Author(s): Luke Bainbridge

Football/Rugby

Manchester United's rise to glory, under managerial giants Sir Matt Busby and later Sir Alex Ferguson, is one of the greatest sporting stories ever told. It's a tale that has attracted romantic dreamers, idealists and purists from all corners of the Red Planet to invest their own hopes and dreams in this most majestic of football clubs. But there is more to be told about Manchester United - the remarkable journey of how a humble football club from northern England became the most valuable sports brand in the world. The first sports team to be valued at over $3 billion, the club continues to go from strength to strength, and United's recent GBP750 million sponsorship deal with Adidas was record-breaking, surpassing not just Barcelona and Real Madrid, but major American sports. This is a fight for world domination and the creation of a Red Planet, against all the odds. United has faced bankruptcy more than once in its history and this is a club whose accountant was once refused money at the bank when he went to withdraw the players' wages, but now pays players like Wayne Rooney up to GBP300,000 per week.
But most of all, it's a story about the battle for the soul of a football club, a battle some will fight to the death; whatever it takes to keep the red flag flying high. With a steady stream of new challenges, from the retirement of Sir Alex to the death of Sir Malcolm Glazer, a battle that some, conversely, think has already been lost.