Elon Musk Suddenly Said He’s Buying Manchester United F.C.

By
Charleen Teh
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After the meltdown that was Elon Musk buying Twitter for $44 billion, only to back out four months later and get taken to court, the biggest internet troll is back with his irreverent tweets again.

He started the day (17 Aug) with, “To be clear, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party!”

Then, he dropped an unexpected bomb.

Musk: A Long-Running Joke

Just seven hours ago, as of writing this article, Musk randomly made an announcement that he was going to buy the English football club Manchester United.

The Tesla owner must have realised how fervent football fans were, or how much United fans genuinely hated Glazers, because he has never backtracked on his words so quickly.

In under four hours of making the tweet, he refuted his previous claim, writing, “No, this is just a long-running joke on Twitter. I’m not buying any sports teams.”

As much as Musk was jesting, there were really people that hoped the billionaire would actually buy it, since the tweet has already garnered more than 92,700 retweets and 560,200 likes.

If you’re not a football fan, you might be a little confused as to why that’s the case.

No worries, we have you covered.

Glazers vs Manchester United Fans

Manchester United is one of the oldest football clubs in England, with its roots dating all the way back to 1878.

To date, United has won the Premier League 13 times and obtained 20 English League titles. It has a record of 12 Football Association (FA) Cups, 4 League Cups, 3 European Championship Clubs and 1 FIFA Club World Cup, thus making them one of the most successful clubs in England.

The bad blood between Glazers, the current owner of United, and the fans began all the way back in 2005.

As in, before Glazers even took official ownership of United, fans were already protesting outside Old Trafford (United’s home base) and burning effigies.

The reason was that the fans were enraged that a debtless club was loaded with liabilities that could reach as high as 717 million pounds (1.1 billion back then) during the 2008-09 season.

Owing to said liabilities, this debt has serviced and cost United, along with dividends to the American Glazer family, more than 1 billion pounds in 16 years.

This means all that money that could have been spent on attracting and recruiting players and staff or improving the training facilities were being funnelled to the Glazers instead.

And this is not the case of fans raging because of a bad season; the football club has been through highs and lows in its career under the Glazers’ management, yet the fans’ anger towards the Glazers has been a greater constant than the support for the team itself in the past 16 years.

At this point, you might as well say that the fans are united in their spite.

The dissension recently culminated after another defeat for Manchester United, where the team lost 4-0 to Brentford on Saturday (13 Aug).

This marked the second loss and zilch victories in the opening of the newest Premier League season. 

It was also Manchester United’s worst performance in living memory, which says a lot.

The standards have been dropping steadily under Glazers, what with the disinterested owners refusing to invest in their own money since they are still profiting despite the club’s failure on the pitch. The club’s debt has also risen to nearly £500million as it runs its worst Premier League campaign.

With the lack of investment, everything snowballs and spirals very quickly.

No funds equal to a subpar recruitment department, then a lack of quality signings which forms a squad that fits like jagged puzzle pieces at best.

Even if the football club wishes to pull a drastic overhaul in quality, it would require even more money, which it doesn’t have.

The less is said about the current manager Erik ten Hag and his questionable recruitment decisions, the better.

In essence, it is a train wreck that you can’t look away from.

Hence, even when a troll like Elon Musk merely declares intent to buy United, the fans are immediately on board, because anything is better than Glazers at this point.

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The Price of a Takeover

If Musk, or anyone else, tries to take over United from the Glazers, it would cost them at least £2 billion, according to its current stock market valuation.

Honestly, if Musk can afford to send a car to the moon and try to buyout Twitter with $44 billion, that amount is just a small fraction of what he has already spent.

Alas, even if Manchester United was Musk’s favourite childhood football team, he has already said that he’s unlikely to buy a football team.

There are some jokes that will remain as jokes.

It doesn’t mean that United fans aren’t trying to change his mind though, as one Twitter user replied, “If @elonmusk really is buying @ManUtd he will get 1.1bn followers for $2bn. That beats buying twitter in terms of [money] for global reach.”

Another commenter added, “I for one welcome our new Tesla overlords.”

As funny as the replies are, the United fans can only hope for a saviour that may never come. 

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Charleen Teh
Email: [email protected]