Popular English Premier League football club, Manchester United has announced that the club is now close to finalizing the details of a new fan share scheme promised by the owners of the club.
The pledge followed the massive protests that trailed the announcement that the club would be one of 12 clubs to join a European Super league, earlier in the year. Manchester United joined Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea as the English football clubs to join the new Super League.
According to Sky news, the club’s management and the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) have arrived at an advanced stage in talks concerning the fan share scheme. The plans remain subject to change, but include the company which has now been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) issuing an initial portion of the club’s shares to be owned by supporters.
According to a source involved in the talks, the shares would be structured as another class of equity, and will be carrying the same voting rights as the Glazer family who took control of the football club in 2005. The B-shares (which will end up as the new fan shares) hold 10 times the voting rights as the A-shares which are held by most investors.
Although the total number of shares to be issued has not been finalized, a source close to the deal told Sky News that the initial portion to be issued under the new scheme could end up around $10 million. The intention of the scheme would then be to issue more – and maybe larger – portions of shares to fans in following years, depending largely on the demand from the fans. An insider described the offering as a pathfinder to establish the scheme and assess its demand.
Details of the fan share scheme are expected to be formally agreed before the year ends, when it will face a ballot of MUST members. A new fan advisory board which is close to being officially launched as the means of dialogue between supporters and club officials will be consulted on the scheme and its details.
The scheme is however unlikely to be operational until 2022, much later than club co-chairman Joel Glazer had stated. Sources of both sides told Sky that the delay was hardly a blow, and that making the initiative workable was better than meeting “arbitrary deadlines.”
Manchester United Football Club was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012, by the American Glazer family who still retained control of the club.