Manchester United is the most valuable soccer brand in the world—it has the highest turnover, biggest profits, widest fan base and, over recent years, the best players and greatest success.
But then star player David Beckham was sold to Real Madrid, record-buy Wayne Rooney developed an unenviable disciplinary and gambling record, and their inspirational defender Roy Keane
departed, apparently after a volcanic bust-up with Sir Alex Ferguson, who in 2004 himself fell out with the club's two major shareholders over the jointly owned racehorse Rock of Gibraltar.
In 2005 the club succumbed to a controversial takeover by Malcolm Glazer, the American tycoon who turned the Tampa Bay football team into champions. United were eliminated from the
lucrative Champions' League, and beaten to the Premiership by high-spending Chelsea. Now Mihir Bose tells the full story of how this sporting behemoth became the inevitable victim of its
own success.
