Didn't Ferguson spend something like 5x United's revenue at the start of his tenure? Without that huge initial spending 30 years ago (and a few brown envelopes) those fuckers wouldn't be what they are today.
This whole thing is a blatant attack by the cartel clubs, fronted up by UEFA and the PL., aided and abetted by the media in this country (who are no doubt on the likes of Liverpool 's payroll). Funny how we only ever make big news when it is negative. The achievements of the best team these shores have ever seen are, more often than not, deemed not newsworthy.
I live in yorkshire, and I took my son to football training the other night, there were 3 junior teams training in total, so about 40 kids in total. Bearing in mind that it's not in the Manchester area, I did a tally of what shirts / kits the kids were wearing; guess what, as well as local teams, there were 7 city, 2 Liverpool and 0 united. This is the cnuts worst fear, losing on the pitch is one thing, but losing 'customers' as well, they can see their empires under threat.