I have been a Manchester United fan for almost 30 years now.  Sadly, that era may be quickly coming to a close.  My favorite soccer team was recently put up for sale.  Of the two principal contenders, a group heavily linked to the Qatari government seems likely to emerge victorious.  Should that come to pass, I don’t think that I can in good faith continue to support the team I have loved for almost three decades.

The current, largely reviled owners of Manchester United—Joel and Avram Glazer (who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)—are exploring the option of selling the team but want to secure a windfall price in the neighborhood of $6-8 billion.  The Glazers are loathed by the majority of Manchester United die-hards (myself included) because they financed their acquisition of the club through debt and have not only used club revenues to finance the resulting interest payments but have taken sizeable dividends out of the team to the tune of $190 million over the last seven years.  Club supporters naturally feel that these funds would have been better used by reinvesting the money back into the club for players, facilities, or the rapidly-decaying stadium.  Given the Glazers baldly profit-driven motivations in the past, selling to a bidder with serious human rights issues is probably not a concern for them.  And you might not think it would be a sticking point to most United die-hards, given the success of other rival clubs using this model.  You would be wrong.  In a recent poll, 70% of fans claimed that they are “very concerned” about a potential owner’s human rights record (though you can quibble with the representative sampling of the poll).

Currently, there are two provisional “soft” bids for Manchester United as of yesterday: one by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, an English billionaire and the owner of the global chemical company INEOS, and the other by Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani, the chairman of Qatari bank QIB and a member of the Qatari royal family.  While most people who have achieved the status of billionaire are in all likelihood no saints, there are different ilks and tiers of billionaire.  Sir Jim made his money through his chemicals company, INEOS; he is one of the richest men in Britain, and to the delight of many a ManU fan, hails from Manchester and is supposedly a life-long fan.  He is certainly wealthy (with a net worth estimated to be around $15 billion), but he does not have the unlimited capital of, say, the member of the Walton family who just purchased the NFL’s Denver Broncos for $4.6 billion or the Saudi Sovereign Wealth fund that just bought the EPL’s Newcastle United).  The other bidder, Al Thani, also claims to be a lifelong Red Devils supporter; his fandom reaches back to the early 90s, much like my own, and the halcyon days of Sir Alex Ferguson, David Beckham, and Roy Keane.  However, he is wealthier on a different scale, with the Financial Times referring to him as “one of the Gulf state’s richest men.”

The difference between the two bids is therefore one of scale but also one of association.  Sir Jim may well have skeletons in the closet of which I and the public in general are unaware.  I have not heard of any personal issues with Al Thani, but as a member of the Qatari royal family, he is inextricably linked to their policies and beliefs.  And these policies include wide-scale human rights abuses, particularly of migrant workers, thousands of whom have died in Qatar in the last decade due to inhumane working conditions, and the denial of equal rights for women.  Additionally, the well-chronicled, anachronistic anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs of the Qatari regime, which came into sharp focus during last year’s World Cup, provide further reasons for concern around this bid.

The Qatari bid highlights the inevitable issue of “sportswashing” tied to this sale.  You’ve no doubt heard this term more in the last few years, more recently in connection with this past World Cup in Qatar.  It involves disreputable entities (usually governments but also companies) using sports or sports sponsorships to rehabilitate a tarnished image by virtue of a favorable association.  These questionable groups—for example, the governments of states like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—either host events (the World Cup in Russia in 2018 or the Beijing Summer and Winter Olympics in 2008 and 2022) or buy teams (Abu Dhabi’s purchase of Manchester City in 2008 or Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Newcastle United in 2022) to improve their public-facing image.  The hope is that the positive association with successful sports teams or beloved events will earn them a pass or have people overlook various human rights abuses, state-sponsored crimes, or other shady behaviors.  It’s why Leo Messi was hired as a Saudi Arabian tourism ambassador during this past World Cup.

Sir Jim’s British bid does raise the relevant issue of nativism.  Do we prefer it because he’s British and we want to exclude foreign ownership groups from buying our national treasures?  There was an ugly, xenophobic outcry when a Japanese real estate company bought Rockefeller Center in 1989.  Have we evolved since then?  Would we (or I) feel similarly about an African or an Asian bid, provided it was from a legitimate business interest?  While I would love for the philanthropist Mo Ibrahim (Sudanese by birth but lives in Britain) to buy Man United, he thankfully spends his money more wisely on endeavors like the Ibrahim Prize to get African leaders to peacefully step aside at the end of their constitutionally-appointed terms.

There are numerous American owners in the English Premier League, and while some fans do not like them (and I personally can’t stand ManU’s American owners), they don’t encounter the not-so-subtle racism that faces other owners and other bids.  My opposition to Al Thani’s bid, I like to think, comes not from who he is but to whom he is inextricably linked.  He is a part of the Qatari royal family (he is the son of the former prime minister), and therefore the money that is part of the bid is necessarily tied to Qatar’s energy exports (a worrying issue) and its wretched human rights record (a massive issue and a deal-breaker).  There is no way that this bid has been made without the express consent of the Emir of Qatar.  And it is most certainly a part of a broader strategy that began with the purchase of Paris St. Germain and evolved with the hosting of the last World Cup.  Neighboring Saudi Arabia clearly is actively campaigning to host the 2030 men’s World Cup and, in an unbelievable display of hypocrisy and chutzpah, is a sponsor of the upcoming women’s World Cup.  Where does it end?  Does Iran sponsor Gillette for the clean shave it has given to the protest victims it has been beheading?

I came to my love for United honestly.  Sitting in a sports bar on the University College Dublin Campus with my Irish friends in 1995, we were watching a soccer game, sorry, a football match, on a Saturday afternoon.  They were, to a man, Liverpool fans.  Because of the proximity of the respective ports, Liverpool has always had a big Irish following, particularly in Dublin.  Being an avowed instigator (some may say asshole), I asked them who they hated.  The answer was unequivocal: Manchester United.  To their utter dismay, I announced my fandom then and there.  I was a Red Devil (which meshed well with my support of the Duke Blue Devils, another popularly-reviled team).  I had no sense of English soccer history and did not know that Manchester United had undergone a recent renaissance and would start an era of Premier League dominance under legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson that would last until his retirement in 2013.  It was a glorious era in which United won a stunning 13 Premier League titles and two Champions League victories to boot.  As an American rooting for United, I often get a reaction from English people akin to my own when non-Americans tell me that they are Yankees or Dallas Cowboys fans.  Still, I think that my 28 years of fandom counts for something, and I came near the beginning of the run, which hopefully affords me a skosh more credibility.

While non-sports fans will likely shrug their shoulders and wonder aloud, “who cares if you have to give up one of your many sports teams?”, it would affect my life.  I routinely wake up at obscenely-early hours on weekend mornings to watch United play.  And several of my closest friends are fellow United supporters, and we regularly send text messages back and forth about the team.  Part of the bonds of our friendships was forged in the United fire.  I do wonder how that would affect our ties and communication.  I’ve also made good friends in places like Kenya and Lebanon by going to sports bars to watch United games over the years and, clad in my red jersey, have easily identified and befriended fellow compatriots.  Renouncing my United fandom would deprive me of this source of collective joy and camaraderie.  So rest assured that I don’t take this decision lightly.

As an inveterate needler and shit-disturber, I have taken supreme joy over the years in trash-talking Johnny-come-lately fans of teams that only became competitive by virtue of shady money.  The trailblazer in this regard was Chelsea Football Club, bought by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in 2003 with dirty oil money stolen from the Russian people after years of middling results.  Then came Manchester City, the Los Angeles Clippers of English soccer, with their track record of decades of abject failure and humiliation.  The billions pumped into their team by Sheik Mansour of Abu Dhabi made them perennial competitors, but, like Chelsea, they had sold their soul to a bidder whose pockets were lined with oil money.  Paris St. Germain (Qatar) and Newcastle (Saudi Arabia) represent more recent acquisitions by interests with shady business and human rights records.

Qatar is certainly no worse (and likely better) than Saudi Arabia and on par with the UAE.  So if this is the modern evolution of football ownership, why can’t I just acquiesce and get on board with what will undoubtedly be a competitive boon for Manchester United?  Call me naïve (I’ve been called far worse), but I want to root for a team that isn’t financed by questionable cash or questionable owners.  And having an American or British owner certainly doesn’t guarantee that.  The Saudis, Emiratis, or Qataris don’t have a monopoly on shady ownership models.  My hometown American football team, the Washington Commanders, is owned by one of the most unscrupulous, odious figures in sports: Daniel Snyder.  And I have found it hard to root for the team that I grew up with as a result.  I don’t want the same stink to pervade my cherished Manchester United.  I want better for the club.  And its loyal fans.  And I won’t stick around while it is used as a front for sportswashing.  I just can’t.  And I won’t.

Maybe Wrexham AFC has space on their bandwagon.  Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney?  That’s ownership I can get behind.