Sleeping giants awake

Manchester United fans, after such a muted response to the club takeover by Malcolm Glazer, have been urging shirt sponsor Vodafone to stop sponsoring Untied. People outside the shareholders meeting had signs with "Hang up on Malcolm Glazer" written on them.

Vodafone’s PR machine says the number of contract cancellations in protest is insignificant. They'd lie anyway, but are probably right.

The sponsorship deal lasts until 2007 so I don’t quite see how this has any effect other than to stir up negative PR for Vodafone.

What might be a more effective strategy would be for Shareholders United to link up with a competitor and sell subscriptions to a new provider outside the ground before games. Not close enough to cause a problem, but promoted well enough for people to seek it out.

Vodafone would take newspaper photos of fans in Man U kit signing up for someone elses mobil service seriously. Would be great comedy in it too.

I read thru “Shareholders United’s” paper which has a convincing argument. But nobody will stop any sponsorship unless they see the takeover in real terms.

That means Manchester United related cancellations. The rest is cigar ashes.