FC United of Manchester, a love story.

A group of Manchester United fans, dissatisfied with the sale of the institution to the tycoon Glazer, founded a dissident club in 2005. Since then it has not stopped ascending and gaining fans around the world.

"I don't have to sell my soul". There was no question. Translated into Spanish, that phrase written on one of the founding posters of the Football Club United of Manchester was a new world, a beginning, a search: "I don't have to sell my soul."

FC United is an English club born as a response to a characteristic of these times: the institutions are in the hands of any businessman willing to put a pile of money. It is a split from the famous and powerful Manchester United, generated from the sale of the original club to the American billionaire Malcolm Glazer, in 2005. The blog Fútbol Rebelde recounts: "That operation upset United's longtime followers and a group of them was encouraged to form a new club with the will to become the depository of the authentic spirit of Manchester United". Since their birth, these Red Rebels ("Red Rebels", their nickname) they do not stop growing (they achieved three promotions in three years and went from the tenth to the seventh level of English football) and to add adhesions even from other distant geographies. There is a certain logic in the phenomenon of accumulation of sympathies: this dissident club represents football as a space for belonging and not as a business.

Malcolm Glazer never read what Albert Camus, a vocational archer, Nobel Prize writer, used to say: "After many years in which the world has allowed me varied experiences, what I know most about morality and the obligations of men has been I owe football." That owner of his own economic empire never threw a center or headed it; he did not save penalties or kick them; he never suffered a defeat with friends; He also never understood those fans capable of shouting a goal in the rain without fear of hoarseness or colds.

The son of Lithuanian immigrants, Malcolm Glazer is the owner of First Allied Corporation, a holding company that allows him to control his real estate investments, shares in energy and food companies, as well as his investments in natural gas and oil, in health and in the media. To manage Manchester United - one of the three richest clubs in the world - he did what he usually does: transfer tasks. He appointed his sons (Joel and Avram) as officers. The media that do not belong to him say that he invested 810 million pounds, which were financed thanks to bank loans, with club assets as collateral.

Following FC United's founding meetings, held at Manchester Methodist Hall and the Apollo Theatre, more than 4,000 fans pledged to financially support the launch of the new club. The first steps were taken the following week: Karl Marginson was appointed as manager and the doors were opened to all those footballers and fans who wanted to try out to play for FC United. Nine hundred submitted their application (by way of curriculum), 200 were initially admitted for internships and 17 of them remained who began to represent the institution. At the same time, the official start date of the activity was established on July 14.

With some of those footballers from the initial test and with others that were added, the results led to a dizzying pace. And with that walk also came some criticism. Alex Ferguson -historical and successful manager of Manchester United- questioned the creation of the club and accused the dissidents of being "selfish". He also championed the arrival of the Glazer clan at the Old Trafford club. The best of managers praised new employers. The rebels sneered at him again.

Last year FC United produced one of the greatest astonishments in the history of the FA Cup (the oldest club competition in the world). Against everything and against everyone, this team from the seventh division made it through six ties and generated enormous enthusiasm among the inhabitants of the outskirts of Manchester (Greater Manchester). "There were supporters who said that if they paired up with the ManU they would not go to Old Trafford so as not to provide money to the Glazers," said Ashley Gray, a journalist for the Daily Mail at the time. Another statement of principles; another message from the same militancy.

That eventual crossing would have been the perfect portrait of the giant's duel against the intrepid little one. Josep Coves, from the newspaper Sport, expresses it: "All the comparisons with Manchester United are hilarious. Each member – some two thousand – are shareholders of the club. They pay an entry fee of 12 pounds – three children – and are entitled to a only vote, regardless of the amount donated. The board of directors is elected democratically. On a sporting level, the two clubs are light years apart. While ManU has a turnover of 287 million pounds, FC United barely exceeds £440,000 not to mention player chips."

The Mexican writer Juan Villoro once recounted it: "Of course it is possible to write novels about soccer. The issue is how good that novel can be. I have the impression that soccer is so codified that it leaves little room for invention. It has marginal mysteries, and for that reason it lends itself more to the story. For the rest, its excesses are ideal for the chronicle. But maybe I'm wrong and a Joyce or a Faulkner of the courts is possible". Be it a story, novel or chronicle, when someone decides to portray it in the field of literature, that of FC United will essentially be a love story for the essence of sport.

Source image: FC United of Manchester.