Football: Man United CEO slams group trying to buy club

Manchester United chief executive David Gill has criticised the bid by rebel fans and a group of financiers to buy the club, saying the Glazers are not planning to sell any time soon.

Gill queried how the 18-time English champions would be able to operate as a business and make decisions under the group known as the "Red Knights," claiming there would be too many people involved.

"The idea of having 20, 30 or 40 very wealthy people running Manchester United, I don't know how it would work in practice," Gill said at the FootballEx convention. "The better-run clubs are where there is clear single decision-making and it's quick and efficient - Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan.

"Having a number of wealthy people involved, they will all want to be involved in decision-making. I'm not sure what their endgame is but the endgame is irrelevant. The vast majority of fans of Manchester United should be happy with what we are doing and staying at the top of domestic and world football."

But United fans are angry that the club's debts have risen to £709 million since the 2005 leveraged takeover by Malcolm Glazer, who apparently won't listen to offers for the three-time European champions.

"The owners are very long-term owners and have shown that with Tampa Bay, which they took over in 1994-5," Gill said in a question-and-answer session on stage. "They are not sellers. That's not saying people like these Red Knights can't come forward with some ideas."

Gill said the debt is easily serviced by the club's revenue, listed at $US462 million last season, according to a Deloitte's study released this week. And he claimed the situation is far different from when he opposed Glazer's plans for United in September 2004.

"The level of debt they were proposing and business plan underpinning that debt were too aggressive," Gill said. "They revisited those plans, changed the structure of the financing, revisited the business plans underpinning that financing and that culminated in the takeover in 2005."

The Glazers have recently raised 504 million pounds ($762 million) through a seven-year bond issue to help refinance some of the club's massive liabilities.

But many fans complain that manager Alex Ferguson has only spent a third of the £80 million brought by the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid last year.

"We're looking at players all the time," Gill said. "Alex has been very clear. He's not going to go out and pay for a player just because everyone else thinks we should do that. He's a Scot. He wants value for money. He's not going to waste it."

The Manchester United Supporters Trust is behind the Red Knights and has started to formulate a takeover bid with Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, and Keith Harris, chairman of investment bankers Seymour Pierce.

Harris, who previously helped to broker Roman Abramovich's 2003 takeover at Chelsea and Randy Lerner's buyout of Aston Villa in 2006, was mocked by Gill on stage at SoccerEx.

"Keith Harris will go anywhere that there's a bit of publicity around, and we know that and we accept that," Gill said. "That's his modus operandi, but his track record in football isn't anything to write home about."

MUST says its membership numbers have soared since the Red Knights went public on Tuesday with their plans. Last month, it was at 36,000 but the figure now exceeds 78,000.