This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 2, 2026 - November 8, 2026

There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. For Manchester United fans, the scale and all-encompassing nature of the club’s decline is becoming Shakespearean. For the rest of football, it may be a welcome diversion from the very different demise of neighbours, Manchester City, but for ABUs (anybody but United fans), it is a gift that keeps on giving.

Reactions differ, but when it comes to where the blame lies, the verdict is unanimous. Hard-core fans, haters, rivals and media agree that the long, sustained decline from decades of pre-eminence is down to the owners. Most of the ire is aimed at the Glazer family, who took the reins through a leveraged buyout in 2005. But minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of petrochemical giant INEOS, has copped more than his share since acquiring 29% of the club three years ago.

The would-be saviour in charge of football operations has been anything but. He has upped the rancour as results have plummeted. Sacking 400 low-paid staff, turfing lifelong fans — even club legends — out of their treasured seats to make room for corporate boxes has poisoned the atmosphere. Buying the wrong players and flip-flopping over managers has brought ridicule. Ratcliffe appears to have pushed the club into a doom loop.

In many eyes, he’s worse than the Glazers, having maintained the muddled thinking but added a demoralising edge. After the cull, one insider confided: “The morale of every single person who works for the club is on the floor.”

Perhaps United has become the latest big-name sporting institution to be struck by the INEOS curse. The likes of SKY cycling, Nice FC, the Mercedes F1 team and the All Blacks stopped winning as soon as “Sir Jim” got involved.

But the rot began when the Glazers borrowed to buy United and heaped the debt onto the club’s balance sheet. Ever since, the Americans have treated it as a cash cow and milked it for all it was worth. Before the takeover, the club had never countenanced debt. Initially, it was £790 million, but since then the Glazers have plundered some £1.5 billion (RM8.11 billion) in dividends and interest.

As if that weren’t enough to enrage the fans, their visits are only slightly more frequent than Halley’s Comet. As for tax exile Ratcliffe, 74, he’s allowed to spend only 99 days in the UK per annum. So, one of the world’s most storied sporting institutions is in the hands of ruthless, largely estranged billionaires with scant understanding of its history and traditions.

Even foreign players have shown more appreciation of what the club means. And it took an Uruguayan and a Portuguese to raise a few home truths about recruitment and tactics in recent weeks.

Fans were proud of their financial rigour and bitterly opposed the takeover. They looked on helplessly as the Glazers’ stake grew from an initial £9 million for 2.9% in 2003 to 56.9% when the previous owners, racing tycoons John Magnier and J P McManus, sold their 28.7% to them. If anyone could have stopped it, it was Ferguson, yet it was he who inadvertently started it.

It seems like sacrilege to say it, but United fans’ one quibble with Ferguson’s reign was that “he never spoke out against the Glazers”. But many go back even further for the genesis of this sorry saga. It began with a racehorse called Rock of Gibraltar, and a misunderstanding over stud fees. To nurture Ferguson’s new interest in the sport, McManus and Magnier granted the manager a 50% ownership of their prized thoroughbred, which he paid for. The horse, which turned out much better than anyone expected, won its first seven races. The joke was that the horse was “Fergie’s best signing”.

But the mood changed when the great man discovered his deal did not include lucrative breeding rights, and he sued his former friends, who were still his bosses. The pair countered by drawing up a famous list of “99 questions” — some of them awkward — about United’s transfer dealings. The dispute got nasty, before an out-of-court settlement avoided further unwanted publicity. But the upshot was that McManus and Magnier decided to sell and the Glazers became owners.

Ferguson’s achievements in football are beyond compare, and his immortality is secure. But on less familiar turf, he was ill-advised and unwittingly facilitated the Glazers’ takeover. Even after that, he spurned a chance to stop them. By then, though, he found himself between a “Rock” and a hard place.

A former trade union leader and supporter of Britain’s Labour Party, all his instincts would have been against the modus operandi, and he did appear reluctant to embrace them at first. But just as the anti-Glazer movement, led by a group of millionaires called the Red Knights, had momentum, Fergie defended the owners, saying he had “no complaints”.

On a pre-season tour of the US in 2010, he told CNN that criticism of the Glazers was “unfair”, adding: “I have to say they've done their job well. They support myself, the manager, they’ve supported the players. I’ve never been refused when I’ve asked for money for a player.”

The Glazers had already insisted the club was not for sale and their price would have been way too much for the Red Knights anyway. And, unlike today, United were performing well on the field, winning trophies, blissfully unaffected by boardroom shenanigans. Success on the field kept a lid on the discontent.

But once Fergie retired in 2013, no one else could maintain it. Not even managers of the calibre of José Mourinho and Louis van Gaal, or club legends like Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Michael Carrick, have come anywhere near, as everything else fell apart. Except revenues — United continued to be a commercial behemoth. The Glazers’ epic dereliction of duty has seen the edifice Fergie built crumble. It is Shakespearean, alright.

For far too long, United have had square pegs in round holes on and off the field. As a reward for negotiating their acquisition, the Glazers let their banker Ed Woodward run the club, albeit with no football background. It showed. Besides wasting as much as £900 million — just the amount that City cheated with — on players, he appointed the wrong people in the corridors of power too.

Varsity pal Richard Arnold was made CEO, while John Murtough became director of football. In came the most expensive duds of all: Antony, Jadon Sancho, Rasmus Højlund and Mason Mount, at a combined cost of £250 million for almost no impact. However, it is one they did not sign that really sticks in the craw.

Harry Kane wanted to leave Tottenham and was keen on United. But United had a painful history of dealing with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, and Arnold and Murtough decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Instead, Kane eventually went to Bayern Munich, where he’s scoring more than a goal a game. Kane has just won the Ballon d’Or (world’s best player) and is feted as one of England’s all-time greats. Arnold is now at Norton Motorcycles, Murtough at Birmingham City.

Even after the recent devastating defeats, Carrick has been given a stay of execution — for one game. Expecting him to right this giant, listing tanker in 90 minutes after decades of neglect reveals the hopelessness of his bosses. More a case of not knowing what to do anymore, so they do nothing. And the doom cycle continues.

Bob Holmes is a long-time sportswriter specialising in football

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