Toon boss lays into ‘soulless’ Man United

NEWCASTLE chairman Freddy Shepherd has launched an astonishing attack on the regime at Manchester United.

Speaking at a football conference in Dubai, Shepherd claimed the Old Trafford giants have lost their way both on and off the pitch.

Shepherd gave a robust defence of the way his own club was run but said he felt United had lost their soul.

He said: "First they lost the captain of the ship in Martin Edwards, then they suffered from losing David Beckham. They lost two characters there.

"Over the last two years they have lost a bit of stardust. They miss Martin Edwards hugely because it's like a ship without a sail."

Shepherd claimed Manchester United's main investors Irish duo John Magnier and JP McManus and American billionaire Malcolm Glazer were interested only in the club for financial reasons. He continued: "I met Magnier in February playing golf and he said he was there purely as an investor. He made it clear he was only there as that, nothing else."

Shepherd insisted he and fellow major shareholder Douglas Hall would never do the same at St James' Park.

"Both of us are fans through and through and we've never sold a share. We've spent £300 million in the last 10 years and we run the club as a business but at the end of the day we are fans."

Shepherd also raised the prospect of substantially increased transfer fees as a result of Roman Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea.

"Abramovich has blown the transfer market open. There are now two markets out there one for Chelsea and one for everybody else, it is as simple as that.

"We were getting transfer fees down to sensible levels then Abramovich came in and blew them out of the sky. If he wants a player he gets him, it doesn't matter what money he has to pay."

"But I would love a Geordie Abramovich to come to Newcastle," he conceded.

He added that large and financially successful football clubs should not be concerned about those struggling at the lower end of the industry.

Speaking at the Soccerex international football business forum, Shepherd said executives of Premiership clubs striving for success did not have time to worry about lower division outfits.

"I think it is dog-eat-dog," he said. "The big fight will be for the Premier League to take over the running of the other leagues. The others can't hold us back, the time will come, I think, when it is the Premier League running the whole show.

"Many of these other clubs will have to go part-time. When we have got 52,000 fans at each home game, the last thing we are worried about is clubs in the third division."

In the past five years, Newcastle has bought players such as Kieron Dyer and Jermaine Jenas from lower division sides. But, responding to claims Premiership clubs needed 72 clubs thriving under them in a solid Football League pyramid, Mr Shepherd said: "There is no sympathy here."

However, he said the trend was less for "sugar-daddy" type-owners taking over clubs, stating: "Ten years ago there were 12 rich guys in control of football clubs, now there are seven.

"We run Newcastle United as a business. We are not ashamed to say we take a dividend out of it, but at the end of the day we are fans too."

He said players' wages also continued to be a concern, and rejected a suggestion that top players were underpaid compared to US sports stars. "We have a wage bill of over £15m (€21m). They are well paid, some of them are over-paid."

Shepherd said Newcastle were continuing to explore ways to increase their revenues, including trying to get a Newcastle-backed club to play in the Hong Kong league, a project they have been working on for a few years. And he refused to rule out a Magpies visit to Dubai as another means of raising the Tynesiders' profile.

Earlier, Tony Martin, chairman of Soccerex, had opened the conference with the warning that: "The beautiful game must also be the beautiful business."

He said the worldwide market for football remained wide, but that the game was too often hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons.

He said that "quality management" was needed in the running of football clubs, and warned that some issues could pose a threat to the industry in England unless they were addressed.