On the eve of Manchester United's warm-up match against Arsenal on Sunday morning (23), a large number of Red Devils fans demonstrated outside the stadium, demanding that United's owners, the Grassa family, sell out as soon as possible, and some even set off fireworks, causing the scene to be filled with smoke, almost repeating the scene of the "Occupy Otford" scene two years ago.
After the Glasha family became the owners of Manchester United in 2005, the "anti-Glasha" movement has been growing in intensity in recent years, with the "Occupy Otford" in May 2021 being the most intense, when more than 1,000 Red Devils fans demonstrated at the Otford Stadium, demanding that the owners of the Glasha family to step down, and some fans even barged into the stadium and set off smoke bombs on the grass, resulting in the rescheduling of the "double-army meeting" between Manchester United and Liverpool. The match was rescheduled.
Manchester United are on a training trip to the United States, and one of the club's co-chairmen, Avram Golasha, showed up at the training camp a few days ago to visit the team, showing a pro-people side. However, the fans' resentment towards the Glasha family has not subsided. Before the start of the warm-up match, hundreds of fans set off fireworks outside the stadium and kept chanting "Glasha family out of office".
The Glasha family announced plans to sell Manchester United in November last year, with a Qatari consortium headed by "second-generation government official" Sheikh Al-Thani and British tycoon Ratcliffe making the most active bids, but so far there is still no result. It is reported that Sheik Al-Thani is willing to spend 5 billion pounds (about HK$50 billion) to buy 100% of the shares of Manchester United, and promised to invest an additional 1 billion pounds (about HK$10 billion) to improve the facilities of the home stadium, the Otford Stadium, and to revitalize the development of the surrounding areas, but the Grassa family did not accept it, which will cause the plan of sale to come to an end at any time.
