Overseas Friendlies Plan Surely a Non-Starter for Manchester United

Overseas Friendlies Plan Surely a Non-Starter for Manchester United

Sunday, 2 March 2014

Saturday saw The Guardian print an interesting story by Jamie Jackson about how Manchester United are planning for life without Champions League football, should they fail to qualify for the competition next season.

If, as looks increasingly possible, United fail to qualify for any European competition, then they might look to play a series of lucrative overseas friendlies, as Jackson explains:

"For reaching the Champions League last-16 last season United received £28.9m from Uefa, plus around £2m per home game from ticket sales. With the club having played four matches in that campaign at Old Trafford—three group games and the second last-16 leg—that means United earned nearly £35m from the competition.

United are working on a loss of around £20m for failure to play in either of Uefa's club competitions and believe playing friendlies overseas during the gap in their schedule will help recoup a sizeable proportion of this.

United played a testimonial in Saudi Arabia, in January 2008, for the former Wolverhampton Wanderers reserve team player Sami Al-Jaber. The team jetted out to the Middle East directly after a Premier League game against Reading on a Saturday for the friendly two days later in what was a 6,000-mile round trip.

While that exercise yielded the club around £1m, during the six intervening years the increase in social media and new pay-per-view models means they could expect to earn considerable sums from other friendlies, beyond any appearance money offered by the hosts."

The move would seem an inventive way of utilising Manchester United's prestige and brand recognition (which will take longer to depreciate than their standing on the pitch) to continue to maximise their financial incomings.

The concern, however, will be how the travelling and other logistics of such undertakings will impact the club's bread and butter—the Premier League.



Believability Meter: Medium

It is not difficult to believe that United, while looking at ways to earn more money, would have circled overseas friendlies as an area for expansion. If they miss out on the six-plus Champions League games they would usually expect to play in any given season, then that is potentially six dates in which they could be playing money-spinning friendly games.

The problem, of course, is that the travel required for such games—likely to be in the Middle East, Asia or North America—could well adversely affect their performances on return to England, a turn of events that would be little more than a public relations disaster.

There is surely almost no chance of the club playing six friendlies on the six different Champions League matchdays.

Having said that, the calendar does occasionally throw up a window where such games might be possible—for example, the recent period that saw United go on a midseason training camp to Dubai (although that was helped by them being out of the FA Cup). Friendlies in such a window would be feasible, if still fraught with some difficulties.

If it comes to it, United are likely to play, at most, three or four such friendlies in any given season—depending on how they are faring in domestic cup competitions.