Fishburn Hedges

02.03.2010

In the beautifully appointed offices of Linklaters in the City, a group of normally sensible business people met and decided to attempt to throw away a large amount of the money they’ve worked hard to accumulate and expose themselves and their families to public opprobrium? Why? Because they support Manchester United and are not happy at the way the Glazer family are running it.

What happens when normally sensible business people get close to a football club? Why do all the normal rules of financial and business management go out of the window in the pursuit of a bit of silverware and the chance to hobnob with Wayne Rooney? And why can nothing be done in football finance without it leaking to the press almost instantaneously?

Despite the work Fishburn Hedges has done in football finance recently, I don’t have the answer. But given that the normally sensible and erudite Goldman Sachs economic guru Jim O’Neill is one of the “Red Knights” consortium, I do have some questions:

1: If you were advising a client on spending upwards of £1billion on Manchester United, would your financial analysis stack up?

2: With the rare examples for David Dein, Sir John Hall and Martin Edwards, can you think of many business people who have successfully transferred their business skills to football?

3: As you have some professional communicators on board, have they given their opinion on the Herculean task of even monitoring the vast array of media, blogs, radio phone-ins and the like the proliferate around football, never mind trying to successfully manage your messages through them?

4: What do you do from either a business or communications point of view when the fans turn on you – as they have with the Glazer at ManU, with Hicks at Liverpool, Ashley at Newcastle United and countless others?

5: How do you control your anger when you find the finances of the club you run being discussed “knowledgably” by such financial experts as Allan Brazil and Paul Merson?

If you can give good answers to those questions then, Red Knights, I advise you to proceed. Otherwise put on your green and yellow scarves, go back to your season ticket seats, and realise that the lot of a football fans is to grumble.

Posted by Jason Nisse