The Glazer Family and Manchester United: governance lessons for family businesses

What the story of one of the world’s most valuable football clubs teaches about governance, succession and legitimacy

Few football clubs belong to their supporters quite like Manchester United.

They belong to them, of course, not in the legal sense of the word. Shares, votes and corporate rights follow the logic of the market. But clubs such as Manchester United carry a form of belonging that cannot be fully contained in articles of association, corporate documents or balance sheets. They belong to collective memory, to the identity of a city, to the passion of generations and to the imagination of millions of people who may never have set foot in Old Trafford.

That is why the acquisition of Manchester United by the Glazer family in 2005 was never merely a financial transaction. It was a change of control over a major economic asset but also over a symbol.

The transaction became widely known for its highly leveraged structure, based on a leveraged buyout model. In simple terms, this means that a significant part of the acquisition financing was structured through debt, with subsequent effects on the company itself. Public debate about the case often focuses precisely on this point: the debt, the interest payments, the loss of sporting competitiveness and the long-standing tension between owners and supporters.

But perhaps the more important question is another one. What happens when a family has legal control over an asset but fails to build legitimacy before those who feel part of its history?

This is a governance question.

Law answers who controls. Governance asks how that control is exercised.

From a corporate perspective, Manchester United’s control structure is clear.

The most recent annual report filed by Manchester United plc (2025) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission states that trusts and other entities controlled by six lineal descendants of Malcolm Glazer hold, together, 67.91% of the company’s voting power. This results from the company’s dual-class share structure. Each Class A share carries one vote. Each Class B share carries ten votes.

The same report states that the holders of Class B shares may exercise significant influence, or even effective control, over the company’s management and material corporate matters, including the election and removal of directors, mergers, consolidations and substantial asset sales (MANCHESTER UNITED PLC, 2025).

The issue, therefore, is not the absence of control; control exists. The issue is different: legal control and institutional legitimacy are not the same thing.

This distinction is fundamental for business families. Very often, patrimonial organisation is treated as if it were sufficient to solve succession. Holding structures, shareholders’ agreements, wills, lifetime gifts, voting rules and mechanisms designed to preserve family control are put in place. All of these measures may be necessary. But none of these instruments, by itself, guarantees that the next generation will be perceived as legitimate to exercise the power it has received.

Ownership can be transferred; authority cannot. Authority must be recognised.

The Glazer case is not only about debt

Debt is, evidently, a central part of the story.

In its 2025 Form 20-F, Manchester United plc states that, as of 30 June 2025, it had total indebtedness of £637 million. The document itself recognises that this indebtedness may affect the company’s financial health and competitive position, limit its ability to execute business strategies, restrict investments and increase risks associated with refinancing and cash generation.

These figures matter, but they do not exhaust the analysis. Reducing the Glazer case to debt oversimplifies a much deeper story. Debt explains part of the discontent. It does not explain everything. What appears to be at stake is the perception that control of the club began to be exercised through a financial logic distant from the identity that many supporters associate with Manchester United.

This does not mean attributing a specific intention to the Glazer family. Public documents do not allow that conclusion. What they do show, however, is that the financial structure of the acquisition, the preservation of family control through differentiated voting rights and the risks acknowledged by the company itself created the conditions for ownership to become more than a corporate matter. It became a question of legitimacy.

That distinction matters because many business families face a similar risk: assuming that a valid ownership structure is enough to sustain confidence across generations.

When the asset is symbolic, governance must go beyond the contract

Every relevant company has stakeholders; football clubs take this reality to an extreme. Supporters are not ordinary shareholders. Many hold no economic interest, do not vote in general meetings and do not participate formally in management. Even so, they directly affect reputation, revenue, brand value, institutional stability and the political environment around the club.

Corporate governance literature has long recognised that concentrated control structures may produce conflicts different from those seen in companies with dispersed ownership. In widely held companies, the classic conflict usually arises between shareholders and managers. In companies with concentrated control, the focus shifts towards the relationship between the controller, minority shareholders and other interested parties affected by decisions.

In the case of Manchester United, this tension is amplified because the asset being controlled is not just any company. It is a club with history, community, identity and global exposure.

The company’s annual report expressly recognises that the concentration of power in the Class B shares may cause the interests of their holders not to coincide with the interests of other shareholders. It also states that this concentration may discourage a change of control, prevent business combinations and lead the company to enter into transactions that may not necessarily be in the best interests of all shareholders. That is the legal and financial point.

The governance point is broader: a control structure may be valid and yet generate distrust if relevant stakeholders do not understand the criteria behind decisions, do not perceive alignment of interests or do not recognise a long-term commitment to the institution.

Succession of control does not solve ownership governance

After Malcolm Glazer’s death, control remained connected to his descendants. The company's report (2025) identifies structures linked to six lineal descendants of Malcolm Glazer as holding the majority of the voting power.

This allows for an important reflection. In the first generation, power is often concentrated in the figure of the founder or acquirer. In the next generation, even when control remains within the family, it ceases to be exclusively individual and begins to require coordination between different heirs, interests and expectations.

This is where ownership governance becomes essential. Ownership governance is not the same as corporate governance. Corporate governance organises management, the board, controls and accountability. Ownership governance addresses another question: how do owners exercise their rights, make relevant decisions and manage disagreements among themselves?

The literature on family businesses distinguishes precisely these systems. A family business is not composed only of the business. It simultaneously involves family, ownership and management. Each system has its own logic, expectations and risks (GERSICK; FELIU, 2014; SUESS, 2014).

When these systems are confused, the company may remain formally organised, but the owning family may lose its capacity for joint decision-making.

Public documents do not allow us to conclude whether the Glazer family adopted formal family governance instruments, such as a family protocol, a family constitution or a family council. For that reason, any conclusion about the existence (or absence) of such mechanisms would go beyond the limits of the available evidence.

Nonetheless, the case highlights a key issue. As a highly significant asset comes to be controlled by several members of the same family, the need for mechanisms capable of aligning expectations, organising decision-making and managing disagreements tends to increase. This is precisely the role that the literature attributes to family governance (SUESS, 2014; THAKUR et al., 2023).

Family governance is not ornamental

Many business families still treat family governance as something secondary, almost decorative. A polished document, an annual meeting, a statement of values. This is a limited view.

When addressing family businesses, the European Commission recognises that instruments such as family protocols, family constitutions, family councils and family assemblies may help manage the strong interdependence between family and business, particularly because this interdependence can generate its own conflicts (2009).

Academic literature follows a similar line. Family governance structures, such as family meetings, family councils and family plans, are identified as mechanisms capable of facilitating communication, interaction between generations and the development of a bond with the family business (THAKUR et al., 2023).

This does not mean that such instruments eliminate conflict. No structure eliminates human conflict. The function of governance is not to promise permanent harmony. It is to create a method through which disagreements can be addressed before they become crises.

In business families, the problem rarely lies only in the assets, it lies in the way owners decide about them.

Who may speak on behalf of the family? Who votes? Who represents the different family branches? How is a sale decided? How are dividends distributed? How are new investments financed? How is the next generation prepared to act as owners? How are family members who want liquidity treated alongside those who want continuity?

These are not only legal questions; they are governance questions. And when they are not answered before a crisis, they tend to reappear in the worst possible way: under pressure, with reputational damage and with little room for elegant solutions.

The lesson for business families

The Glazer case teaches something that goes beyond football.

A family may buy an asset, it may preserve votes, and it may structure shares with differentiated voting rights. It may maintain a majority at shareholder meetings, appoint directors, attract investors, and refinance debt. But none of this, by itself, builds legitimacy.

Legitimacy requires a perceived commitment, coherence between discourse and decision, feasible transparency, long-term responsibility and the ability to recognise that certain assets carry a dimension that goes beyond economic value. In family businesses, this is decisive.

Many founders believe succession will be resolved once the assets have been legally organised. But true succession begins after the formal transfer. It begins when heirs need to exercise the power they have received. It begins when other family members, executives, partners, investors, employees and stakeholders observe whether that new configuration is capable of deciding with maturity.

Assets may be inherited; control may be protected. But legitimacy is never an automatic part of inheritance; it must be built by each generation.

Perhaps this is the greatest lesson Manchester United offers to business families: control is not enough. Continuity depends on the ability to transform ownership into responsibility, power into trust and succession into governance.

For business families, the right question comes before the crisis

Families that wish to preserve business, wealth and legacy must face difficult questions before they become urgent.

• Does the corporate structure protect control?

• Does the shareholders’ agreement organise rights and duties?

• Does the family know how to make decisions together?

• Have successors been prepared to be owners, or merely heirs?

• Is there an appropriate forum to address conflicts before they reach the business?

• Are there clear criteria for sale, liquidity, dividends, reinvestment and family participation in management?

These questions do not weaken the family business. On the contrary, they make continuity more realistic. Because, in the end, governance is not only about avoiding conflicts. It is about preserving the capacity to decide together when conflict appears.

And it always appears.

References

EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Overview of family-business-relevant issues: research, networks, policy measures and existing studies. Final report. Brussels: European Commission, 2009.

GERSICK, Kelin E.; FELIU, Neus. Family governance. In: MELIN, Leif; NORDQVIST, Mattias; SHARMA, Pramodita (eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Family Business. London: SAGE Publications, 2014.

MANCHESTER UNITED PLC. Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2025. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2025.

SUESS, Julia. Family governance: literature review and the development of a conceptual model. Journal of Family Business Strategy, v. 5, n. 2, p. 138-155, 2014.

THAKUR, R. et al. Family governance structures in family businesses: a systematic literature review and future research agenda. 2023.