.
And don’t forget that, while they are paying dividends to the Glazers, United are deferring payment of a £10m VAT bill to the Government.
They are allowed to do it and most others will be doing it, but it is still not a good look.
Right now, fans have got things other than the Glazers’ continued profiteering to occupy their thoughts.
But in a post-pandemic world, in a world in which those who feel the inevitable recession the most will be the ordinary man, woman, child – the ordinary football fan, the ordinary United fan – maybe supporters will once again rail against this sort of ownership.
Or maybe a post-pandemic world will be one in which the Glazers and their like realise a great football club such as Manchester United is not just an investment vehicle on which to saddle debt and cream off dividends by their tens of millions – but is a football club that can be a force for good as well as finance.
Just as it has been during this crisis.
You can only dream.