IF the team of financial controllers at Manchester United soccer club were players there would be hugging, kissing and air punching a-plenty to celebrate the publicly quoted company's 79 per cent surge in pre-tax profits to £27.6 million sterling in the year to end July last. Instead the red devils with ledgers just gave vent to some wickedly quiet satisfaction at another excellent annual financial performance from the money-making machine.

With total income last year rising almost two thirds to £88 million merchandising sales, at £27.8 million, are catching up on gate receipts of £30 million. With annual revenue from television contracts doubling to £12.6 million the club is proposing to create its own pay TV channel in association with BSkyB and Granada, the media group.

Classic games from the past, interviews, personality profiles, club news and other "lifestyle and entertainment" features, will come interspersed with lots of lovely advertising. So Roy Keane's taste in pasta, or Ryan Giggs's taste in wallpaper, could be some of the delights on offer for hardened fans. Now capitalised at around £440 million, the business is by far the largest of Britain's growing list of floated soccer clubs. The shares, at around 672p, have appreciated a whopping 45 per cent since last year. If, when contractual obligations expire in 2001, MUTV televises its own matches, the revenue floodgates could open.