Manchester United share price suffers biggest drop ever after rumours that the club is no longer for sale
Manchester United Football Club suffered its biggest share price drop this week after rumours that the business was no longer for sale began circulating – with more than £600 million wiped off their market value. Yikes.
After a number of reports over the weekend suggested that the much-maligned Glazer family are now set to take the club off the market after months of takeover talk that now looks to have stalled, Man United‘s share price closed at $23.66 on Friday and dropped to as low as $18.83 on Tuesday.
With the final figure on 5 September closing at $19.35, this was the biggest dip the club has ever seen (18.22%) in a single day since it became a publicly traded company back in 2012, breaking the previous record of a 13.8% drop set just a few years back on March 12, 2020, during the pandemic.
Speaking to Sky Sports, football finance expert Kieran Maguire explained exactly how the share price plummeted, stating that a lot of the club’s market value prior to the drop was actually being “propped up to a degree by speculators who thought there would be a full sale”.
As Maguire goes on to detail, many of those invested in the club would have been hoping to sell off their shares Man United shares for “between $27-30” once a potential buyout was complete but since there has been little movement on the long drawn out takeover, many simply decided to offload them now.
The Price of Football podcast host also argued that the Glazers’ supposed second thoughts over selling United might have come not only from their two lead bidders — Sheikh Jassim and Sir Jim Ratcliffe — failing to meet their valuation but from seeing others like Barcelona just “selling off slices” of their club.
He also added that there is a confident assumption that TV rights deals will increase next year as they so often do and that new technologies like AI and VR could allow for “new ways to deliver content to Man United’s global fan base”.
While we’re on the subject of digital technologies, these reports come in light of the suggestion the club’s media team and hierarchy are already editing out ‘Glazers Out‘ chants and their numerous offensive lyrics.
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Meanwhile, numerous controversies — Cristiano Ronaldo’s explosive exit at the end of 2022, the club finally dismissing Mason Greenwood after his criminal charges (albeit dropped) and, most recently, Brazilian winger Antony’s assault allegations which are now being investigated — certainly won’t have helped the club’s reputation or market value.
United issued a statement updating fans on the ongoing Antony situation on Wednesday 6 September, confirming that they are now looking into the matter alongside the investigation being carried out by Greater Manchester Police and Brazilian authorities, adding that they will be making “no further comments”.
Despite insisting that they are considering the impact these claims will have on “survivors of abuse”, it is now being reported that the club have so far “resisted calls from domestic abuse charities” to suspend the 23-year-old.
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Featured Image — Stacey MacNaught (via Flickr)/Wikimedia Commons