Pochettino’s Manchester United Will Still Face Major Financial Woes
As the Glazer family, United’s American ownership group which also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has plunged the club into a financial hole, competitiveness in the transfer market and results on the pitch have both suffered.
Key points
- (Other teams haven’t released financial statements for 2025-26 but United’s wage bill ranked 5th in the league the prior season).
- Just 10 games into a season which began with most observers predicting a second consecutive finish in the Champions League places, United fired manager Michael Carrick with the team languishing in the relegation zone.
- Carrick led United to a 3rd-place finish in the second half of the season after going unbeaten in his first seven games in charge, raising the mood at the club to its highest point in years and earning himself a permanent contract.
It was just over a decade ago that Manchester United broke global soccer’s transfer record, shelling out £89 million—about $118 million by today’s exchange rates—for French midfielder Paul Pogba.
Additional details
- Still, it is forced to pay tens of millions in interest payments each year, money which clubs with fewer debt obligations or more frequent owner cash injections can use on wages and transfer fees.
- Much of that debt can be traced to the Glazers’ initial purchase of United in 2005, a leveraged buyout which saddled the previously debt-free club with roughly $1.1 billion in borrowing.
- United’s wage bill for the 2025-26 season was roughly $400 million, marking a 4% decrease on the previous year and a six-year low, even as wages across the Premier League ballooned.
- United continued to win in the Glazers’ early years, with legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson winning the final five of his remarkable 13 Premier League titles after the takeover.
- Those figures represent only a small fraction of United’s financial burdens.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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