IT'S with the heaviest of hearts that I pen this week's column as I have to go against my own nature and pose the question - should we now be feeling sorry for Manchester United?

I know. The words are sticking on the computer keyboard, the very thought of the above inquiry bringing forth a discernible resistance from the machine, let alone finger-tips that normally flip across and flagellate those plastic levers into submission.

But there are times when this job is far from pleasant, hence the aforementioned conundrum.

Now, let's get one thing straight. The teaser in the opening paragraph is not a rhetorical question. It could never be.

Certainly not after the years of convenient revisionism of the Sky-inflated Premiership. Somehow Manchester United's doldrums of 25 years of not having won the domestic game's top prize - even being cast out of the elite division too during that ignominious spell - have been shaded out of the history-books. It's like Stalinism clad in a Sky-true-only uniform. But 25, just count 'em - that's more than a living generation of top-drawer failure.

Admittedly, Sir Alex Ferguson has since weaved a trophy-amassing formula that has elevated the Red Devils into the heaven of a dynastic position at the pinnacle of the English game that has only recently been challenged by Arsenal.

But before the birth of the Premiership, Man U were effectively a club that lived on its past. Then they, unwittingly, grew from the sheer tragedy of the Busby babes, who prematurely perished in the Munich air disaster of 1958 before being blessed by their dazzling successors of a decade later - Best, Law, Charlton et al - who lifted the European Cup for the first time.

But between that Wembley walloping of Benfica and the arrival of Ferguson, and don't forget that his early days at the Old Trafford helm were far from sublime, power-plays belonged almost exclusively to Red Rose Radio rather than anything emanating from the M16 postcode area.

So why pity now for the club that spikily sought to regain its domestic dominance by downing arch-adversaries Arsenal in a controversy-riddled clash on the Sabbath just gone?

Well, it's all down to that great football enthusiast from across the pond - Malcolm Glazer.

Bush and Kerry fighting an election that could have a huge bearing on the very safety of the globe? Forget that. Of more interest to this country - well, Manchester United supporters are drawn from all four corners of the British Isles, if not the entire planet - is the issue of who will gain control of the Red Devils' house rather than that white-stoned pile of real estate on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington.

Glazer, the owner of gridiron club Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has richly oiled the wheels of his planned acquisition of United. Since his interest in England's North-West has been pricked, Glazer has amassed shares that currently give him a 28.11 per cent stake in the club.

It's a stealth of wealth that has alarmed grass-roots fans, energising them into protest against a would-be owner who, we are told, would love to get his mitts on a new 'franchise'. That very word - 'franchise' - is anathema to English football fans.

No matter what club you support and at what level, there's no way you view them as a marketing brand. For any self-respecting fan, a club belongs in the heart, in the emotions. It's not couched in a wallet nor pulsing with riches in a portfolio.

Franchises speak more of brand leadership, of ruthless self-image and promotion, of strategies where cash rules and the rest are damned.

Hang on a minute. Doesn't that describe modern-day Manchester United, who could easily be named Mammon United such is the relentless way in which they have marketed themselves? Sorry for them? No way.

Updated: 10:59 Tuesday, October 26, 2004