I love football and Manchester United Football Club.
Unfortunately, the former has turned into a favoured business model of the state owned organizations and the latter is floundering in its own faltering quest for its lost greatness.
From a business point of view, I see below 3 general mistakes the owners have made in managing the club :
Lack of understanding about your own product: A glaring and obvious problem is the lack of understanding of the owners regarding the asset they own. The American Franchise model for the sports teams in the USA works well within the structure that it is built on. Unfortunately for the European Soccer scene, the traditional nature of the game and the understanding of the culture of the city and the football club is an integral part of the business strategy.
Lack of consideration for the fans: The increasing trend about the glorification of the football clubs as capitalist money-making juggernaut is here to stay. The biggest mistake is to discount fans out of the process or treat them as customers. An average football fan has invested generations into the club and the precious inheritance for a fan is not the richness in revenue but the richness of the connection with the club.
Lack of understanding of the game in general: The beautiful game is unique in its own nature. It is inclusive for all regardless of the divisive factors that have plagued generations of the human race. The game in itself is very simple to understand but infinitely complex in keeping it simple, on and off the field. The experts and geniuses that make it look simple are scarce and harder to find. The decision-makers that understand this aspect, make it look ridiculously easy to view all their decisions as rightly placed and timed.
There might be many other problems and complex technical issues at work at the core of a decade-long failure at the club.
These 3 issues encapsulate, I feel, the downward trajectory of the club, that once had one genius mask all the issues and take everything in his stride to drive them to glory.
As a fan, it will be a long road back to glory, but it can only be taken without the excess baggage these owners bring with them.