Manchester United rule out selling Old Trafford naming rights

Manchester United have ruled out selling Old Trafford's naming rights

Manchester United’s owners, the Glazer family, are planning to forego a potential £20million-a-year windfall by rejecting the opportunity to sell the naming rights to Old Trafford.

The Glazers will mark the 10th anniversary later this week of their controversial leveraged takeover of United, which plunged the club into debt to the tune of £525million in May 2005.

The Florida-based owners remain hugely divisive figures among the United supporters, but although vocal hostility towards the Glazers has subsided in recent years, any move to rename Old Trafford would risk widespread protest and condemnation.

Quarterly accounts published in February revealed that the club’s debt currently stands at £380m, but Telegraph Sport understands that United’s American owners regard stadium naming rights as off-limits as a means to further boost Old Trafford’s commercial income, despite the increasingly lucrative market for stadium branding and re-naming. United are due to publish their latest quarterly accounts on Thursday.

^{Joel and Avram Glazer are not minded to sell Old Trafford's naming rights} 

The Dallas Cowboys currently benefit from the world’s biggest naming rights deal having secured a £16m-a-year package with communications giant AT&T for the branding of the recently-built Cowboys Stadium in Texas.

Arsenal currently earn £30million-a-year from their combined stadium naming rights and shirt sponsorship deal with Emirates Airlines, while Manchester City are looking to improve on their current £35m-a-year deal with Etihad Airlines, which covers naming rights, shirt sponsorship and the branding of the so-called Campus area around the stadium.

It is understood, however, that the Glazers remains committed to their current strategy of securing partnership deals across the globe to bolster their commercial income.

And with the club hopeful of return to the Champions League next season, which will be worth at least £50m-a-year to competing clubs, there is no desire among the Glazers or the United hierarchy to consider offering Old Trafford to the highest bidder.