Manchester United is weighing up a move into mobile telephony through selling branded handsets to its millions of fans around the world, and then running the service itself.
'Its a real possibility and is something that we have been actively considering,' said Andy Anson, Man Utd's commercial director. The financial outlay would be kept to a minimum as the club is not about to go out and spend billions buying a network. The model would be Virgin Mobile, which rents capacity from established operators, but Anson says: 'There are cheaper options that we are looking at - things have moved on even since Virgin.'