Former Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards has said he expects supporters to be furious with Avram Glazer's recent comments about the club and accused the owners of getting their priorities wrong.
According to The Athletic, Glazer told financiers at Deutsche Bank's inaugural Sports Investment Conference in London in September that Manchester United, like the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys, is a brand that will remain commercially successful regardless of on-pitch performance.
Fans want trophies, not profits
Edwards, who led the club from 1980 to 2003, said fans will react badly to that sentiment and urged the owners to focus on improving the team.
“I heard that this morning and I thought 'By Jove, what's the reaction going to be from the supporters?' Supporters don't want to hear that!” Edwards said on talkSPORT. “Supporters want to hear that you're winning trophies. They're not interested in profits or dividends or what people are taking out of the club. They want the club to be successful, they want the best players, they'd rather be spending money on the team than on the new stadium.”
Balancing responsibilities
Edwards acknowledged that running a club of United's size involves balancing the needs of various stakeholders, but he believes the current balance is off.
“When I was running United, I always felt I had three responsibilities, really,” he said. “One: in those days we were still developing the ground, so I had to build the ground and develop the ground. Look after the team, which is always the most important. But also, because we were public we had to pay dividends and keep the shareholders happy.”
He added: “I think it's quite clear, in my eyes, that the team is the most important element at the moment. You've got to get the team right and forget new stadiums if you're not going to fill them. Get the team winning again and get the supporters behind you. We're not a united front at the moment.”
A changed game
Edwards said the landscape of top-flight football has changed considerably since his time in charge, and not all for the better.
“You've got owners now who don't attend games. They put somebody in charge, whatever else,” he said. “Existing owners now, they wouldn't know who's in the team.”
He added: “It's become big business and what you can get out of it. The game has changed and for the older ones of us it's disappointing, really, the direction it's gone.”
Edwards traced the start of United's decline as a title contender to the departures of Alex Ferguson and chief executive David Gill in 2013, and the appointment of Ed Woodward as Gill's replacement.
“Once Alec and David Gill decided to leave in 2013, that was a huge blow to the club and they've never really recovered from that,” he said. “If you wanted to be critical you'd say right from the beginning when they replaced David Gill, they replaced him with not a football man, but a merchant banker.”
“Recruitment has been a big problem. Look at the players they've bought, some of them haven't been up to the standard. Generally it snowballs. That's been the problem.”
He also questioned whether United have spent enough to compete at the top, noting that Manchester City have had a huge short-term advantage because they have not been sticking to the rules, while United could have competed with Liverpool and Arsenal.
