Avram Glazer breaks cover to offer bleak take on Man Utd future that fans should fully endorse
A rare speaking appearance from Avram Glazer at a sports investment conference in London is set to light a fire under Manchester United protestors imploring him to sell the club and release them from his tyrannical regime. But if anything they should be endorsing and encouraging the bleak, abhorrent beliefs of their owner in an auditorium full of potential investors.
The Red Devils fans were granted brief respite from their miserable existence on Tuesday as Matheus Cunha inspired a dramatic comeback against Roma to secure their first victory in nearly two months.
Michael Carrick is widely expected to lose his job having been handed the permanent reins in the summer and a new manager – likely Eddie Howe or Julian Nagelsmann – will be tasked with getting a tune out of a group of players who have consistently sullied the good name of Manchester United.
To nowhere near the same extent as the deplorable owners of the football club however.
The fans are angry, if not in the least bit surprised by what they’re watching, and as chaos reigns on the pitch, green and gold balloons are being waved in the Stretford End in protest at club executives and the owners, accompanied by songs targeting the guilty parties.
They know that the only possible way to fix Manchester United is through new ownership. The Glazers and the right-wing straw man they brought into the mix nearly three years ago have to go.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe promised the “best in class” when he arrived in February 2024 and has done the exact opposite. No top football club would have Jason Wilcox and Michael Carrick as the pair responsible for carrying out their footballing vision.
But after saddling Man Utd with £600m worth of debt following their leveraged takeover 21 years ago, almost all of the problems the club has suffered since, on and off the field, can be attributed to the absentee Glazers.
They hold a 72% stake in the club and also retain full control of any potential sale due to a so-called “drag-along clause” in their agreement with Ratcliffe which means the petrochemicals chief will be required to dispense with his stake if they sell to a third party.
A report last month suggested the Glazers could be ‘triggered’ into selling either by Manchester City’s relegation following their guilty verdict or after the redevelopment of Old Trafford. The Manchester United fans won’t care why they sell as long as they do; having someone in charge who cares even a tiny bit about the club’s sporting success would be a blessing.
Glazer’s appearance at Deutsche Bank’s inaugural Sports Investment Conference in London can be seen as a positive step towards his sale of the club. Sources told The Athletic that ‘his presence suggests he is keeping an open mind on investment opportunities, and his remarks about United are to show the club in the best possible light in that regard’.
Those remarks will come as no surprise to anyone, but serve as a reminder as to just what a damaging presence have been and remain.
He confirmed to an audience of financiers that Manchester United are ‘not dependent on success on the pitch for commercial power’ as he ‘argued his club’s value is incubated from the effects of sporting variance in the same way as the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys still stand out as major global brands’.
The Yankees last won a World Series in 2009, the Cowboys have gone without winning the Super Bowl since 1995 and Manchester United haven’t won the Premier League title since 2013 when Sir Alex Ferguson retired.
Man Utd remain a commercial giant, behind only Barcelona ($7.5bn) and Real Madrid ($9.5bn) in the 2026 Forbes list of most-valuable clubs with a worth of $7.2 billion, but they have slipped from second place in 2025 and revenue which rose sharply after Ferguson’s last season from £152m to £276m in 2017/18 has now plateaued, with the 2025-26 figure reported as £317m.
Those figures suggest commercial power is indeed tied to sporting success despite Avram Glazer’s insistence to the contrary.
Not that the Manchester United fans should be concerned by the American owner looking to pull the wool over the eyes of potential investors. To the contrary, they should be rooting for Glazer to attend as many as these conferences as possible to force the robustness of the club’s commercial revenue down the necks of anyone who will listen.
The only way the supporters will be granted freedom from his oppression is through an alternative owner being convinced that Manchester United is a worthy investment.
If that’s not going to happen on the pitch, the task falls to the Glazers in rooms full largely we suspect of like-minded mercenaries, though with a few absurdly rich good eggs who might just see Manchester United as a football club.