Disaster? United's shirt will still hit the fan Martin Samuel The Times September 10, 2003
Manchester United supporters must have breathed a sigh of relief when they read the story behind the headlines yesterday morning. At first sight, the lurid predictions of doom and calamity at Old Trafford might have made them fear that somebody of significance had walked out to join Chelsea. How their lips must have trembled as they read on from banners announcing �Chelsea lure United�s top man (Daily Telegraph) and �Man Utd rocked� (Daily Mirror). Who could it be? Perhaps Roy Keane or, worse, Sir Alex Ferguson? God forbid, not Ruud van Nistelrooy? What a communal exhalation there will have been when the departing figure turned out to be none other than shirt salesman extraordinaire, Peter Kenyon. Who can we get to manage our licence to print money now, the fans must have asked. Who is there to run this vastly profitable business that has had every rule rewritten to serve its interests? What about that bloke over there? OK, fair enough. So step forward David Gill. Before the ink had dried on the pronouncement that Manchester United�s directors were in �shock� (Financial Times) or �taken aback� (The Guardian), a replacement had been announced. When Ferguson served his notice at the start of the 2001-02 season, no successor had been found with the manager just three months from the door. If Van Nistelrooy jacked it in tomorrow it would be January at the earliest before United could bring in a new striker. Will there ever be another Keane? But Kenyon? His job was filled in an afternoon. Modern directors like to style themselves as the men who made football, but the bottom line is that John O�Shea would be harder to replace than the chief executive. Businessmen capable of running a club as established in the market as United are ten a penny � but try to find a decent left back these days. The idea that Kenyon made Manchester United is glib and lazy. Rather, he developed the club in areas already mapped out by Roland Smith and Martin Edwards, his predecessors. He had expertise in that field, brought from a previous position with Umbro, and was good at it; but we�re not talking rocket science. Get a big globe. Point to a country. Do we sell shirts here? No? Well, let�s have a go. I don�t want to burst the marketing bubble, but that�s pretty much all there is to it. Don�t believe me? This is Gill outlining his strategy on MUTV, another innovation credited to Kenyon but one that had been in the pipeline long before his arrival. The interruptions are mine. �It�s about maintaining the playing success (over which I have no control), it�s about driving the media side of the business (which, like the rest of it, relies on the success of the team), leveraging the brand (selling more shirts around the world) and making sure we turn more fans into customers (by selling shirts to them).� So, there you have it. Gill intends to leverage the brand. Let�s hope he shuts the curtains first or the neighbours might be offended. In The Hudsucker Proxy, an unscrupulous board makes a lowly mailroom worker called Norville Barnes president of the company in a bid to drive down the price of stock and initiate a cheap buyout. The stooge is chosen for his naivety, summed up by his habit of taking a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket on which he has drawn his great invention. It is a perfect circle, nothing else. �You know,� he says, �for kids.� The sting in the tail is that the circle turns out to be the hula hoop and the company becomes more profitable than ever. But Gill hasn�t got a hula hoop, nor does he even need one. Provided that nobody books a fortnight in Torremolinos rather than a lucrative tour of the Far East, the United States or Australia for the team next summer, United could tick along just fine with the tea lady in charge. Kenyon was brought in because United�s board knew exactly where it wanted to go and he had travelled the path before. Gill, too, comes armed with charts and maps. United have been heading in a certain direction for a decade now and no chief executive of competence should have difficulty steering that course. The fact is, those who run United also run the game. In Europe, for instance, the rich clubs that form the G14 group � whose chairman until this week was Kenyon, but don�t rule out the possibility of him making a return with Chelsea � have had football�s structure radically altered to maintain their financial superiority. The Champions League format safeguards the privileged few against failure � United might not win the title each year, but with their resources they will be hard-pushed to finish outside the top four and haven�t since 1991 � while the seedings further protect the big clubs. The result? The same gigantic few reach the last eight, maintain their seeded supremacy and grow richer. So it is for the club at home. United are on television more often and have greater clout at the FA than their rivals. Their influence can be seen in the reduction of England friendly matches and the diminishing role of the national team. Whenever Sven-G�ran Eriksson replaces 11 players at half-time, thank United. Without question, in the modern game, the rich and poor are increasingly polarised and, as the daddy of them all, the job of United�s chief executive grows easier. It would take an iceberg the size of Old Trafford to knock the club off course and Kenyon�s departure is no more than a quick-thawing floe. The team is still the thing and, to most United supporters, if Kenyon, Ferguson and the players were in a hot-air balloon losing altitude, the first bit of unnecessary baggage to be hurled overboard would be the chief executive; next the sandbags. The City analysts did their best to make Kenyon sound indispensable, but it was no use. His ability to market United depended solely on Ferguson�s success on the field and, without that, he might as well have tried selling pound coins for a fiver. Many believe his true worth as a football executive will be discovered at Chelsea, whose global branding does not compare to United�s. Yet again, the bottom line will be whether Claudio Ranieri and the players give the new man a platform on which to build. Inter Milan are also a famous club with household-name players but without a title since 1989; the global market doesn�t want to know. Kenyon is not exactly starting from scratch. The brand title of his new club has a cachet like no other (after all, the name of the former American President�s daughter is Chelsea, not Salford), but whether this can be translated into world domination and a superstore in every township is another matter. United�s global profile has been building for years � tragedy in Munich, George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton � making it ripe for exploitation. The Chelsea that Bill and Hillary Clinton were thinking of when they christened their baby may as well have come from a song by Nico or an exclusive lump of real estate in New York. It is doubtful either was inspired by fond memories of Charlie Cooke. So, if the plan is for Kenyon quickly to replicate United�s conquest of points south and east, it could prove a disappointing purchase for Roman Abramovich. Until Chelsea boast David Beckham, Ronaldo or a trophy they will remain in the slipstream of the most marketable clubs. Just as if it was Kenyon�s acute football brain that was sought, his new employer may wish to ask a few questions of his advisers. For while Kenyon�s skill in negotiating a �303 million deal with Nike is undisputed, his reputation as a judge at the sharp end of the business is debatable. He leaves Old Trafford as the man who failed to spot that Leeds United were in such desperate financial trouble 13 months ago that an offer of half the �29 million United paid for Rio Ferdinand might have been accepted. Last January, having sold players worth almost �50 million, Leeds were still obliged to take less than �10 million for Jonathan Woodgate from Newcastle United. Which affords Kenyon � �the man who made Manchester United�, according to one newspaper � a rather less flattering sobriquet. The man that Peter Ridsdale outwitted. There�s one born every minute, you know. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/l.m7sD/LIdGAA/qnsNAA/tsUolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************** Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe from the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
