Blinded by 'Deloittes'

There is only so much space the press can devote to financial news at the moment, so it's perhaps not surprising that a couple of bits of United related news have slipped by almost un noticed this week.

The annual report by Deloitte listing who has realised the most turnover in the past 12 months shows United second to Real Madrid.

It's never really apparent who this is relevant to, as it doesn’t measure profit, or, of course, success on the field.

As ever though, the devil is in the detail.

United's revenue increased by 21% to £257m pounds in the 07-08 season, the increase being mostly down to Champions League money. Matchday revenue was up 10% - and we all know how that was achieved - while having an 'official partner' for everything from tyres to watches raked in a bit more.

A simple analysis therefore can conclude that the vast majority of the increase in turnover (remember, this isn’t profit) has come from another hike in ticket prices, hardly business wizardry at a time when many other clubs froze or cut theirs, and prize money, which is nothing to do with the Glazer acumen we were promised almost 4 years ago.

It has also gone unmentioned that at today's euro exchange rates (euro being the currency that Deloittes use, it being the most relevant across the continent and the currency in which high end transfers are conducted in), this turnover result is only around £20m higher than the last set of pre-Glazer figures in 2004.

That’s almost 4 years of Glazer ownership to produce a barely higher turnover, or, to put it another way, if United hadn’t won the Champions League, the turnover would be worse now than it was in 2004.

If anyone needed reminding, in 2004 United didn’t have to find £81m a year to fund debt repayments either

This is another reason why Fight For United and many others remain concerned, despite all the on field success and sound bite platitudes from David Gill, about the long term viability of the Glazer business model

While the latest TV deal seems to have propped up the premier league gravy train for another few years, the next deal will have 2, perhaps even 3 years of recession factored into it, and so will be unlikely to be able to feed the wages and debt structures of many clubs, which will be contractually bound into making these payments.

Secondly, it may have escaped your notice that the Serious Fraud Office in the UK has opened an investigation into AIG Financial Products. This follows various other inquiries into AIG, including one that led them to incur a record billion dollar fine in the US, BEFORE Andy Anson signed them up, and another that has seen their Chief Exec at the time jailed for 4 years for fraud.

It seems that the people in charge of our club care little about how the funds are acquired to sponsor our team's shirt, just the size of the cheque and how they can brag about it

We can only hope that the next sponsorship choice is the last one the current regime gets to make.