IMUSA News
Censorship, Propaganda and Lies
10th February 2010
Fans have always been angry about the Glazers’ takeover and the rumbling protests that flared in 2005 have never really gone away. Now with the Glazers being forced to declare that 75-80 pence in every £ bought in to Manchester United is going out to service the debt, there is no longer any doubt about the financial calamity they have bought on to our club.
The release of this bond brochure has fanned the flame of protest once again and the club, in a total failure of understanding as to how futile this is are using more and more desperate tactics to suppress these protests, that are now a major feature of every match.
Tens of thousands now wear the Green and Gold of Newton Heath, anti-Glazer songs are heard long and loud. Flags are being unfurled.
The club's reaction to this has been to tell people not to hold their Green and Gold scarves up, to deny fans access to executive areas if they are wearing these colours, to evict and confiscate the season tickets of fans singing inoffensive anti-Glazer songs, including fathers with their children whose support in their family for Manchester United goes back at least four generations. People unfurling inoffensive anti-Glazer flags have been assaulted by security staff, roughly evicted and had their flags taken off them which the club now refuse to return.
One former steward, sacked for his part in trying to protect these fans, for which we thank him, has told us just how deep the divisions are within the clubs employees, as one rank of stewards who supported the protests squared up against another rank that didn’t.
Finally we have the lies.
Sir Alex Ferguson, who endorses Control Event Solutions (CES) on their website and whose security staff are now so forcefully and ‘enthusiastically’ imposing all this censorship, was told to tell us two days before the release of the bond brochure that he had all the money he could want to spend on players, when patently there was none.
We are told by former players that the protests are the actions of just a few when the reality is that half the stadium are showing the Green and Gold. For some reason even the BBC is editing the sights and sounds of the protest movement out of their MOTD coverage.
We are now laughably told that AC Milan will not allow ‘other colours’ (ie Green and Gold) to be shown in the San Siro when we play there and that all flags have to be ‘approved’. That’s the San Siro, in Italy, renowned for the quality of its fans’ displays and where even a motor scooter was once smuggled in.
We are aware that AC Milan never made such a statement, and that they have now issued a denial.
Investors in the new United bond release should note that in all the 322 pages of the brochure listing every conceivable risk to the club’s income stream, never once did it mention the existence of a long standing and organised protest movement against the Glazers ownership,
which is now only going to be satisfied by the Glazers passing the club on to owners who care about Manchester United as a football club, rather than an income stream and who will show some respect to its fans and the UK Government Ministers acting on their behalf
.
