Manchester United to sell players and stadium to pay off £700m debt
BURIED under mountains of debt and interest payments, Manchester United’s American owners have decided to cash in their star players and get rid of the club’s debt in an ambitious plan to be debt-free by 21 December 2012.
While raising the £700m or so required to service the debt + interest payments is no small task, the Glazers are certain that their money-scrimping American ways coupled with naked extortion of the fans will help Manchester United debt-free and hence on the path to being the biggest, richest and most powerful football club ever ™.
Proposed fundraising activities include:
* Selling star players - such as Ronaldo, Rooney, Ferdinand, Carrick, Hargreaves, Evra, Nani and Anderson. These players will be replaced from the most promising members of the first-team / youth squad, and it is believed that Manchester United have enough depth in their ranks to survive the loss of such front-line players.
* Terminating contracts for high-maintenance, low-value OAPs such as Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Edwin van der Sar. Some reports suggest that the money saved on the combined wages for these players plus the star players sold above will help fund another expansion of Old Trafford to help increase stadium capacity to 100,000, thus pissing on Wembley.
* Dropkicking deadwood out of the club - yes, we’re talking of Louis Saha and Mikael Silvestre. The transfer fee from selling these players will be used to buy an Arab, a South African, an Egyptian, a Turk, an American, a Mexican, an Australian, a Canadian and even an Indian. This is all part of Manchester United’s push for globalisation and tapping new markets to - yes, you guessed it - squeeze more money out of the club.
* Pushing Sir Alex Ferguson into retirement (he’s going to win the Champions League this season, after all) and bringing Roy Keane on board. There are rumours that the reserves team might be scrapped and the money to be spent more on the scouting network in an effort to find young talent - as young as 6 years in some cases - to bring to Old Trafford. The money saved on managerial wages is to be used to setup a cheerleader squad whose main aim will be to distract referees, distract opposition players and distract opposition managers (in that order). Fans will be asked to pay for the traveling expenses of the Manchester United Cheerleaders Squad (MUCS).
* Selling 50% of Old Trafford to Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra after the expansion to 100k in a unique ground-sharing bid. This will net Manchester United £300m plus the rights to the City of Manchester stadium, which they will then develop and sell off to raise another £100m.
Already United have made deals for Ronaldo, Rooney and Ferdinand, as well as arranged for Tevez’s contract to be terminated at the end of this season in exchange for a £10m payment by an unknown club. Many more players are expected to leave in this summer exodus, and the Glazers hope to make around £300m in transfer fee earnings this summer. Coupled with the potential sale of Old Trafford in 2010 (once the 100k capacity is reached) to net Manchester United another £400m, Manchester United look set to meet their debt targets by 21 December 2012, the date set by Malcolm Glazer.
Sources close to the Glazers say that if Manchester United are not debt-free by this date, it could mean the end of the world.
No comments yet on the rumours that Glazers will help the Thailand police to frame and arrest Thaksin Shinawatra in return for getting back their 50% of the stadium - all before 21 December 2012.
Potential Manchester United starting lineup (08/09)
Kuszczak, Simpson, Pique, Evans, O’Shea, Fletcher, Park, Gibson, Welbeck, Dong, Campbell
Do you think that Manchester United can win the Premier League with this squad next season?
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Some fucking estimate.