The American gridiron team owner who now owns more than 16 per cent at Manchester United has a long successful career of playing only one game... hardball.

At 75, Malcolm Glazer's long life - both professionally and personally - is littered with instances of my-way-or-no-way chutzpah. For most Americans, Mr Glazer was off the radar until 1995 when his family partnership paid $192 million (€153 million) - at the time a record amount - to buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football franchise. His stake is now said to be worth around $670 million.

The team had just completed its 12th consecutive season of double-digit losses. NFL teams play only 16 games a year, so it is no wonder that some pundits questioned Mr Glazers sanity.

After the takeover, Mr Glazer was initially welcomed as the man who would end Tampa Bay's reign as a national joke. Well that was the case for a few weeks until he told the local civic dignitaries he would not spend one cent of his fortune to build the new stadium with layers of luxury boxes, which he deemed necessary to recoup his investment.

He had initially said he would split the cost of the new stadium with local governments but he backed away from that promise.

He also said that the authorities had better come up with the money for such a stadium in two years or he would move the team to a city that would.

Mr Glazer also told the authorities, that the first $2 million in concessions and parking at the new stadium would go into the Glazer coffers - even if it was a non-Buccaneers event.

After much anger, acrimony and of course the obligatory lawsuits, the authorities caved in, deciding not to risk losing the team and alienating the whole metropolis.

Consequently, local taxpayers are still paying via a half-cent sales tax on practically everything they buy - for the new 66,000-seat Raymond James Stadium, which came complete with a $3 million pirate ship with canons that fire each time the Buccaneers score.

While Mr Glazer wouldn't pay for infrastructure, spending on the team was different and endeared the owner to the fans. His sons, especially Joel and Bryan, who control day-to-day operations, ruthlessly hired and fired players and coaches. They even paid the Oakland Raiders an unprecedented $8 million for its head coach John Gruden.

The strategy paid off as the Buccaneers won the NFL championship at the SuperBowl last year in Mr Gruden's first season. The Glazers had pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in sports history and a grateful public forgave and forgot.

Buccaneers' diehards only see the SuperBowl win and the end to years of embarrassment. Sure he's a hardnosed businessman but he's turned the team from being the laughing stock of the league into champions, said season ticket holder Kenny Castellano, whose air conditioning business is a long touchdown pass down the street from Raymond James.

Civic leaders too fully support Mr Glazer. He and his family are good people, said Dick Greco, the former mayor of Tampa, who was part of the stadium negotiating team and was still in office when the team lifted the SuperBowl trophy in San Diego January last year.

Mr Greco, who says he is a friend of the family, says Malcolm Glazer has none of the brashness found in most sports team owners. "He is quiet, religious, very hard-working and very diligent. He once told me the first Saturday he ever took off work was when he was 25 years old and it was to date the woman who became his wife," said Mr Greco.

Locals are unfazed by Mr Glazer's hardball attitude over the stadium taxes and the fact he hasn't built a promised new training facility for the team. The current training facility is said to be rodent-infested and in pre-season the team travels 80 miles to Orlando to train.

Mr Glazer honed his business style well before his arrival in Tampa. A prime example was his corporate raid at American icon, Harley Davidson.

In the late 1980s the motorcycle maker was struggling. Mr Glazer's accumulation of stock, his use of the media to air his complaints about management, and his threats of a hostile takeover bid had the desired effect of driving up the share price.

The story goes that just when Glazer was expected to make a fully-fledged takeover and the stock price was peaking, he quietly sold his entire shareholding and walked away with his profits.

Malcolm Glazer has come a long, long way since taking up the family watch-repairing business at age 15 after his father's death.

The Glazer family, orthodox Jews of Lithuanian descent, hailed from Rochester in upstate New York. Malcolm Glazer now lives in the millionaires' enclave of Palm Beach, Florida after making his money as many Americans have done and still do - through hard work and, more importantly, investing in real estate.

A shopping list of acquisitions over the decades includes condominiums, trailer parks, restaurants and shopping malls and Mr Glazer's reputation of being a shrewd value investor was made over several decades.

The takeover and renaissance of the Buccaneers gives an insight into how he operates. He saw the potential in an undervalued asset.

Now the money is rolling in. TV networks are paying millions to broadcast games and each one is a sell-out.

Forbes magazine estimates the value of the franchise to have more than tripled to $671 million.

Is Mr Glazer a temporary owner, though? Before he landed Tampa Bay he tried to buy other US sports teams and last summer was named as a possible bidder for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, owned then by Rupert Murdoch.

To buy the Dodgers Mr Glazer would have had to sell the Buccaneers because NFL rules do not allow owners to use a team as collateral for a loan to buy another team. The same is true should Glazer move ahead on Manchester United.

Malcolm Glazer is rich - again a Forbes estimate is $1 billion net - but not rich enough to pay the approximately £740 million that Manchester United is currently valued at. Hence the rumours about Russian and European partners.

How will the Manchester United dalliance pan out? As Mr Glazer teased earlier this week, the future could hold a possible offer for or a possible sale of his shareholding.