I am so sick of lies from the mega rich.
Man Utd were going to go bust by Christmas according to Offshore Jim unless they sacked the tea lady and now they’ve found 2 billion for a new 100,000 seat stadium, the worlds largest outdoor space, a megastore and 17,000 houses.
I’m equally sick of journalists who can’t work out that 2 billion divided by 17,000 is about £117,000 which will barely build you a pigeon loft.
That’s only beaten by Musks plans for a New York to London tunnel costing half as much as the HS2.
Are we in a world where mega projects are just floated to see who bites? I lived in Dubai for 20 years and this happened all the time. See World Islands or flying taxis (to be fully operable by 2018).
Good to see you haven’t let REMgate affect you.
Not content with planning to build a giant circus tent, Ratcliffe is coming across like a guy who collects vintage cars but gets his fish fingers from a food bank. Man Utd have cut – genuinely – the ‘Steward of the Match’ award, which rewards some poor sod who spends his 90-minute match experience, on minimum wage, getting abuse from tanked-up tossers. This is £50 a game; they play 19 league home games, which will save the club £950 a year. £950. This is a club whose revenue in 2024 was over £650 million.
Yes, they lose a lot of money, but the club is valued at north of 6 billion dollars. No one forced them to spend over £90 million in the summer, either.
Because of the Glazers and their “accounting” isn’t Utd actually billions in debt? Which of course is in no way an excuse for much of Ratcliffe’s pathetic money-pinching
The Glazers still own 71% and current interest repayments to them on the loan they took out to buy the club are around £35 million a year (source: The Athletic). One shouldn’t laugh at the brazen chutzpah of this, but I do.
It’s not quite the same level of penny-pinching, but when I was employed by a local authority some years ago, the government mandated that all Premier League clubs should spend money on protection measures for fans, to stop terrorist attacks such as the one at London Bridge where a van was driven into pedestrians.
The club located in the borough would have had to spend around £60,000 on the mitigation measures.
They baulked at this amount and complained vehemently about it. Though inevitably they had to shell out.
Yet it was less than half the weekly wage of their notably underperforming striker.
Clubs talk about the importance they attach to fans, but clearly in this case they didn’t value them much at all.
Everyone in football knew Erik Ten Hag was a dead man walking last Summer. The club extended his deal and didn’t let him go until the end of the year, a baffling decision which on its own cost them, by their own admission, an additional £7.5m. That’s 8,000 seasons worth of steward of the match awards right there.
Jim Ratcliffe is exactly the sort of price of everything/value of nothing, grindingly extractive tosspot who shouldn’t be allowed to own a football club, or any other major cultural institution come to that.
Having met him briefly last year, I feel empowered to suggest that he should have a shave, tidy himself up a bit and stop behaving like such an absolute walloper (albeit he was perfectly pleasant on the day).
Let’s check the league table, they are currently at the dizzying heights of 14th but could easily be lower. So maybe some teams above them like Fulham, Brentford or Bournemouth should announce bigger stadiums. They surely have less debt too.
I would have thought that 20 years was more than enough time to get sick of a lot of other aspects of Dubai too.
Yeah true but it’s a bit different working there than visiting. If you’re in the know there’s a lot of places to get away at weekends and a lot of places to go out at night away from the holidaymakers.
When were you in Dubai, Clive? I lived in Bur Dubai between 2004 – 2008.
2000-2020 lived in Mirdif and later JBR and worked in construction
Would struggle to get past 20 hours – Dubai has no attraction for me at all.
United should perhaps concentrate on getting something other than a mediocre football team before developing the new ground.
Spent a week in Dubai in the mid-80s and three months there in 2000.
A toxic shithole built on human misery and exploitation. Would
never ever go back. Probably get arrested if I did as a book I wrote is banned
there (and indeed everywhere in the Middle East) due to some of the harsher
words I used to describe the region’s various countries
Hope there’s no Fatwa out on you ….
In addition to pretty scathing criticisms of Dubai, my book contained a very unsavory story about the late Emir of Bahrain’a apparent penchant for glass-topped coffee tables.
When I looked up my sales (sadly minimal) on Amazon about a year after the book came out, I found that they had removed the title from sale in some 15 countries across the ME and North Africa
Whlle I used to love flying Emirates to Asia, I doubt I would ever travel with them again due to the need to stop over in Dubai for a few hours.
One of the few pluses of AI having put paid to my freelance writing business is that overseas trips are no longer tax deductible and have probably become a thing of the past.
Yup, it’s the ‘toxic shithole built on human misery and exploitation’ factor that would not allow me to even set foot in the place.
When I have stopovers in Taipei, Hong Kong, Changi, Kuala Lumpur or wherever, I like to tell myself I’ve been to their respective countries, but deep down I know I haven’t. You could always try the same with Dubai if you’re an Emirates fan.
I think the point JG is making is that you can be arrested in transit for such things
There are lots of stories about Sheikh Zayeed and his trips to Morroco with his young friends
What I find especially objectionable is that Ratcliffe is requiring the government to put massive investment into the area to make it happen. So ultimately the financing of the whole scheme requires public money. The design looks horrible as well and the promotional video with Norman Foster gushing about it like a souped up estate agent is grim – there’s an architect who once had a reputation for innovative design who really has sold his soul to mammon.
Lies lies and damned lies … and Accountancy
I’m assuming it will be a different part of the Balance Sheet – this will come from the Capital Investments whereby the funds will come from grants, sponsorship, naming rights, concessions, and other “how to raise cash without really trying schemes”.
(ie without any real Capital Investment on the part of the owners)
Although questionable, I’m pretty sure one part of the business is keeping the other afloat, and funds will move on Balance Sheets between the Club, The Holding Company, etc as they see fit to paint a rosy picture or support a vanity project.
Do Man United need a 100,000 seater stadium? on current performance (and attendance) no, but hey .. neither City or Liverpool can seat that may so it’s a win
I like the grandness of it. The inside looks brilliant and the neighbourhood element makes sense. Only two issues.
Firstly, the three tent pole things. Laughably ugly and ridiculous. Tridents? Please.
Secondly, a poorly run football club will not be fixed by increased revenue. If anything, it could make it worse. What is the point of a shiny factory if the product is poor.
I suspect only two issues is understating it on reflection – but there is at least two.
I heard one commentator say the other day that we’re going back to the societal model of Henry VIII’s time where, apparently – I’m on surer footing with the era of Gene Vincent! – 99.9% of the population worked for 0.1% of the population, usually in appalling conditions.
Sounds triffic.
Re: Manchester United. I get ‘support’, but when in London I used to be very smug about going to Dagenham or Barnet, say, when hoards of football fans were investing in the significantly less-enjoyable, and infinitely more expensive and predictable, delights of Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham. Wouldn’t have swapped for the world.
I remember one year… August… first match of the league season… going up an escalator while a whole load of Arsenal fans were going down, and wondering whether I should shout out “Congratulations chaps for finishing fourth next May!”
They finished fourth.
Re: “the societal model of Henry VIII’s time where, apparently … 99.9% of the population worked for 0.1% of the population”
Yeah, and Anne Boelyn and Catherine Howard belonged to the lucky 0.1%, and it STILL didn’t work out too well for them…
@deramdaze
Given that the Arse’s fanbase on any given week has featured and in many cases still features the likes of…
Osama Bin-Laden
Piers Morgan
Jeremy Corbyn
John Lyon
and Keir “My Dad’s a Toolmaker” Starmer
you were wise to stay shtum
The story about bin Laden and Arsenal is (perhaps unfortunately) a myth.
However the “Underpants Bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a Liverpool supporter and had been mulling over Stevie G’s form (or lack of it) not long before his failed attempt to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit.
Interestingly, @Carl, I have helped recruit security staff for several airports. On an intensive training programme at one place, candidates learn about various bomb plots that’ve been foiled over the years. As a result, there is a wonderful recreation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s y-fronts on display – I can confirm that no Liver birds feature on said undies.
What I would have worried about, @Hamlet, is whether they had gone the whole hog and recreated them in 360 degree Smellorama as I understand the reason the pants hadn’t detonated as intended was because he had been wearing them far, far, far too long.
Well, I was told that passengers on his flight alerted staff because they thought he was attempting a sneaky solo on the below-blanket pork flute.
Agreed that they were alerted in that way.
Had the device been viable, the greater probability is that there wouldn’t have been any opportunity to raise concerns with the cabin crew.
“Beef flute” surely., not pork?
It was beef banana, I was always taught. Pork was sword. Oddly mutton machete wasn’t used, let alone any vegan options.
Vegan options- Tofu truncheon perhaps, or Quorn quill?
@slotbadger
Beef bayonet round our way
@pawsforthought
Tofu truncheon?
Doesn’t sound terribly tumescent
Bean sprout.
Sosmix sabre….
Ew, sosmix. My distant student recollections of that particular product are of it being pink and slimy when assembled into the appropriate shape.
Lentil lance.
Chickpea cutlass.
Tempeh torpedo or tempeh trebuchet.
Jackfruit jackhammer.
Seitan scud.
Where is that confounded Moose when we need him most?
As @salwarpe has said, “pink and slimy when assembled into the right shape”. This renders it attractive in ways more than alliterative comparison. Witness the sosmix semenary, popular, I’m told at Ampleforth. And yes, spelling correct.
You sicko, Retro! I’m sure James O’Brien or Rupert Everett would never have availed themselves of such ‘American Pie’ type relief.
It’s curtains for you.