Manchester United slump exposes failings of Glazers' plans | David Conn

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The root causes of David Moyes's troubled tenure at Manchester United lie with the owners

The Glazers said it themselves, back in 2010, when they were seeking £500m in bonds to refinance the £525m they borrowed five years earlier to seize Manchester United with their leveraged takeover. Within their 322-page bond prospectus, the Glazers had to inform potential investors of the risks weighing against the profits being promised for lending to the "most valuable global sports team".

The risks, given sport's uncertainty and a club put into £700m debt by its buyers, ran to 15 pages. The strategy ran to only one and was, in short, to keep United at the top, to ensure that supporters', television and sponsors' money would continue to flow into Old Trafford and the low-tax Nevada base where the Glazers had relocated United's ownership. "We aim to maintain the historic success of our first team," the offer stated, "by continuing to seek to attract some of the best players in the world and committing significant resources to developing the highest quality players through our youth academy."

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