Gary Neville on 5 things the Glazers must change now at Manchester United to tackle ‘massive problem’

Gary Neville has outlined five things he thinks the Glazer family must do in order to ‘reset the culture’ of Manchester United, and try and gain some support among the fanbase.

The Glazers have been unpopular with supporters since their leveraged buy-out of United in 2005, and for repeatedly taking dividends out of the club over the years.

Coupled with the team’s decline on the field, falling behind their Premier League rivals, and the shabby feel of Old Trafford, United’s fans have been very vocal in their disdain for the club’s owners.

The failed formation of the European Super League only exasperated that situation last year, when supporter protests resulted in the postponement of a Premier League fixture against Liverpool.

In response to that, the Glazers promised to make overarching changes at United, a promise which ex-defender Neville feels they have failed to fulfil.

“In terms of the Glazers, post-Super League, they said they were going to communicate more, they said they were going to change things, but they have not changed a thing,” Neville said at a recent Overlap Live Event in Manchester. “So my view is that there is a massive problem at the very top.

“I think they’ve had 10 years to prove they can be good football operators at United beyond Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill. They’ve proved they can’t do it. They’ve proven they can’t build a successful club here in Manchester.

“To me, I think they should sell the football club. I think they should cash in because of the Super League and their 10 years of failure without Sir Alex Ferguson and the squad he had.”

What has to change

Neville went on to outline what changes he feels the Glazer family must make if they are to change the culture at United, and see them compete with Europe’s top clubs once again.

“If they really want to stay then they have to do four or five things,” the 47-year-old opined. “They have to stop taking the dividends out of the club if they want to reset the culture. Because if the owners are pulling money out of the club at the expense of the fans, the project and a successful team, it’s a bad message from the very top. The cultural aspect of that is terrible.

“No.2, they have to pay off that debt, and they can do that by selling £500m worth of shares to the fans, not take it out of the club and pay off the debt.

“They can then rebuild that stadium with £1billion. It does probably need knocking down, to be fair. I know there’s been talk about renovation. That doesn’t need renovation, it needs a new stadium.

“That money can be funded by a 20-year contract, by getting a sponsor in for £60/70m a year, call it ‘something Old Trafford’. But we have a brand-new stadium and again it resets the culture of Manchester United by having the best stadium in the world. That needs to happen.

“They then need to build a new training ground. Me and Roy [Keane] were part of the group that moved there 22 years ago, out of The Cliff. But we now have a training ground which is behind Tottenham and the other training grounds. We then need to put £100/150m a year into a proper sporting project, along with those four things.

“Then you can say the Glazer family have reset the culture from the top. They have to do something that resets the culture and principles of the football club. They have not done that for 10 years. They need to do it now, because the fans are on the edge again.”