SOCCER:ON THE day that a group of wealthy and well connected Manchester United fans were forced to declare publicly plans to mount an audacious bid for the club, the Glazer family that have become the object of fury vowed to stay in control until 2017.

After news of their first meeting leaked out on Monday night, the so-called Red Knights – a group of well-known City figures led by the Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill – yesterday outlined their ambition to put together a takeover bid within months.

“This group is supportive of current management but are looking at the feasibility of putting together a proposal to be put to the Glazer family regarding the ownership of Manchester United,” it said in a statement.

“These discussions are in early stages and no contact has been made with the Glazer family.”

But having been forced to declare their hand early, the group yesterday attempted to leave the talking to the Manchester United Supporters Trust, the joint co-ordinators of the green and gold protests against the Glazers that have intensified after the details of a £512 million (€563m) refinancing scheme were revealed in prospectus documents.

“Our role in this is to generate interest among supporters and grow numbers to give us confidence that the groundswell of support is there for us to pursue it,” said the Must chief executive, Duncan Drasdo.

“A bid could then go in quickly. I don’t know what the timescale will be but I would imagine that it could probably be months rather than days or weeks.”

As its website threatened to collapse under the weight of inquiries, its total membership last night stood at more than 62,000, an increase of around 10,000 in a single day.

However, the Glazers, who yesterday released quarterly results showing that revenues had risen by 19 per cent to £144.7 million (€159m) in the six months to December 31st, 2009, compared to the previous year, are understood to have vowed to remain for the full term of their recently issued bond until 2017.

Yet O’Neill and his fellow Red Knights are believed to have been encouraged by soundings from within the club and sources close to the talks said they would not have put their name to the scheme if they did not think it had a serious chance of success. Analysts believe the group will have to put together a bid of around £1.2 billion (€1.3bn) to force the Glazers to consider selling.

Others involved include Mike Rawlinson, a partner at the City law firm Freshfields, and Keith Harris, a stockbroker who has been connected with several football takeovers. Yesterday’s results showed that the refinancing cost £24 million (€26m) in fees, more than originally thought. It will not become clear until the next set of results are released at the end of May whether the Glazers have taken £95 million (€104m) from the club’s cashflow in dividends and charges to help pay off their high-interest PIK loans.

One of the more intriguing issues of a potentially long and drawn-out takeover campaign is what Alex Ferguson makes of one of his close allies emerging as the main player behind the plans.

Ferguson, as is so often the case, is understood to have had advance notice of Monday’s meeting of the Red Knights in London, which could easily be attributed to the fact that he and Jim O’Neill are old friends and colleagues and still regularly talk.

O’Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, got to know Ferguson through the manager’s son, Mark, and became a non-executive director at Old Trafford in November 2004 only to be removed from the board in one of the Glazers’ first acts after they took control six months later.

He has a grievance against the Americans and Ferguson is acutely aware of how the Manchester-born businessman, described after his appointment at Old Trafford as “a plain-speaking, self-made man”, feels about the club’s financial position under the current owners.

The sense of those at Monday’s talks was that it was barely conceivable that O’Neill had not informed the United manager of his intentions.

Ferguson has angered many supporters by repeatedly siding with the Glazers, but what can be said for certain is that he has said nothing to put off O’Neill from exploring the possibilities of whether he and a variety of other wealthy supporters have the money in place for an aggressively styled takeover.