Thursday’s Europa League spectacular at the Nou Camp was the week’s biggest sporting draw, utterly eclipsing routine Champions League fixtures and demonstrating why free market economics and geopolitics are converging on Manchester United in the sale of the century.
The decision by the Glazer ownership to cash out now comes at a critical juncture, coinciding with the regulatory investigation by the world’s pre-eminent domestic league of Manchester City, a club hauled out of insignificance by a sovereign wealth fund that could itself be eclipsed by the bidding arm wrestle for United. The same historical forces that made City a target for the nation builders of Abu Dhabi 14 years ago, and that perverted the competitive landscape as a consequence, have United by the balls.
If the Premier League investigation into City is a belated attempt to impose some kind of order in the game, the United sale tests still further the desire and capability of the system to resist the usurping powers of new owners for whom winning and losing is incidental. Should the Qatari bid prove successful it really would feel like the game we knew, a sport embedded in community, with an identity indelibly linked to the locale, has finally run out of road.
The World Cup proved even more valuable to Qatar than imagined, worth every penny of the $220bn it cost to stage. Almost two months on from that monumental, unforgettable final, the Qatar dividend is still paying out with entirely positive associations. The toxic commentary that preceded the month-long pageant dissolved in the blizzard of goals and soaring narratives that consumed us.
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For a fraction of the price Qatar could continue its assault on perceptions with the purchase of United, effectively getting World Cup bang for their buck every week in the Premier League. Even in the reduced setting of a Europa League last 16 play-off the power of the United brand was underlined.
Moreover, Qatar would be looking down on their Saudi and Abu Dhabi neighbours. In the proxy game of soft power rivalry in a football context, owning United trumps Newcastle and City in a region in which Qatar is at odds with those next door.
The power of the world’s global game to command the interest of citizens everywhere is a phenomenon made possible by the crossover of Big Sport into mainstream entertainment. It offers the ultimate reality TV product, an intoxicating mix of the authentic and fantastic, with seemingly endless product/revenue possibilities.
A Netflix behind the scenes blockbuster on the United bid process would itself blow the internet. This evolving cultural picture plays beautifully into the hands of nations in need of a PR upgrade, a short cut to credibility made possible by the willingness of an uncritical audience to swallow the message whole.
The Premier League is at the epicentre of this phenomenon and United are its biggest asset. You can see why those on the outside in European leagues that once held sway, Real Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga, Juventus in Serie A, are hell bent on a European Super League, which would connect them more frequently to the Premier League’s big beasts and give them a greater cut of the football pie.
The strength of the football sector has obvious appeal for social media empire builders like Elon Musk and his fellow tech giants, plus entertainment conglomerates like Disney and Amazon, all of whom are fluent in mining consumer trends and monetising data bases and would love a crack at United’s global fan base, estimated at 1.4bn souls.
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All Marcus Rashford's league goals this season as Man Utd forward continues resurgence16 February, 2023The community of bankers supervising the bid process, the Raine Group acting on behalf of Manchester United plc, and Rothschild advising the Glazer family, care only for the welfare of their clients not the game. The latter is the responsibility of a Premier League under huge pressure from fans and the Government to demonstrate its competence.
The spending behaviour at Chelsea in the last two windows is as much a worry as the allegations levelled at City since they point to a game that has lost all perspective as well as its senses. The last thing football needs now, it seems, is another sovereign wealth fund arming the most expensive sporting institution in the world with nuclear capability.
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