This is the big issue that will impact on United’s value and what the Glazers can expect to walk away with if they end up agreeing a full sale.
In short, any new owner will have to throw more than £800 million ($963m) into a financial black hole before they even start investing in the club.
Manchester United’s debt, as revealed in their most recently published accounts from November, now stands at £514.9m ($620m).
That debt is a legacy of the Glazers’ leveraged takeover in 2005, when the family used what had been a debt-free club as security for their £520m ($6.26m) loan to buy United.
In addition to the debt, United also owe £307m ($369m) in unpaid transfer fees. This is not unusual in football, with most transfer instalments paid over the length of a player’s contract, but United owe the money nonetheless.
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There are further financial issues that threaten to eat away at the Glazers’ valuation of the club.
United are facing a bill of up to £200m ($240m) to build a new training ground and upgrade their current Carrington base for the club’s women’s team and Academy.
Meanwhile, the costs of modernising Old Trafford or potentially building a new stadium range from £200m to beyond £1bn ($1.2bn) if they choose to go down the route taken by Tottenham Hotspur and build a new stadium on the current site at Old Trafford.
These issues are why the Glazers must sell or attract new investment.
They simply don’t possess the finances to address the problems — many self-inflicted by years of underinvestment — and they have now reached a crossroads in their ownership era.
