Issue 13: Business & Football – A Complete Contradiction in Terms! Let’s examine Manchester United FC as an example!

A complete contradiction in terms!

Sensible Business Decisions versus the World That Is ‘Planet Football’!

I love to analyse Business & Sport together – largely because it makes no sense when I do!

Take Manchester United Football Club in the UK for example, one of the largest sporting institutions in the world. This week, it announced ANOTHER 200 redundancies, to add to the 250 it announced towards the end of 2024.

The overall business is losing money, so a reduction in Overheads is a solution.

BUT, the real rules DO NOT APPLY on ‘Planet Football’ because the largest Overheads (ie. the players) appear to have an exclusion zone around them due to their contractual situations.

How do you resolve this contradiction? In my opinion, you don’t.

Many have tried before, bringing their hugely successful business skills to ‘Planet Football’. Only on a few occasions does it seem to work. Largely, the two don’t mix very well.

Time will tell if the owners (or part owners with full accountability for performance (how does that work by the way)) can figure it out!