Through sheer negligence and gross mismanagement, Manchester United are falling behind the teams that used to be the butt of the jokes. Roy Keane once spoke of Sir Alex Ferguson’s minimalist team talk at White Hart Lane. Lads, it’s Tottenham. The tables have turned. As the Glazer family carelessly funnel money out of Manchester United, this once-great institution loses its lustre, its standing and the time it will take to ever regain that crown becomes even greater.
As recently as 2007, AC Milan were unquestionably the kings of European football. Now, they are nowhere. Manchester United risk falling into that very same hole.
Whether your problems with Manchester United’s management are with the Glazer family or with Chief Executive Ed Woodward – both are fraught with difficulty – it is evident that Ed Woodward is the most immediate, and perhaps solvable problem. His position as Chief Executive of Manchester United has become a joke in itself. City once had the laughable Garry Cook, but the Blues were eventually freed from his buffoonery whereas Woodward’s own brand of incompetence has continued.
In June, Louis Van Gaal gave an interview regarding his time at Manchester United. The ex-Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager said:
“At Bayern, the people in charge are football men. I always appreciated that … At Manchester United, on the other hand, Ed Woodward was installed as CEO - somebody with zero understanding of football who was previously an investment banker … It cannot be a good thing when a club is run solely from a commercially-driven perspective."
In the view of one of the preeminent football coaches of his generation, Ed Woodward is not running Manchester United Football Club with a footballing perspective, it’s all about the money. Here’s the short-sightedness of that philosophy: making money is all well and fine, but if the team is not performing, that money will eventually dry up.
This is one of the core elements that Woodward does not understand. AC Milan were making money in 2007 but selling your best players while replacing them with Kevin-Prince Boateng and you’re no longer going to be a money-making superpower.
Now you could suggest that Louis Van Gaal is merely a disgruntled former employee of Ed Woodward’s using his soapbox to turn the knife in the man who fired him (though Van Gaal was also fired from Barcelona and Bayern Munich). Yet, Ed Woodward’s own words would suggest that he is not operating Manchester United from a footballing perspective.
In 2018, Woodward told a shareholder’s conference call that “playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business." It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about money.
What Woodward doesn’t get is that for the 650 million Manchester United fans worldwide, football is the business. It is the only thing that matters. To the supporters (currently) giving their money to the football club, it is winning football matches and winning leagues rather than official tyre sponsors in India which matter.
And what do those five Glazers really think about Manchester United? Merely an unlimited money pit perhaps? Darcie Glazer-Kassewitz, who sits on the Manchester United Board of Directors and has taken out two loans this summer using her Manchester United shares as collateral, was asked at a Tampa Bay Buccaneers practise last week about the discontent among the fans in Manchester.
Did she answer? No. She just turned and walked away from the question, her responsibility and any sense of common decency with regards to tenure ship of Manchester United.
During the week, news reports emerged on the BBC that Manchester United were planning to appoint a Director of Football to oversee transfers and squad management in future transfer windows. It was proposed as a panacea to the ails of the window United had just endured, and something which could take the heat off Woodward in the short term. The problem with this however is that United leaked the exact same story twelve months ago, and nothing has happened since.
This is the key problem. Both the Glazers and Woodward are allowing the club to stagnate, and the Director of Football problem – something which has been ailing the club since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure – has been allowed to drag on for twelve months since United first suggested that they were going to address it. What’s more, these are only the blatantly obvious signs of mismanagement. What else is going on behind the scenes that the world does not know about?
Cont. In first comment...
https://thebusbybabe.sbnation.com/2019/8/14/20805473/ed-woodward-cannot-be-allowed-to-continue-his-disastrous-stewardship-of-manchester-united
Woodward out!
posted on 15/8/19
I would say Gill was. He worked up to his position. He worked with and learnt from Saf and they worked together on getting signings done.
Woodward has undermined each manaher he has worked with. Moyes in failure to get deals over the line. LVG with signings made and having Jose lined up 6 months before hand while telling LVG that's not the case. Jose by denying him the signings he wanted and by not getting him the players he wanted. There are rumours that Bailly, Mhiki, Fred and Sanchez were Woodward's signings rather than the manager's or what the scouts wanted. Unable to bring in more than 3 signings this summer despite spending a large amount of time ending up paying the asking price for Maguire.
David Moyes had this to say on Woodward in 2016 “There was a new chief executive in place. David Gill had left which was a real big thing for Manchester United…He was someone who was very important to the club and to how things ticked along at the club”.
He added: “I think you need to understand football totally to know [how to work in his position]. I think David Gill was someone who understands everything”.
Louis Van Gaal recently criticized Ed Woodward in the BBC stating:
“What I don’t like is Woodward contacting my successor, knowing in his mind he will replace me and he keeps his mouth shut for six months. Every Friday I had to go into press conferences and be asked what I thought about the rumours. What does that do to the authority of the coach?
“To win the FA Cup when, for six months, the media has a noose round my neck, is my biggest achievement.
“I spoke to Woodward the day after that game. His argument was that I was only going to be there for one more year and Mourinho would be there for three, four or five. I appreciate he hired a private plane to get me back to Portugal but his arguments were not good enough.”
Van Gaal went on even further to criticize Woodward:
“At the moment there is a structure with a scouting division and above that is someone at Woodward’s right hand. The structure is not so bad but the right hand has to be a technical director with a football view, not somebody with a banker’s role,” Van Gaal says.
“Unfortunately, we are talking about a commercial club, not a football club. I spoke to Ferguson about this and in his last years, he also had problems with it.”
Mourinho told the Times “Ed really did get in too deep with the devil when he started working with Raiola.”
posted on 15/8/19
Didn't Gill have a lad in the Academy too? Left to go to Uni in the end if I recall correctly.
posted on 15/8/19
comment by Gareth (U1145)
posted 8 minutes ago
Didn't Gill have a lad in the Academy too? Left to go to Uni in the end if I recall correctly.
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Yes. He chose uni over a professional contract I believe.
posted on 15/8/19
It's obvious that Woodward has done a very bad job, both from the snippets of information that have come out and from the basic fact that we've done terribly as a club over the last 6 years and the buck stops with him.
That said, the fact that he has done a bad job doesn't mean that everything he does is flawed and every negative supposition is true. Let's exercise a bit of caution. E.g. you can put together a damning case against Woodward without relying on stuff like "there were rumours that XYZ Woodward's signings".
posted on 15/8/19
Rumours based on what's been written in the press. As we have no idea how true they are, I called them rumours.
posted on 15/8/19
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 2 hours, 26 minutes ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 35 minutes ago
Was David Gill a "footballing man"?
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Read SAF's book. He tells you that Gill was a football man. It is why SAF followed his judgement a lot ornate the time.
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Prior to that he was an accountant. He wasn't a footballing man, he was an accountant with people skills which made him a great negotiator
posted on 15/8/19
The Glazers and Ed go hand in hand as the Kryptonite to this club. Except this Kryptonite has the oxygen stored in its core that is keeping this club alive.
We truly need to find another way to simply breath.
posted on 15/8/19
comment by CurrentlyInChina (U11181)
posted 3 hours, 33 minutes ago
Rumours based on what's been written in the press. As we have no idea how true they are, I called them rumours.
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I have no issue about how you described them, just think we can't rely on such details as accurate when drawing the big picture of the Woodward era. And I agree with the article overall, and it stands without them.
posted on 15/8/19
I've given it five stars CiC, not because I agree with it all, but because effort and thought has been put into it. It's a well argued case, well done.
posted on 16/8/19
“Unfortunately, we are talking about a commercial club, not a football club. I spoke to Ferguson about this and in his last years, he also had problems with it.”
Interesting quote, considering Gill was in place at this time as well.