Rebirth: Starting from selling water to become the world’s richest man

Red Devils Manchester United, acquisition plan

Malcolm Glazer.

When he heard the name, Li Shanshan suddenly thought of something.

Who is this guy?

American businessmen started in the watch business and gradually accumulated huge wealth.

Beginning in the 1970s, Glazer purchased a large number of properties in Florida and gradually became a real estate tycoon.

Since then, he has started to dabble in industries such as food, broadcasting, banking, natural gas and oil, stocks and bonds, and made a lot of wealth.

In 1995, Glazer shifted his focus to the sports industry.

He first bought the Florida football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for $192 million.

This team won the Super Bowl championship trophy in 2002.

Perhaps having tasted the sweetness, Glazer later shifted his target to the Premier League and spent 790 million pounds to acquire the Premier League giant Manchester United.

However, among the richest people in the United States, his wealth can only be regarded as an upper-middle level.

Only in football circles, he is well known to fans all over the world because of the acquisition of Manchester United.

When he was very young, Li Shanshan was very interested in football.

Especially the Premier League Manchester United team, this is a team with a glorious history.

In 1878, workers of the Manchester Railway Company formed an amateur football club.

In 1902, the club held a reorganization meeting and decided to change the color of the jersey to red tops and white shorts. This is also the origin of the nickname “Red Devils”.

In 1908, Manchester United began to rise and won the first league championship in history.

In 1968, Manchester United became the first English team to win the European Cup.

In 1999, Manchester United became the first team in the history of the five major European football leagues to win the treble of the season.

In 2011, Manchester United became the team that has won the most top domestic football league titles, and is also one of the Grand Slam teams in European football that has won the three major European Cups.

As of 2022, Manchester United has won 20 domestic top league championships, 3 European Champions Cup championships, 12 FA Cup championships and many other honors.

For such a team with a long history, there are many famous figures who have played for it.

Ferguson, Busby, Charlton, Cantona, Giggs, Beckham, Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo…

all dazzling names represent the team’s profound historical heritage.

Influenced by his father, Li Shanshan has been fond of Manchester United since he was a child.

His dream was to build Manchester United into a super team according to his own ideas.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the financial resources in my previous life, so I could only enjoy myself by playing the game “Football Manager”.

Today, Li Shanshan is already the richest man in the world.

In terms of financial resources alone, it would not be a big problem for him to acquire FIFA, let alone a football team.

Some time ago, because of Yao Ming, Li Shanshan bought the NBA Rockets.

As for why you acquired the basketball team first and not the football team?

This is mainly because the time has not yet come.

As the number one sport in the world, selling a football team is much more complicated than a basketball team.

Especially for some old and wealthy teams, the local fan base is very large, and three generations of many families support the same team.

Sometimes the change of ownership of a team is likely to trigger resistance and opposition from fans.

Therefore, in normal times, traditional wealthy teams rarely sell.

However, with the development of the Internet economy, traditional industries have been greatly affected.

Many of the owners of these wealthy teams operate in traditional industries, and their lives are not easy either.

This has led to economic crises in some wealthy teams in recent years.

When these owners can no longer hold on, they can only cash in by selling the team.

In the original world, Manchester United had an economic crisis at this time, which also allowed Glazer to seize the opportunity.

In June 2005, Glazer purchased Manchester United for £790 million.

However, his acquisition was not glorious.

Glazer did not have sufficient funds, so he just staged a good show of empty gloves.

He first used his parent company as collateral to borrow 500 million pounds from the bank to collect the money needed to buy Manchester United.

After acquiring Manchester United, he mortgaged the Manchester United club to a bank for a loan of 1 billion pounds and repaid the parent company’s loan of 500 million pounds.

Over and over again, Glazer used the bank’s money to successfully become the new owner of Manchester United.

However, his operation left Manchester United with a debt of 525 million pounds.

Manchester United had to repay this debt for 13 years, and the interest alone reached 275 million pounds.

After the fans knew the truth, they were all extremely angry.

That night, many fans gathered and held up signs against Glazer.

Some extreme fans even burned Glazer’s portrait to express strong protest.

However, their rescue action was too late. The cunning and experienced Glazer finally took control of the board of directors through various operations.

Under Glazer, Manchester United lagged behind its city rivals Manchester City in terms of youth training and infrastructure.

Although the Glazer family claims to be avid sports fans, they lack professional knowledge and the results of investing large sums of money in signings are not satisfactory.

After Ferguson retired, Manchester United gradually lost its aura of luxury and became a mediocre club.

It can be said that the Glazer family has something to do with Manchester United’s decline.

Manchester United is one of the most successful clubs in football, but the Glazer family may be the worst owners in football.

The entire Glazer family only has interests in their eyes, and Manchester United is just a tool for them to make money.

Thinking of this, Li Shanshan’s heart moved.

The cocktail party that Gates invited him to was hosted by local business elites, and Glazer happened to be one of the organizers.

According to Li Shanshan’s memory, Glazer had secretly acquired a lot of shares in Manchester United at this time.

This must be prevented from happening!

Li Shanshan is not prepared to hand over Manchester United.

Since Glazer can buy Manchester United, why can’t he buy his favorite team?

Li Shanshan didn’t have this strength in the previous life, but now it’s not a problem at all.

With his current status, Glazer would never have the guts to compete with him.

What’s more, Li Shanshan has always convinced people with money.

He planned to buy out Grete’s Manchester United stock even if he spent money on it.

After he took charge of Manchester United, he relied on his memories of his previous life to acquire talented players such as Messi, Kaká and Iniesta in advance.

After Ferguson retired, Mourinho was invited to be the head coach.

Li Shanshan believes that this lineup is invincible in world football.