– Morgenen etter kvelden før – en vei fremover for oss alle
Slik starter det åpne brevet som MUST – Uniteds mest kjente interesseorganisasjon – nå har skrevet.
I brevet påpekes det at et fanforum – med MUST – også forsøkte å skrive til Glazer og United-ledelsen fredag, men at de nå, etter søndagen, regner med at også Glazers har fullt fokus på hva som nå skal skje videre med United.
– For det første, la det være veldig klart at ingen ønsker at det som skjedde på Old Trafford skal bli noe vi ser regelmessig. Vi er fotballsupportere. Vi ønsker å støtte laget vårt. (…)
Annonse
– Det som skjedde handler imidlertid om 16 år hvor vi ble satt på sidelinjen og ignorert – 16 år hvor ingen i Glazer-familien noen gang har hatt så mye som en prat med oss.
– Gårsdagen handler om en frustrasjon som boblet over, skriver de – og ramser opp fire punkter for veien videre.
1) At Glazers villig deltar og blir med på den regjeringsutnevnte og fandrevne gjennomgangen av fotballen. 2) Umiddelbart ansetter uavhengige direktører for å beskytte klubben, ikke bare aksjeeierne, 3) Jobber med MUST og supportere for å få plass en aksjestruktur som gir supporterne muligheten til å overta, 4) Godtar at sesongkortholdere konsulteres ved alle større endringer knyttet til United.
Det kreves et svar innen fredag.
Les hele brevet på engelsk under.
An Open Letter to Joel Glazer: the morning after the night before, and a way forward for all of us
Dear Joel,
The Fans Forum wrote to you and your senior management team on Friday. We don’t know if you saw it, but after the events of yesterday we trust your attention is now fully focussed on the question of what happens next at Manchester United.
Annonse
First things first, let’s be very clear that no-one wants what happened at Old Trafford yesterday to be a regular event.
We are football fans and we want to support our team. We don’t want to spend our days off work protesting outside our football ground.
But what happened was the culmination of sixteen years in which your family’s ownership of the club has driven us into debt and decline, and we have felt ever more sidelined and ignored. After sixteen years not one member of the Glazer family has ever had so much as a conversation with us, the club’s Supporters Trust.
Yesterday, that frustration reached boiling point. For the vast majority of the thousands of attendees at the protest they made their voice heard peacefully and respectfully. We support the right of fans to protest lawfully and, although we did not personally witness any such acts, of course we do not condone any acts of violence.
None of us want this to continue. We all have better things to do.
So we need to find a way forward, and we have a four point plan for you to do that:
1. Willingly and openly engage and promote the government initiated fan-led review of football and use this as an opportunity to rebalance the current ownership structure in the favour of supporters
2. Immediately appoint independent directors to the board whose sole purpose is to protect the interest of the club as a football club, not its shareholders
Annonse
3. Work with the Manchester United Supporters Trust and supporters more broadly to put in place a share scheme that is accessible to all and that has shares with the same voting rights as those held by the Glazer family. Should the appetite be there amongst fans then you should welcome, and offer no opposition to, the Glazer Family shareholding being reduced to a minority or indeed being bought out altogether.
4. Commit to full consultation with season ticket holders on any significant changes to the future of our club, including the competitions we play in
We request a response to this 4 point plan, in public and in writing, by Friday.
This is the only way to move this issue on. We strongly suggest you take it.
MUST – the Manchester United Supporters Trust www.imust.org.uk
