4 Jul 2012

Manchester United plays for dollars in US

4:31 pm on 4 July 2012

Manchester United is moving to raise cash through a United States share sale.

The English football club is overloaded with debt since a takeover by the billionaire American Glazer family and has filed papers in the USA for an initial public share offering, with the owners touting its value as one of the world's most recognised sports brands.

The papers gave a pro-forma amount of $US100 million ($NZ124 million) as the target for the share issue, but recent reports about abortive attempts to list it in Hong Kong or Singapore say the owners aim to bring in $US1 billion.

The team has struggled in recent years with heavy debts from the Glazer takeover, despite what is arguably the world's strongest global fan base for a football club.