Manchester United have once again reminded observers that the business never sits far from the football.<\/p>\n
Louis van Gaal had already warned Erik ten Hag against taking the Old Trafford job in 2022, describing the club as \u201ca commercial club\u201d and adding, \u201cHe\u2019d better go to a football club.\u201d Ed Woodward, meanwhile, offered a blunt explanation of the model during his time in charge, insisting that \u201cPlaying performance doesn\u2019t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sir Jim Ratcliffe\u2019s arrival in 2024, with control over sporting matters, was presented as a change in direction. Yet the club\u2019s recent job cuts have underlined how hard it is to separate football decisions from financial ones at a listed company. Ratcliffe also said United would have gone \u201cbust at Christmas\u201d without his intervention.<\/p>\n
That austerity has extended to recruitment, with spending concentrated on one area of the pitch at a time. In 2025, the attack was refreshed, while this summer the midfield was rebuilt cheaply and without other major additions. With Premier League spending capped by revenue, selling players remains the fastest route to raising funds.<\/p>\n
Now United have added a more unusual source of income. Supporters can buy a 2.8-inch cube of turf preserved in acrylic for \u00a3125 ($166), complete with a black case and an image of the pitch on the inside panel. The club relaid its pitch this summer for the first time in 14 years, giving the latest sales idea an oddly specific backdrop.<\/p>\n
It also arrives 13 years after Sir Alex Ferguson retired, a moment that marked the start of a long decline into mediocrity. In that sense, the latest commercial venture feels entirely consistent with the club\u2019s modern identity. In fairness, United are not the first to monetise the grass. If anything, the draft suggests they have not been ruthless enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United’s sale of turf cubes underlines how commercial logic still shapes the club’s decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2019,172],"tags":[1162,59,182],"class_list":["post-20263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united-news","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}