Mason Greenwood and Manchester United saga is OVER: How club reacted and what happens next for the England international – club set to release official statement tomorrow morning
On Wednesday, we published a story that Manchester United’s chief executive, Richard Arnold, had told the club’s executive leadership in the first week of August that United were planning to bring back Mason Greenwood.
Greenwood has not played for the club since he was arrested in January 2022 after graphic images and audio were released on social media. Charges of attempted rape, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and controlling and coercive behaviour — all related to the same woman, and all of which Greenwood denied — were discontinued in February of this year.
Adam Crafton, who broke the story; Laura Williamson, The Athletic’s deputy editor; and Laurie Whitwell, our United correspondent, discussed what has happened with Mason Greenwood and Manchester United — and what might happen now — on The Athletic Football Podcast.
Laura Williamson: Yes, it absolutely did. We put some impeccably sourced points to them for comment, as we do with every article, and it was up to the club to respond.
They chose to do that publicly by sending a note to staff and then putting it on the Manchester United Twitter account.
“We have heard from numerous people with direct involvement or knowledge of the case,” they said, “and throughout this process, the welfare and perspective of the alleged victim has been central to the club’s enquiries and we respect her right to lifelong anonymity.”
They talked about the responsibilities to Greenwood as an employee and as a young person who had been with the club so long and as a new father with a partner. And then they said that the fact-finding phase of their investigation was complete and they were in the final stages of making a decision on Greenwood’s future. But that decision had not been made and is currently the subject of intensive internal deliberation, and responsibility ultimately lies with chief executive Richard Arnold.
People are entitled to change their minds. But for whatever reason, that decision had been planned to be communicated and then was then delayed.
Adam Crafton: I think a lot of Man United supporters would have just seen that statement come out and also Man United staff would have seen that statement drop into their inboxes midway through a Wednesday afternoon. The important thing here is actually club staff received a different email on Monday, which was Richard Arnold just sort of setting out the new season, acknowledging that there are a few things still to be resolved, i.e. the takeover and the Mason Greenwood situation, and saying the club would be in touch over the next few weeks with further communication.
So for what was essentially a non-update really from the club on Wednesday afternoon, it wasn’t a communication of a decision.
It was something where they clearly felt that, following stories around the pressure that’s being applied to the women’s team over the past week and then also the story that they knew we were planning to publish, they felt they were losing control of the story, losing control of the narrative that had been very carefully choreographed over a great deal of time and had a great deal of planning.
I think it represented a little bit of a desperate attempt to claw back that control. And, you know, my personal reading of it is that it gave a window really into a club that is unsettled and panicking a little bit at this stage about how to handle what is threatening to become a very, very difficult situation from a PR point of view involving one of their employees.
Why is it important to show the process of the story being published?
Adam Crafton: I think sometimes as journalists, we presume that everyone knows how all these things work, right? How something just appears on a website and I think sometimes, within reason, it’s good to explain that process.
We did everything as we should on Wednesday.
We approached the club with the facts as we understood them to be true. We gave the club ample time to respond. We also allowed them an extension to their deadline because they said they were formulating the response for us. And then all of a sudden the club statement appears on the website simultaneously to it being sent to us.
Therefore, it was entirely clear to me that the response that the club provided, I think it’s very fair to conclude, was a result of the reporting that we intended to do.
And I think it’s very important that Manchester United fans who would have just been looking at that thinking: “What’s that statement all about?” have that understanding.
How much consultation will the United women’s team have had on the decision that is made?
Adam Crafton: This has become one of the really dominant topics in terms of this consultation, this proposed consultation with the women’s team.
As this process has gone along, Manchester United have used slightly different wording at slightly different times around what will happen with regards to key stakeholders. At different times it’s been described as consultation or engagement or kind of pre-briefing.
I think the word consultation gives a hint of “we’re really bearing in mind their views when we make a decision”. I think far more what Manchester United were planning to do, certainly at the start of August with the proposed announcement, was “we’re going to sit down with these people, whether that’s sponsors or advisors or fan advisory board or the women’s team, and we’re basically going to tell them the decision, explain our reasons. There’ll be an opportunity for feedback, but, fundamentally, the decision is made, but we don’t want it to be a huge shock that they find out on social media or on the club website when it lands”.
And some people would argue that that is really entirely appropriate because you’re talking about the relationship between an employer, an employee, and arguably an HR issue between those two parties.
People might also say, well, it’s not appropriate to delegate a major decision that the club’s hierarchy ought to make onto the shoulders of, you know, the women’s team, some of which are still playing at the World Cup. So I do see that from both sides.
We’ve had to be careful around how all of that is framed. But what has happened, regardless of what the truth of that intention really is, because there has been this perception that the women’s team will in some way be involved, it has led to social media hounding of some of these women over the past week or so.
To the extent we reported that one agent of a Manchester United women’s player was exploring enlisting cybersecurity support for his client, due to supporters who are supportive of Greenwood saying things like: “We’re watching you, we’ll be coming for you,” and things like that.
So that has become one of the darkest and most troubling aspects of this whole thing. And, unfortunately, it really stems from a vacuum of communication from the very top of the club and the delays during this process.
Laura Williamson: We can only surmise why this decision has been delayed, but when this meeting took place in the first week of August, that is just as England with Mary Earps and Katie Zelem (pictured below) are progressing into the knockout stages of the World Cup. And it it feels like to me somebody suddenly realised, hang on, we can’t put this out while our wonderful female players are playing at the other side of the world and winning.
And so you’ve opening up yourself to this situation where England are now in a World Cup final. They might win it. I hope they win it! But they might get asked after it: “What do you think about Mason Greenwood’s return to Manchester United?” It’s absolutely unpalatable.
