Rich, reclusive, ruthless ... and United are next By Owen Slot The Times October 23rd 2004
Harbour Island, Tampa, Florida, home to the city�s wealthy. Polite security guards tend large security gates. Behind them lie big houses, impeccable gardens, clean streets and, somewhere in among the prosperity, a video system that will download the Manchester United-Arsenal game for Joel Glazer to watch when he gets home from the other big match of the weekend tomorrow. Joel, who works alongside Malcolm, his father, is a Manchester United fan. His father buys the shares, he supports the team. He followed United on their North America tour in pre-season. Never misses a game, apparently. And, we are told, this was the case before his father set off on a share-buying spree that took his stake in United to 28.11 per cent and en route to a potential takeover. On Harbour Island there is little the neighbours know about Joel Glazer. In Tampa there is very little known about the entire Glazer dynasty. For a family whose business is in the public eye, they have made privacy an art form. What we can conclude, though, is that Joel does like football and, given that he, Malcolm and Bryan, the other son in the business, attend every game of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that they genuinely do like sport. Just a few minutes after the final whistle at Old Trafford tomorrow, the game will begin for the Glazers� other team. The Buccaneers, whom they own, play the Chicago Bears at American football. So strong, determined and co-ordinated is sentiment in Manchester that an expected sideshow to the game will be an anti-Glazer demo at their Raymond James Stadium. There are protests billed for Manchester and Tampa, a simultaneous, transatlantically transmitted message that Glazer is reviled in Manchester, that Tampa can keep him. In Tampa, you suspect, they would be bemused and delighted. Keep Glazer? Why should we want otherwise? Indeed, the Bucs owner�s stake in United barely registers as an item of interest. Foremost in their minds is their shocking start to the season: five defeats in six games. If anyone, it is not Glazer whom they would want out, it is Jon Gruden, the coach. For a typical reflection on Glazer, meet Brett Hunter, manager of Champps, a city sports bar, a man who is not a Bucs fan but who serves them every day. �Glazer has been a huge step forward,� he said. �The Bucs were used to losing consistently. He gave them the opportunity to win. He brought them a Super Bowl championship. No one else was able to do that.� The record as an owner that he would bring to Old Trafford is undoubtedly impressive. When he bought them, on January 16, 1995, the Buccaneers were the joke franchise of the NFL. They could neither sell tickets nor win games. That day, The Tampa Tribune sent a reporter to his mansion in Palm Beach. If Glazer was remotely interested in the glamour or profile of ownership, then the interview he gave that day would not have been his last. THE local media has subsequently found him impossible to get close to. The only occasion when he is remotely accessible is Fan Fest day, the annual June celebration at the Raymond James Stadium, which he embraces by turning out to sign autographs. But the media agrees that he totally rebranded and remarketed the Bucs, invested heavily with his own money and built up the fan-base so successfully that the club�s website recently claimed a waiting list for tickets 110,000 names long (though no one believes this) � and that, in 2003, his Bucs won the Super Bowl. The argument that he is a profiteering businessman certainly works. Ownership has been lucrative and, now that the franchise is worth $779 million (about �426 million), were he to sell the Bucs to pay for Manchester United � and he has declared that he won�t � then that is a whopping profit, too. But he would be selling on a totally transformed commodity to the one he bought ten years ago. �Based on their track record,� Roy Cummings, of The Tampa Tribune, said, �the Glazers would do nothing but enhance Manchester United, if that�s actually possible.� �They (the Glazers) want a team that wins, not just one that makes money,� Roger Mills, of the local Petersburg Times, said. �If they bought Manchester United, they wouldn�t want anything but the treble.� But it is not as if he is popular. Malcolm Glazer is so fiercely litigious that he spent a decade fighting his sister in court over their mother�s will. And people question Joel�s football connection: if he is genuinely into the game, why was he not a fan of Tampa Bay Mutiny, the local Major League Soccer franchise, and why did he not come to the rescue when they went out of business three years ago? But, foremost, Tampa is still sore over the way Glazer Sr held the Bucs to ransom by threatening to move the franchise to another city if the local authorities did not pay for a new stadium. The Raymond James Stadium was opened in 1998 and is said to have cost taxpayers $400 million. Being a swing state, opinion in Florida on Glazer is divided. He has �taken every advantage he could have taken and put very little back in�, Bill Poe, a former Tampa mayor, said, though Dick Greco, another former mayor, argues: �What do you want, a losing team? I couldn�t give away tickets before the Glazers� takeover. Now we have people lining up.� But, for the man on the street, Glazer�s real crime is not the stadium but the dismissal of Tony Dungy, the former coach. One of Glazer�s hallmarks is his hands-off approach, letting the football people run the football team. Even Rich McKay, the former general manager, with whom he had a less than friendly parting, is on record as saying that Glazer is a great owner. The dismissal of Dungy is Glazer�s famous and controversial intervention. Dungy was a popular, successful coach who was dismissed in 2002, having taken the Bucs to the play-offs. After a rare public appearance to explain the decision, Joel and Bryan became known as Dumb and Dumber. Critics say that Gruden merely completed Dungy�s work and point to the downward slide since. But the episode says something about the Glazers. In dismissing Dungy, they courted huge unpopularity. His payoff and Gruden�s hiring were also extreme expensive. So why do it? Because they believed that Dungy could not complete the job and that Gruden could. At least half of that they got right. So why buy United? The Glazers do not help themselves by refusing an explanation. But Dungy maybe makes the following answer worth listening to. It came from Bob Leffler, a director of Zapata, Glazer�s umbrella company, and his adviser in sport since 1991. �Because it�s quality,� he said. �It�s not just an investment. These are sportsmen and they want to win. If he wanted to speculate, he could buy anything; but he wants this. You didn�t see him going after Leeds United, did you? �I understand the fears in Manchester, but the questions should be: �Do they know anything about sport?� Yes. �Do they know how to administer sport?� Yes. �Do they know how to win?� Yes. What more do you want? Manchester United are getting them at a very good time. Relax, relax, only trophies await.� ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/GtUolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Please use [EMAIL PROTECTED] for general discussion. 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