Comment: Forget this United friendlies farce
1 Mar 2014 12:27
News that United are considering playing lucrative overseas friendlies next season if they fail to qualify for Europe is yet another own goal from the Reds at a time when they should be putting match-going fans, not money, first.
News that United are considering playing lucrative overseas friendlies next season if they fail to qualify for Europe is yet another own goal from the Reds.
It smacks of a club obsessed with generating money rather than producing the best results on the pitch for its hardcore local fans.
And at a time when the loyalty of match-going supporters is being severely tested by a series of insipid displays from the players, it is the long suffering faithful who should be put first, not the bottom line.
The motivation for the friendlies plan is understandable.
The revenue shortfall caused by dropping out of the Champions League will hit the club hard.
The winning Champions League club will earn well in excess of £100m from the competition when TV, gate, sponsorship and performance bonus revenue is added up. Even an average performance in the tournament would net around half that.
In the 2012-13 campaign, when United were knocked out by Real Madrid in the last 16, they earned around £52m from the competition and the money men at United will be all too aware of that.
But here is the nub of the matter.
If the club is so committed to long-term values and stability, then they should not scrabble around for the missing millions on the balance sheet by playing in a raft of hastily arranged, inconvenient friendlies next season that could damage their chances of getting into the 2015/16 Champions League and beyond.
The club should go back to basics on the field.
If United don't qualify for Europe next season, they should use it to their advantage in the Premier League.
When the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, City and possibly Liverpool are on the red-eye flight back from Moscow at 1am on a Thursday morning ahead of a busy domestic weekend, United's players should be tucked up in their Alderley Edge mansions, resting up.
Players are proven to be more effective if they have more rest. And they are also proven to be less injury prone.
If United had Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie fit and firing for the whole season they would be there or thereabouts in the title race - just look at the 2012/13 season. Van Persie scored 26 goals to win the Golden Boot and United romped the league.
By contrast, jetting around the globe in pursuit of a dollar would hand that competitive advantage right back to United's rivals.
And it risks a long-term spiral of decline.
One season out of the Champions League is manageable. United are through the most risky part of the Glazers debt plan at the club and their latest financial figures showed record revenues.
The club's great name - built up by over a century of tradition, glory and sadly tragedy - has been hawked around the globe to great financial benefit. Mister Potato (official savoury snack partner), Mamee (United's official noodles partner for Asia, Oceania and the Middle East) and a host of other partners have have done deals with the Reds.
As such United can buy big this summer, get themselves back into the Champions League and back on track.
But a more prolonged spell away from Europe's elite competition would not be sustainable.
Sponsors would be less inclined to link up and top players would demand enormous salaries to play at a club outside the Champions League if they would consider coming at all.
Fans would be denied the great European nights that have etched the Reds' name into football folklore.
It is time to put the club's core fans first again.
For one season the revenue column on the spreadsheets might look a bit thin.
But for the long-term good of the club and for the thousands of fans who hand over their hard-earned cash every other week to go and watch, this friendlies plan should be forgotten.
