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10/08/2023

MUST pre-season bulletin - takeover/protest, manifesto, ticketing ...

Once again we find ourselves in August and another new season is upon us.

Hopefully most reds feel a sense of optimism, with some interesting transfer business (refreshing we have made key signings in July not on deadline day, and a striker under 30!) and the opportunity for Erik to build on the progress of his first season.

That is of course tempered by the Glazers' failure to sell the Club. Back in November they announced their strategic review, and now nine months on we appear no further forward. The Club feels like it is being held hostage by the Glazer family and doubtless fans will make their voices heard once the season is underway.

Protests planned for Wolves and Forest home games as club sale hits stalemate
As mentioned above, as we approach the start of the new season there is a huge amount of frustration at the lack of progress with the sale of the club. It is clear we need new investment for major projects, with the stadium itself requiring major investment to bring it up to the standard of our competitors like Real Madrid. Clearly Manchester United should not be settling for second best in any department.

Protest plans for both Wolves and Forest home games have been circulated on social media from The 1958 group. We have a long established principle of supporting the right of fans to participate in peaceful and lawful protests and that is why we publicise them below to inform members who may not have seen them.

PROTEST DETAILS FOR WOLVES & FOREST
Wolves - 6:30pm at The Trinity.
Flags, banners and voices to promote the Forest sit in.

Forest - 60 min sit in at Full Time.
United together in defiance.

One warning - if you choose to join protests please be aware that setting off flares/smoke bombs, especially on the stadium footprint has resulted in severe sanctions with loss of Season Tickets and 3 year bans for fans. Please make sure your protest remains lawful at all times.

The MUST Manifesto
We’ve taken the opportunity of the close season to properly define, for the first time in a long time, what MUST is and what we stand for.

We consider this to be our defining mission as an organisation to build a future for Manchester United where the views, needs, priorities and interests of all supporters are central to the running of the club.

Our manifesto then sets out the five ways we try to do that, which are:

Representing fans' voices to the Club - we ensure the supporters’ voice is heard at the top levels of the Club by robustly representing United fans' views directly to the senior management

Campaigning on fans priorities – from campaigning to stop the Super League to reclaiming the Stretford End and bringing back safe standing

Building a growing ownership stake for fans – whoever the majority owners are, there should always be an opportunity for fans to buy a stake in their Club

Standing up for fans, making sure they’re fairly treated – we know football fans aren’t always treated well by the authorities, and we have helped hundreds of Reds protect their rights

Always listening, so we represent fans' real views – including the biggest independent annual survey of United fans and our open-door policy at the MUST house on matchdays

See the full manifesto here which sets out all of this in fuller detail.

Following on from this we have developed some further social media content which will be posted regularly on MUST’s Twitter account @MU_ST to raise awareness. You can see an example here. Retweets (reposts) are always welcome to reach new audiences.

Ticketing issues
As mentioned above we have seen a spate of sanctions recently for use of flares/smoke canisters on the stadium footprint and many more resulting from passing on tickets without using the official transfer system. There were a significant number of sanctions for transfer of non-transferable away tickets too with the Wembley matches seeing a particularly large number. Even if you are passing a ticket to a trusted friend we have seen far too many regrettable cases, asking for advice from our ISLO service, after the friend resold or otherwise misused a ticket (including screenshots) and the liability remains on the original ticket owner in these cases. So we encourage members to avoid the grief that can result by always using the official ticket forwarding, resale or donation options.

Another ticketing issue we are working on is the widespread perception amongst fans that the Club has increased hospitality sales at the expense of ordinary fans with ordinary seats being sold at inflated package prices. The Club continues to maintain this is not the case, and that no more hospitality tickets are being sold than before, but we understand many fans are highly sceptical. Rest assured, we continue to interrogate this issue through our dialogue with the Club. More on this anon.

MUST Foodbank Fundraisers
We have been raising funds for local foodbanks for several years now and still do match-day collections of donations. However we have increasingly moved to online fundraising with our prize draws which have raised over £60,000 for our charities (as well as crucial funds for MUST itself too).

If you’d like to support the prize draws please log in here using your MUST Membership Number [[MEMBERSHIP_NUMBER]] and you can then enter the draws here.

So that's all for now. Let's hope for a successful season ahead, both for the women’s and men’s teams - both looking to build on real signs of hope last year. The MUST team hope to see lots of you at Wolves on Monday - please feel free to drop by the MUST Stall on Sir Matt Busby Way if you have time and want to say hello.

Onward!

Many thanks for your continued support

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M.U.S.T.
www.imust.org.uk
18 Sir Matt Busby Way, Old Trafford, MANCHESTER M16 0QG
Office Tel: 0161 872 3300
Twitter:  @MU_ST
Prize Draws:  https://www.imust.org.uk/Competition
MUST Shop:  http://mustshop.org
Facebook page:  /MUST