United chief offered cash to ward off Glazer

Manchester United chief executive David Gill has admitted offering to make a donation to a supporters group opposed to Malcolm Glazer’s controversial £790m (€1.14bn) takeover.

Gill has been accused of hypocrisy by Shareholders United after subsequently accepting the responsibility of working for Glazer.

After previously decrying the American’s business plan as ‘aggressive’ and ‘potentially damaging’ to the club’s long-term future, many pundits expected Gill to step down once Glazer seized control.

Instead, once he had spoken to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner, he decided to stay on and offered Glazer’s three sons Joel, Avi and Bryan a guided tour of Old Trafford on their high-profile visit to England five weeks ago.

Gill’s actions have been greeted with contempt by SU officials, who recall the former finance director claiming he would be ‘in the barricades alongside them’ opposing Glazer if he had not been so heavily involved in club business.

Gill has insisted he has no recollection of such a conversation ever taking place.

However, a club statement has confirmed the second part of SU’s allegation, that he offered to make a contribution to the organisation for assistance in offloading some share options.

“It is a matter of public record that David spoke to SU in December 2004, when the company was not in an offer period, regarding the potential disposal of his share options,” said the statement.

“It is also known that during the course of that conversation, the subject of a donation to SU in return for its assistance in selling the options was discussed.

“The discussions went no further and Jim O’Neill, then a non-executive director of the company, bought David’s share options without any involvement from SU.”

O’Neill has since left his position, while Gill recently informed SU they would no longer be allowed representation on United’s Fans Forum because the body of supporters they spoke for – the shareholders – no longer existed.

In successive interviews since Glazer’s takeover, Gill has claimed he now believes the current ownership structure is in the best interests of the club.

He has acknowledged previous misgivings and still admits he ‘has not seen the light’ on some of the issues which concerned him, although he also questioned why he should resign from a job he loves purely to satisfy the demands of a ‘small minority’ of supporters he feels are opposed to Glazer’s involvement.

“As David has made clear on several occasions since the takeover of the company, he was a member of the board which described the financing and business plans underpinning the takeover as “aggressive,” continued the statement.

“In addition, David made it clear this was never an anti-Glazer position.

“However, Manchester United has now been taken over and he believes this is in the best interests of the club and the game in general.

“Obviously, we would like everyone behind us and we do believe the vast majority are. But we are talking about a very small minority of opponents who will always be there.”