The Glazers: Back To The Bogeyman …
After two weeks of transfer frenzy bliss, the Glazers have returned to their roles as Old Trafford bogeymen.
The Automatic Ticket Scheme has given the Glazers their worst press in a month, just when it seemed as though United’s owners might lay claim to a grudging acceptance.
After all, the team thrilled as the Premiership title came back home. If that wasn’t enough, in came £50 million worth of talent in Nani, Anderson and Hargreaves.
Newspaper hack Brian Viner, gave voice to the new mood when he suggested in the Independent that “the United fans who waged a campaign of hatred against the Glazer family should be feeling a little apologetic.”
Yet within a week, Viner had completed the fastest somersault seen this side of the Olympics. The Glazers are not the good guys after all.
“I was ridiculously wide of the mark,” he blubbed. “I realise that what I wrote was ill-considered and naïve.”
Viner’s mea culpa may have been exaggerated and even a little tongue in cheek but media apologies are rarely this spectacular. Even the Manchester Evening News, a journal used to employing all the ferocity of a dead sheep when discussing the Glazer take-over, found common cause with the protest movement.
One hack wrote: “There will be more price increases, more ways of screwing every last penny out of the support, until there is a threat of empty seats. Then the Glazer family will either ease off or cut and run.
“Talk to people in the Glazer camp and one thing becomes crystal clear - the economic cleansing of Old Trafford is not yet over.”
Such bad press is the fall-out from United’s ill-advised Automatic Cup Ticket scheme. Regulars are now forced to buy tickets for all Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup matches at Old Trafford.
“Under the scheme, fans are issued and billed for cup-match tickets whether they want them or not,” the BBC explained. “Fans who did not want their tickets for cup matches would be able to sell them for face value to other members.”
The scheme threatens diehard fans with additional annual expenses which some estimates claim could be as much as £380.
“A season ticket that cost £400 in 1995 could now be more than £1,000 in the end,” said Colin Hendrie, of the Independent Manchester United Supporters’ Association. “We are very unhappy with what has happened.”
But all the disappointment of Hendrie and his chums will not sway United from their decision.
“All we’ve done is redefine what a season is, away from purely a League season, to be a whole season,” a spokesman said. “We’ve a waiting list of 14,000 for season tickets and we regularly turned 5,000 people away for Premiership games last season. Three-quarters of our fans were signed up anyway, and of the remaining 25%, all went to at least one cup game last season.”
Well, that’s alright then.
Expect more tales of the sort that have Eto’o or Tevez meeting with Manchester estate agents, as United’s spin machine tries to dig the club out of this latest self-inflicted public relations disaster.
