How much Man Utd’s debt has grown under the Glazers

Among fans of other clubs in the Premier League, there has often been a lot of misunderstanding over why Manchester United supporters hate the Glazer family quite so much.

The confusion is fair in the sense Man Utd have consistently spent big money on transfers over the course of their ownership of the club, even though it has not led to anywhere near as much silverware as the financial outlay may suggest.

It is only when one begins to understand where the money spent on transfer fees comes from that it becomes clear why the Glazers are figures of hate among the United fanbase.

It is a phrase many are now familiar with. The Glazer family brought Manchester United in 2005 in what is called a leveraged buyout. It was something United fans protested against at the time and have continued to do so ever since.

The£790m deal came about by a significant amount of borrowed money being used to fund the acquisition of the club, with the debt of that borrowed money being secured against the club itself. The Glazers essentially gave themselves the debt, used the money to buy the club, and then the debt becomes Man Utd’s to pay back.

That process itself is and was controversial, especially when you factor in the interest that the debt accrues and the dividends that have been paid to shareholders – primarily the Glazers themselves – along the way.

United had almost no debt at all between 1931 and 2005. Overnight with the Glazers’ takeover, it rose to an initial £550m and then rocketed to more than £700m by 2010 while the owners restructured the finances in such a way that kept the club functional while they made money.

Various changes have occurred to reduce the debt over the years such as a £500m bond and the floatation of the club on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012, but even still, by the time the Glazers had been in charge for 17 years, the gross debt figure for Manchester United sat at £592m. At the end of their first year owning the club, it was £603m.

The club released the latest figures on March 30 2023 which showed that through a combination of gross debt, bank borrowings and outstanding transfer fees, Man Utd owes £969.6m. The principal debt, as reported by BBC Sport, stays at $650m but an exchange rate change means that it stands at £535.7m compared to £477.1m at the same point in the previous year.

So in very simple terms, the gross debt went from…