Manchester United & the New York Yankees

What you are about to read is my article on the relationship between Manchester United and The New York Yankees, written on February 16th. I had originally intended for this to be my first piece for The Sports Report newsletter, but, having submitted my application, the newsletter closed down after only three issues. Oh well, only two more issues to beat their record!

Greetings to you all, and welcome to the first Sports Report instalment of The Two Sheds Review.

I know what at lot of you are thinking right now. Many of you have probably subscribed to this newsletter after seeing an advertisement in one of the wrestling newsletters, and you are probably thinking this - what the hell is this wrestling writer doing in a sports newsletter.
 

Well, the answer, my friends, is quite simple. I have many varied interests in this world. Wrestling is just one of the strings on my bow. For years now, I have written science fiction stories. Many of you know that I work in a garden centre, so if I put my mind to it, I could probably do a gardening column or two. "Remember, Camellias like acid, or lime free soil!"

Sport is one of my lifelong interests. Over the years, I have had passing interests in snooker, darts, horse racing, tennis, athletics, even sumo. These days though, I seem to mainly watch football (soccer to you yanks), cricket, Formula 1, and boxing. While I do not claim to be an expert on these, I like to think I know what I'm talking about.

I will not pretend though that I am an expert on the American sports. I have a mild interest in them, but I don't follow any team really closely. I had a thing for the New York Giants a while back, but it was just a passing thing. Ask me to name any current American sporting icon, and you would get a blank look from yours truly. I could name a few American(and Canadians) from the past though - Magic Johnson, William Perry, and that fella who can't find the proper sized leather gloves.

I must admit, though, that when I was first asked to contribute to this newsletter, I considered a different name, other than The Two Sheds Review. I considered "A View From The Barclay End", the Barclay End being a stand at the ground of my home boys, Norwich City. A few other names came to mind, but then I decided, what the hell, stick with what I know. After all, my wrestling fans know the name.

So what am I going to talk about then? Well, cricket season here in England does not start for a month or so. Lennox Lewis still hasn't signed to fight Mike Tyson. Naz has got a fight soon, but I can't remember who he is fighting. And Formula 1? Well, wait and see.

So let's start with football, and that most famous team on the planet, Manchester United. I'm sure that there are some United fans somewhere in the US, after all, there seems to be United fans all over the world. The joke here is that while Manchester United have fans all over the world, you won't find one in Manchester itself.

What I'd like to discuss here is their new agreement with the New York Yankees. It does intrigue me somewhat, and, in a small way, frighten me as well.

Thankfully, the deal is strictly a marketing one. We won't see the likes of David Beckham trying to steal third base anytime soon. (See, I do know a little about baseball!)

But the fact that even more money is going to be pumped into the already bulging back account at Old Trafford is a little worrying. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making money and all that, but the fact that with all of these extra millions, United will be able to buy the likes of Zidane, Ronaldo, Denilson and more could make one of the greatest leagues in the world seem a little stale.

The F.A. Carling Premiership is recognised as one of the best leagues, if not the best, in the world. It has managed to draw a host of world class players to Britain, and, sadly, some mediocre ones as well. It has also managed to produce some top flight English talent as well.
But these days, there doesn't seem to be a race for the championship anymore. Manchester United are just running away with things. At times, it seems that all they have to do is just turn up at the stadium and they've got the win.

The real competition these days seems to be for the coveted UEFA Champions League spots, in second and third place, and the millions in television and other revenues that comes on. My views on why this competition should be changed would make good reading in a further column. I won't go into it now.

Over the years, United have managed to produce world class home-grown talent in the likes of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Gary and Phil Neville, and Wes Brown. Throw in some imported talent, such as Barthez, Stam, and Johnsen, and they've put together one hell of a team.

With the millions now projected to come in from the Yankees deal, the richest football club in the world is going to get that much richer, and will be capable of buying the best players from all over the world.

United, strong as they are now, will get even stronger. They will eventually outgrow the Premiership, and want stronger competition. There will be talk of a European, or perhaps even a World Superleague, something fans everywhere, this one included, will be against.

The likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus will find it hard to keep up, especially Madrid. Last I heard they were 150 million in debt. This makes WCW's losses seem like small change.

And while on the subject, I have a running debate going on with my Italian employer, Luigi Birritteri, who claims that United are not the richest club in the world, that Juventus are, just because their owner, whose name I forget and even he can't remember half the time, owns a big car company.

To make my point here, I'm going back to my wrestling roots here. World Championship Wrestling is currently owned by Time Warner, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, and definitely larger than WWFE Inc, owners of the World Wrestling Federation.

But we all know which one has the most successful franchise here, don't we?

My point being that just because the owner of Juventus has more money that the owner of United, it doesn't mean that Juventus are bringing in more money than United.

My challenge here is to go to Beijing with two pictures, one of David Beckham, and one of Alessandro Del Piero. Show them both to a ten year old Chinese boy. Then tell me which one he recognises first.