by Our Sports Desk

FEW Manchester United fans will ever forgive Malcolm Glazer for his acrimonious buyout of the club that left the 20-times English champions with hundreds of millions of pounds of debt.

As a result, there was no outpouring of grief or flood of tributes from United fans following Wednesday’s death of the club’s 85-year-old US former owner.

The Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, which has spearheaded the movement against the Glazer family, avoided any criticism of the billionaire in the hours after his death, choosing to reassert its condemnation of the family as a whole.

“As a supporter I am aware of the detrimental effect the Glazers have had on the football club and the huge debt that has been placed on Manchester United,” Must vice-chairman Sean Bones said.

The Glazers bought the club for £790 million in 2005. At that time United were debt free but the Glazers saddled the club with loans to finance the buyout. Although United’s debt has fallen from a high of £716.5m in 2008-9 to £351.7m, the financial burden remains a source of bitterness among fans.

Servicing the debt has cost United more than £900m in finance charges over nine years. The club’s supporters can only dream how that money could have been spent on new players rather than going to financial institutions.

Some supporters were so incensed by the Glazer takeover that they not only stopped going to games in 2005 but started their own breakaway club. 

Fully owned and run by supporters, FC United has reached the seventh tier of English football — just three promotions from the Football League system — and is opening its own 5,000-seat stadium later this year.

“The Glazers’ ownership of Manchester United is a product of the lack of regulation that we have in the game,” FCUM general manager Andy Walsh said. 

“Malcolm Glazer took advantage of that and his passing does not change that fact. The Glazer family still own MUFC. The takeover of Manchester United caused a lot of pain in this city.”