Madam, - Vincent Browne's feeble attempt to portray the Old Trafford stand-off as a struggle between ravening Irish fat-cats and salt-of-the-earth Lancashire flat-caps (Opinion, February 4th) conveniently overlooks the fact that Manchester United PLC ranks among the sporting world's most relentlessly acquisitive brands.
This is an organisation that would sell the players' grannies if the price was right. So let's not pretend that this is between noble little guys and big bad guys. It's not.
Nor is it about the racehorse Rock of Gibraltar particularly. J.P. McManus has no interest in the horse so why should he care about the division of the breeding spoils? Much more plausible - and where Browne and others have so spectacularly missed the point - is the certainty that Magnier and McManus have little confidence in Manchester United's ability to buy and sell anything, including the aforesaid grannies. Their real motivation surely lies in the gradual realisation that Manchester United PLC is not only underperforming on and off the field, but being run in a cavalier manner which owes everything to the cult of Alex Ferguson's erratic, larger-than-life personality.
Why should two fabulously wealthy men jeopardise their multi-million investment for the perverse pleasure of squashing a fly? Their real long-term strategy is to inherit a club capable of fulfilling its massive potential, a club that can challenge Real Madrid, Juventus, and Milan for the signatures of the world's leading players and genuinely earn its place among the world's élite.
Only those with ultra-Red vision subscribe to the myth of unbridled success; beyond the undemanding realm of the Premiership, Manchester United have been serial underachievers in Europe, winning the Champions League only once while losing regularly to smaller clubs such as Marseille, Leverkusen, Valencia and Dortmund. The blame for this must lie squarely with the manager.
Rightly, the two Irishmen have raised serious questions about Ferguson's acumen in the transfer market. Aside from the willingness to feed parasitical agents, Ferguson has either bought badly (Forlan, Fortune, Djemba-Djemba, Ronaldo) or paid massively disproportionate sums for others (Veron, Ferdinand, Saha). He has also shown far too much patience with home-grown mediocrities such as Butt, Brown and the Nevilles.
With Magnier (or surrogate) as chairman and Martin O'Neill as manager, all of that should change - and if I was a betting man, I'd say sooner rather than later. - Yours, etc.,
BERT WRIGHT, Hillside, Dalkey, Co Dublin.
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Madam, - While I agree with Vincent Browne about the "egregious abuse of wealth" (February 4th) in the feud between Magnier/McManus and Ferguson, what really galls me is the media insistence on covering every twist and turn of this tawdry dispute.
This clash of mega-egos between two filthy-rich tycoons and the multi-millionaire manager of a bunch of wildly overpaid footballers over aspects of the control of a branch of the entertainment industry, as well as the pathetic sideshow over the ownership and use of one of their leisure assets, deserves the ultimate contempt of being ignored.
Meanwhile, millions of people in Ethiopia, more than twice the number highlighted by Sir Bob Geldof in the 1980s, are starving to death.
Come on people, a sense of proportion, please! - Yours, etc.,
ROBERT P. CHESTER, Woodfield, Scholarstown Road, Dublin 16.