WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT A BIG deal would be such a big deal? Right now everyone’s just dealing in speculation. Deep breath: I don’t believe this takeover is necessarily a bad thing for Manchester United. I’m not a mystic but nor am I a doom-monger. I’m not pro-Malcolm Glazer, but I don’t know anyone who’d spend £800 million on a business and plan to run it into the ground. It’s logical to assume that Glazer wants what every United supporter wants: on-pitch success. That’s the key to his off-pitch profits.

Negativity stalks this story from all sides. I can’t quite figure out why. Sir Alex Ferguson was expected to have virtually no money to spend this summer; now I read that he’ll have up to £20 million plus any money raised from transfers. That could be crucial, because without significant investment it’s hard to see United bettering this season’s third place in 2005-06.

Bracket Glazer with Roman Abramovich and Mohamed Al Fayed at Fulham. One by one, the foreign billionaires are coming. They, not plcs, are the future of top-flight football. It costs up to £1 million a year to list a big club as a plc — and what’s the point? Being a plc didn’t exactly do Leeds United any favours. Manchester United’s board is more responsible than that of Leeds, but at times Ferguson has had one hand tied behind his back because the management have restricted his transfer spending. Being forced by the rules to announce your strategies and intentions to your shareholders, as plcs are, doesn’t exactly help you to steal a march on the competition in such a cloak-and-dagger business as football, either.

The reaction of some fans smacks of naivety. United not for sale? Clubs are always for sale. Fans like to think that, at root, they own their teams because a club is nothing without its lifelong supporters. Emotional investment doesn’t appear on any balance sheet, though. In reality, their love is an asset to be exploited and they have the power only to save a club, not to run it. Fans say “we” when they talk about their sides. It’s a nice delusion. Clubs belong to the fans all right, when they’re bust and the directors come shaking their buckets and begging for money to save “your” club. Funny how, when clubs are doing well, the money tends to end up in the pockets of the directors. Cynical business, football.

United fans moan that Glazer will increase ticket prices. Maybe he will, but they have enjoyed an incredible deal for years watching premium football at a bargain price. Average price of a ticket at Chelsea? £40-odd. At United? Just £25. Wayne Rooney wasn’t a third cheaper because he moved to Manchester not London. His wages don’t come with a special North West discount. United followers complain about the level of debt in Glazer ’s bid, but debt is normal in all sectors of business. Arsenal are borrowing about £260 million to build their new stadium, and their revenue streams will never be as big as United’s. Yet you don’t see their fans manning the barricades.

Glazer’s arrival was a logical conclusion. Treat a football club as an investment property, watch it make money and someone will want to invest. If it wasn’t Glazer, it would have been someone else. Michael Knighton almost bought a majority shareholding for £10 million in 1989. So in 16 years, United’s value has soared. Who’s to say they won’t be worth even more in 2021? At least Glazer is a smart businessman with a track record of achieving sporting success. It’s not as if profiting from United is a new phenomenon: Martin Edwards pocketed £41 million from selling his stake in United to city institutions in 1999.

But Glazer’s somehow different. He’s an American, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t know anything about football. A passion for the club doesn’t surge through his veins. Well, Mark Goldberg loved Crystal Palace, and look what happened. Put a millionaire fan in charge of a football club and they act like a dazed child. They lose their heads and their money. Glazer will make cool, rational decisions. That he didn’t spend his youth in the Stretford End is, in fact, a point in his favour.

You can imagine the protests had Abramovich bought United. Fans would have demanded to know: who is this shady Russian? Perhaps they’d have boycotted vodka. Chelsea fans were initially very concerned. Abramovich didn’t know much about football when he bought Chelsea. He still doesn’t. But he surrounded himself with people who know the game and success, and the adulation of the supporters followed. All most fans want is glory. Glazer knows it and will bust a gut to bring it. If he does, then he should be OK and the majority of United’s followers will accept him and wonder what all the hysteria was about.

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