With all those medal Shwe has more in common with United than you'd think
The anti-Glazer campaign has been going on for a while now and according to cables released by Wikileaks, the campaigners could have got their wish fulfilled in January 2009 when the leader of the Burmese military junta was planning to make a bid for the club!
Commander-in-chief Than Shwe, who is a United fan, wanted to buy the club for $1bn (£634m) so as to deflect attention from his slow reaction in the aftermath of a local natural disaster. According to Forbes’s valuation of the club, he would have been able to acquire a 56% majority stake with the money. Cables suggest that it was Shwe’s grandson who suggested the idea, but the general thought that such an outlay of money would not look good. He instead chose to create a football league for Burma, composed of teams that he had forced local businessmen to create and manage.
I am sure most fans do not hate the Glazers so much that they would prefer the leader of an oppressive regime who ranked 4th in a list of worst dictators to take over the club…
I’ve said for a long time now. The Glazers are bad, but they’re not THAT bad. I was unsure about the Red Knights to begin with, turns out they were only in for the show. Than Shwe would be horrible, but I don’t think he’ll ever have enough money to buy a significant steak in United. So for now we have what we have.
And it could be worse, think about the scouse…
@bhuttu
While the Glazers certainly aren’t bad in a human-rights-violation kind of way, it’s hard to imagine how they could be worse and still observe international law.
Anyway, on a more general tip, for anybody wanting more information on Burma/Myanmar, I recommend these links. (Full disclosure: the website is run by a friend, but it’s excellent nonetheless.)
General political situation: http://bit.ly/efVVUP
Recent “elections”: http://bit.ly/ikkd8F
@bhuttu……than shwe has all the country money in his bank .. which is enouf to buy not only the ManU .. but all the premier league teams dude .. u don’t know how rich they are .. they are dictators … and burma isn’t a poor country .. only the ppl are poor .. u should know about burma before writing something stupid …
it would have brought a whole new meaning to us being the Red Army
Oh, how I love the anonymus posters telling me how stupid I am… should we make a trivia contest about Burma then? (Myanmar Union since 1997, of course you knew that!)
So my idea was maybe poorly stated, in the sense that I only mentioned money, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand that Burma as a country is more valuable than United, the footbal club. But do you think mister Than Shwe can pull out a billion pounds cash out of the hat whenever he pleases, then be allowed to buy Manchester United straight away?
I’d say not in this lifetime, but then, what do I know about Burma?