The supporters' club distributed leaflets before the match at Old Trafford on Saturday, writes Vincent Browne. "Just say neigh: Magnier and McManus, Get Out of United."
The leaflet went on to claim John Magnier and J.P. McManus were using Manchester United for their personal financial gain and had contributed nothing to the club. They accused John Magnier of using the club as a weapon in a private dispute with Alex Ferguson.
Inside the ground Alex Ferguson got a standing ovation at the start of proceedings from the largest crowd ever at a premiership match. There was the odd placard expressing anger at Magnier and chants advising the Irish investors to get lost (not the phrase used).
Manchester United has its origins with the carriage and wagon workers from the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway in 1878, who formed the Newton Heath club. It became professional in 1888. Newton Heath went bankrupt in 1902 and from the debris Manchester United came about, financed initially by a John Davis, who had interests in the beer industry. It won the Division One championship for the first time in 1908 and in 1910 the club grounds moved to Old Trafford.
It ran into financial crisis in 1931 and was rescued by another benefactor, James Gibson, whose family owned the club for 47 years. The stadium, built to accommodate up to 100,000 spectators, was bombed by the Germans in 1941. In 1948 the British government gave the family a huge grant to help rebuild the stadium, which reopened in August 1949.
There followed the Matt Busby years of the 1950s and 1960s, which saw the Munich crash in 1958 that almost wiped out its most promising team. In 1978 Martin Edwards secured control of the club from the Gibson family. In 1986 Alex Ferguson became manager and the following year the club was floated in the stock market. Its most successful era began a few years later, with huge success on the pitch, massive profits and a soaring share price. A lot of people, who contributed nothing to the club, became wealthy because of it, as did Alex Ferguson and the elite players he brought to Old Trafford, who have contributed mightily to the club.
But with the involvement of John Magnier and J.P. McManus and their row with Alex Ferguson, the church/state division was breached. The speculators, who, unlike the families of John Davis, James Gibson and Martin Edwards, brought nothing to the club, have exerted their power.
J.P. McManus is massively wealthy because of his engagement in racing. He is a generous benefactor to causes in Ireland but, one assumes, the scale of his gifts do not match the scale of the taxes he avoids paying to the Irish exchequer by living in Switzerland.
John Magnier is one of the wealthiest people in these islands, primarily because of the vast untaxed earnings he gleans from the bloodstock industry. He is virtually unknown outside the racing fraternity, although he served (if that word is appropriate) in the Senate from 1987 to 1989, as a nominee of the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. During that time he spoke on three occasions.
The first such occasion was on May 27th, 1987, when he delivered a three-minute speech on the Companies Bill, in which he urged an absolute ban on a rogue director being a director subsequently.
His next contribution was on July 18th. He spoke of the honour it was for him to be nominated to the Second Chamber and said he was there "to promote and represent the views of the bloodstock industry". He went on to praise the tax concession to the industry in the Finance Act of 1969 and say how wonderful the benefits that flowed from that initiative. He urged even more favours for the industry.
His only other contribution was on the Bord na gCapall (Dissolution) Bill on May 3rd, 1989. He went on about semen banks and artificial insemination and ended with a plea for the restoration of the presidential mounted escort, which had been disbanded in 1948. He commented on the unfavourable publicity television shots of barefooted children had and observed: "In contrast, if one could imagine Mrs Haughey and Mrs Gorbachev going around Bunratty in something like we see on television, the Budweiser Shires, and the publicity that would have got around the world as opposed to barefoot children."
It is one thing for people to make fortunes from tax breaks or tax loopholes and to go on to make even further fortunes from an investment in a club that had been founded by workmen, financed by benefactors and (British) public monies, and made great by managers and players. It is another matter to use this wealth and the power that accrues from it, in the furtherance of a private vendetta. It is an example of the egregious abuse of wealth, one replicated throughout society in so many different spheres. It is bad enough for there to be such disparity of wealth, it is yet another for this disparity to spill over into almost every other sphere, the sphere of football being among the least problematic.