Green and Gold Campaign

FC United offers its support to the Green & Gold Campaign aimed at unifying United supporters. The campaign, organised by no one group nor owned by any one section of support, has grown over the last two weeks as awareness of the true implications of the takeover of Manchester United has escalated.

The wearing of Green & Gold attire is intended to provide a public, tangible demonstration of the depth of feeling and provides a direct link to our, commonly shared, Newton Heath roots and has undoubtedly caught a mood.

Many have argued that the only realistic method of protest is one of full and total boycott. For those that made that painful sacrifice in 2005 and received criticism for doing so, it is an understandable reaction. However we did not seek the moral high ground five years ago, and we should not aim to occupy it now. Whether to boycott or not has always been down to individual choice and continues to be exactly that, however IMUSA were correct this week to state that the only real solution is to starve the Glazers of cash.

FC United is a proud bulwark against the travesty of the takeover, but we do not exist as a virtuous island. Our priorities are to continue to build our football club as an example of how we believe all clubs should be constituted; our short term aim is to establish our own stadium, in the longer term we will continue to campaign for wider supporter-ownership across football as we firmly believe that the only sustainable model of ownership is just that. We intend to place FC United at the very centre of that debate.

If we are going to affect significant long term change in the game then it is more important than ever that we maintain our own course to show that there is an alternative model to the instability of clubs which do not involve supporters at their heart. We must continue to help build a broad alliance of fans and interested parties in the wider game and we should encourage those better placed than us to tackle the issues at Old Trafford by giving them our support.

FC United remains as an alternative for fans seeking refuge from the excesses of the Premier League and we continue to be a major part of the visible resistance to the Glazers and the general mismanagement of football. Without the reforms we have campaigned for there will be no long term sustainable solution.

Everyone at FC United remains committed to what we set out to do especially now as we move closer to our own stadium. Our business plan for the stadium has been submitted to the city council and we expect to have a meeting with them in the next few weeks to discuss the next stage.

As we stated in our founding manifesto we will continue to ’address the concerns which many Manchester United fans have had over the last decade or more with how the club and football have developed, culminating in the club’s takeover by Malcolm Glazer’.

FC United stands as a proud alternative for those disenfranchised supporters

The 2005 manifesto also stated ’we have ambitious and long term plans’ and we remain resolute in our determination to deliver them.