Despite Manchester United’s link to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers through the Glazer ownership, the Red Devils have never visited Tampa on US tours and a damning reason why has been suggested
Manchester United and NFL team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are linked through the Glazer ownership but the teams have never visited each other.
The Red Devils and the Bucs are both owned by the Glazer family. United have been owned by the Glazers since an £800million leveraged buyout in 2005 left the club with huge levels of debt. While the Bucs were bought for a then-league record fee of $192million in 1995, approximately £153.6m today.
Despite the link and United having spent numerous pre-season tours in the US, the 20-time league champions have never been near Tampa.
ESPN’s Mark Ogden explained that there is belief that if the visiting United players saw the quality of the training facilities in Tampa, they would rebel against their comparatively poor facilities at Carrington in comparison.
Speaking on the Football Reporters podcast, Ogden said: “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.
“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.”
Glazer ownership at Old Trafford has been met with backlash throughout the years by United fans, with a lack of investment in facilities and infrastructure one of several major reasons to blame for the hatred of sections of United fans towards them.
In 2022, Tampa opened a state-of-the-art £57million training facility. While Carrington is finally undergoing a £50m project since the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe a co-owner to improve the base that United have called home since 2000.