Michael Knighton fears Red Knights Manchester United bid doomed

By Mark Ogden Published: 11:59PM GMT 06 March 2010

Business is business: Michael Knighton unsuccessful to buy Manchester United in 1989, and he fears the Red Knights" plans this time are likewise cursed Photo: TELEGRAPH

It is Aug 1989 and Knighton, carrying denounced a in advance plans directed at realising United"s tellurian potential, strides on to the Old Trafford pitch, in full Manchester United precision kit, and juggles the round before to distinguished it in to the net at the Stretford End before to the 4-1 feat opposite Arsenal.

Knighton had the United supporters in the palm of his hand. Martin Edwards, the hugely without a friend owner, had signalled his willingness to accept Knighton"s �20 million takeover bid and stoop to the "Edwards Out" chants that had echoed around Old Trafford for months.

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It was a mental condition unfolding for the United supporters. Here was a man with a plan, a charismatic aristocrat ready to modernize Old Trafford and concede the United code to beget the outrageous income streams it provides today.

Yet the mental condition fast died. Knighton"s partners, Robert Thornton, the former Debenham"s arch executive, and Stanley Cohen of Parker Pens, withdrew their monetary subsidy when the bid began to capture inauspicious broadside and, inside of months, Edwards deserted plans to sell. Knighton was instead offering 30,000 shares and a chair on the club"s board.

As the Red Knights, the supporter-backed organisation of rich individuals, try to go one improved than Knighton by ousting United"s stream owners, the Glazer family, story is commencement to repeat itself at Old Trafford.

And Knighton, right away a semi-retired proprietor of the Channel Islands, warns that the "astonishingly naive" Red Knights will in conclusion humour the same predestine as himself if they go on to petiole the Glazers.

Knighton said: "Even when you are articulate in conditions of �1 billion or �2 billion, Manchester United is massively under-valued, and the Glazers are no fools. They know that you do not sell an item similar to Manchester United unless needs must.

"United are the Disney of the sporting universe since of the perfect energy and worth of their brand. They are Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM. When you have such a cherished asset, you simply do not sell it.

"The takeover of Cadbury by Kraft progressing this year was finished at a figure of around �11 billion and, nonetheless you would not review Cadbury and United similar to for like, the being is that United"s code name is similarly absolute and the Glazers have no reason to sell.

"The Red Knights crop up to be astonishingly genuine in this regard. The total proceed smells typically of stirred-up egos over great sense."

Knighton, who subsequently quiescent as a United executive in 1992 in sequence to buy Carlisle United, admits that the Glazers have saddled United with extreme debt, an issue he believes contingency be addressed. But he has warned the club"s supporters to be heedful of pinning their hopes on the Red Knights.

Knighton said: "I "did debt" at Carlisle and it is infrequently a compulsory immorality in football, even at the incriminating seductiveness rates that come with it.

"There is no subject that the Glazers have run up as well most debt at United. The bar is really rarely geared and they contingency understanding with that. One track could be to offload a commission of their interest to a rich investor, but at the same time maintaining their infancy shareholding.

"But underneath their ownership, United have enjoyed extensive success on the pitch. Off it, their blurb revenues have rocketed.

"They have left Sir Alex Ferguson to get on with the pursuit and the bar is run as a really successful business.

"Unfortunately, most football fans do not live in the genuine world. Football is a commercial operation and the regretful unfolding of supporter-owned clubs is simply not workable.

"The actuality that the United fans are rebuilt to even cruise a organisation of City bankers using their club, no make a difference how without a friend the stream owners competence be, highlights how perplexed fans can become."

Calls for United fans to protest games and not replenish deteriorate tickets have been done by total close to the Red Knights" campaign, but Knighton fears such strategy are doomed. He said: "What kind of rebellious speak is that? And from presumably reputable figures, too.

"If somebody attempting to buy any alternative commercial operation called for a protest of the product, afterwards their repute would be shot to pieces.

"Those strategy competence work at clubs in the reduce divisions, but they will never attain at clubs similar to United that have such a huge, tellurian following. Such ideas usually endorse my perspective that the Red Knights do not have a snowball in Hell"s possibility of success.

"If they need to partisan 40-60 backers to lift the supports compulsory to mountain a bid, it suggests they are relying on small-scale figures.

"The being is that, if and when the Glazers do come to sell and at a outrageous distinction they will find a customer in the Middle East or Far East who can do it all on his own."