All is not well at Manchester United, where results have continued to disappoint despite the dismissal of Erik ten Hag and appointment of Ruben Amorim, and matters off the pitch continue to disappoint the club’s fans.
Sitting 13th in the Premier League, with just three wins from their last 10 and claims from Amorim that this is the worst team “maybe in the history of Manchester United”, there is an air of gloom surrounding Old Trafford.
United will hope things have improved significantly by the summer, but if not a pre-season trip abroad might make for a welcome escape. Perhaps to America. But definitely not Tampa.
Tampa tours not an option for Manchester United
That’s because the Floridian city is reportedly strictly out of bounds for the Red Devils, whose owners have always prohibited any kind of pre-season friendly in the area.
The Glazer family are, of course, also owners of American football team Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Typically, that would mean a relationship between the two teams, but that is not the case here.
According to ESPN reporter Mark Ogden, the Glazers do not want United’s players to see the state-of-the-art facilities Tampa Bay’s players have access to.
“I was told a story by somebody who worked at United, and it's the elephant in the room that we haven't really discussed: It's the Glazers. It's the Glazer family and their ownership of the club,” Ogden said on The Football Reporters podcast.
'I asked this person, I said, when United go to America, why do they never go to Tampa? Arsenal will do a link-up with the LA Rams or with whoever (owner Stan) Kroenke's team are. Liverpool did it with FSG in Boston, they spent a lot of time there.
“United have never gone anywhere near Tampa, where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that the Glazers own in the US (are). I was told it's quite simply because the owners didn't want the United squad to see how good the Tampa Bay facilities were. They didn't want them to see the training ground because the training ground at Tampa is meant to be state-of-the-art.
“The stadium is a top stadium. The Glazers have put a lot of money into the facility at Tampa and if the players had gone to Tampa Bay Buccaneers' training ground and realised what they had and what United don't have, there might have been a mutiny at the club.”
With renovation ongoing at Carrington and development promised at Old Trafford, United will be aiming to get their facilities up to the level expected of one of the world’s richest clubs.
