They have been owned by 49ers Enterprises since June 2023 who also own, yes, you guessed it (!),the San Francisco 49ers and also Rangers FC of the SPL. This will be the second EPL season under their ownership, they were a  little handicapped in the first, as they had PSR limitations, but these have now eased and they were always expected to be far more active in this window. As I type they have signed much admired CB Tarik Muharemovic from Sassuolo, he started all three games that he was available for for Bosnia at the World Cup (suspended for the other). The 23yo with a very big personality was a huge player for his nation in WC qualifying games against Wales and Italy and looks tailor made for the EPL. United also added Harry Wilson from Fulham on a free transfer, but those do not exist any more and he commanded a big salary and signing on fee after 10 goals and 7 assists for the low scoring Cottagers ( don't snigger!) last season. James Trafford also appears set to sign from Manchester City for £40m+ and become the most expensive British goalkeeper ever.

 

This is a club, like Brentford, Bournemouth and Brighton where, going forward, you should be less concerned with whom they sell and more interested in who they sign, as it will almost always be an upgrade.

 

Further big news is that after 25 years with the 49ers, Paraag Marathe has departed to focus full time on United and Rangers. Marathe is known as a super skillful and sometimes ruthless operator, who is incredibly well respected and was being touted to run MLS (he loves "soccer") and this was the deal the York family (49ers owners) made to keep him within their organisation. He has helped lead the 49ers to become the 11th biggest sports team in the world and with expansion plans at Elland Road underway, United are a team with similarly lofty dreams. He was the driving force behind the Niners investment in United, a club he says he has supported for more than a decade.

 

Marathe started at the bottom with the Niners and was doing analytics based work on the draft for them many years before most in the industry knew what analytics were. He understands modern "soccer" (I hate the term, but here we are discussing someone who has moved from "football" to "football" and need to differentiate) and all the right concepts, maximising your win probability, even giving yourself a 52 % instead of 50% chance of success is huge, equating set pieces to three point attempts in basketball and 4th down plays in the NFL, having staff unafraid (not punished) for making (correct) decisions which turn out badly. Stepping back from results to see the quality of decisions made. Basically setting out "empirically based objective decision-making models for running the business and club".But he also appreciates that it is not all about the numbers and that "the human psychology of how the game plays out with players is still really, really important" and the role that the head coach plays in that and he has praised Farke for reinforcing that belief.

 

 

 

Good luck!