Beckham Sends an Anti-Glazer Message, and Manchester United Are NOT Happy

In case you missed it earlier this week, David Beckham sent quite the message in his return to Old Trafford. And he didn’t even have to open his mouth; all he had to do was put on a scarf in the yellow-and-green stripes that symbolize the anti-Glazer movement — a movement whose ultimate goal is a takeover of the club.

Later he seemed to want to imply no real message was intended. He just, y’know, liked the colors.

Uh-huh.

Manchester United management are not stupid; they fully recognize how powerful the movement is (current membership is about 130,000), and they have gone into damage-control mode. Some might even call is suppression. Or repression:

In response the club have already:

• Banned players from discussing the campaign in the media.

• Forbidden the in-house TV station, MUTV, from referring to the rebellion and edited questions about it from broadcasts of Ferguson’s press conferences.

• Ejected a supporter from the audience of an MUTV show after he refused to remove a green-and-gold scarf.

• Sacked a steward after 19 years’ service for attempting to return a confiscated anti-Glazer banner to its owners.

The club has reluctantly accepted the protests will continue for as long as the Glazers are in power. David Gill, the chief executive, predicted yesterday that would be “many more” than five years.

Unfortunately for management, they haven’t figured out a way to extend these restrictions to ex-players.

Score: Free speech and David Beckham 1 – 0 Manchester United management.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football