Manchester United fans see no way out of being trapped in the Glazers’ purgatory, but could David Beckham provide an escape route?

Since 2005, Man Utd have effectively paid billions for the (dis)honour of being owned by the Glazer family, the results of which are visible today.

The money-printing giant has been brought to its knees due to heavy debts and outgoing transfer fees spent on underwhelming players.

Man Utd are no longer financially elite, and the only way out of this is to be bought by someone else. Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt have presented an intriguing option.

David Beckham option mooted for Man Utd takeover

Of all the ex-players of Man Utd, nobody has done better for themselves than David Beckham, who is effectively employing Lionel Messi right now.

Beckham is a part-owner of Inter Miami, and his business ventures beyond football ensure he’s one of the most financially well-connected individuals in the game, let alone in the United ecosystem.

If there was ever a person with close United connections who is also theoretically capable of buying the club, it’s Beckham, and that’s not a fact lost on Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes.

Scholes, speaking on The Good, The Bad, and The Football podcast, backed a potential Beckham-led consortium to buy United.

He said: “I don’t see why not. If they’ve got the wealth to do it, he wants to do it, more importantly. Then, knowing David as we do, he’d probably just sit in the background anyway. If his name was involved. He won’t present at games like at Inter Miami, I suppose.

“These owners haven’t worked, and I know Jim Ratcliffe’s only been there for two and a half years, but it just hasn’t worked so far, has it? We all know what the feeling around the club is about the Glazers, so I’d be open to anybody.”

Before Man Utd fans could get carried away, Butt brought them back down to earth by giving everyone a Glazers-based reality check.

He said: “The biggest problem you’ve got is the Glazers will want a piece of the pie, and they’re valuing it, correct me if I’m wrong, at about 8 billion now. I don’t think right now it’s worth 8 billion because they’re not going to be in the Champions League next year, which means commercial rights go down. That means the players are not as valuable. All that premium goes down, which makes the valuation a lot lower.”

Any deal for United is an exceptionally difficult one to make, but Beckham is as close as it gets to a universally accepted figure if a new owner were to arrive.

Getting rid of the Glazers entirely? That’s an entirely different matter, as Butt points out above.