The writer is Author of 'Those Were The Days' - the definitive story of Utd in the '90s (buy it at twitter.com/1990sUtd) and 'Red Rebels: The Glazers and the FC Revolution'
From John-Paul O'neill's JPO7 substack, March 3, 2026:
“But what of the Roman Mob? They follow Fortune, as always, and hate whoever she condemns. If Nortia, as the Etruscans called her, had favoured Etruscan Sejanus; if the old Emperor had been surreptitiously smothered; that same crowd in a moment would have hailed their new Augustus. They shed their sense of responsibility long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob that used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything, curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only, bread and circuses.” – Juvenal, The Satires
Zapata and the Bay of Pigs
About four years ago I was asked to meet a bloke who was formerly the editor of the Independent. He wanted to speak to me as he was writing a new book about the Glazers’ ownership of United, which seemed a bit of a pointless exercise as, in mid-2022, there was surely nothing new to say about them (besides, I’d previously literally written the book on their takeover myself).
Regardless, I agreed to meet him one lunchtime in Manchester’s Malmaison – I supposed it was worth the trip into Town for an expenses-paid lunch, if nothing else. When I turned up, I was slightly surprised to see my interviewer already tucking into a hefty serving of food himself, and he beckoned me to sit down. As food dribbled down his chin, he continued to stuff his face whilst telling me how hungry he was. Apparently he’d had a busy morning at Old Trafford where he’d undertaken the stadium tour – information which instantly had me casting prejudicial judgment on what sort of book his would likely be.
I soon realised I wasn’t going to be offered any grub of my own in return for my time and, as his bizarre Jabba the Hutt skit approached the 10-minute mark, I was on the verge of walking out when, finally, I was offered a coffee. Once his plate was (thankfully) cleared away he embarked upon some questions relating to the Glazers, and I have to admit to being slightly impressed by the attention he had paid my book as he related passages to me which - five years on - I barely remembered.
After I’d rehashed a few well-worn tales, there was one snippet I wanted to test out on him: I had recently been reading a book about the JFK assassination and in it I’d come across mention of oil rigs off Cuba being used as listening posts in the CIA’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The rigs belonged to an oil company called Zapata, a name which seemed familiar. When I looked it up, my suspicion was correct that it was the same name as Malcolm Glazer’s one-time oil business, of which Avi Glazer had become CEO. Further investigation revealed that Zapata had originally been formed as a Agency shell company by CIA operative (and its future head) George HW Bush, seemingly with notorious former CIA director Allen Dulles also involved.
This seemed a remarkable coincidence. In my understanding of such matters, the CIA rarely cedes control of such companies. Whilst ‘ownership’ is often passed on, it is usually either to someone acting as a front, or to other trusted CIA-connected personnel. I checked Malcolm Glazer’s back story once again: his first big break came by way of a watch concession on a US military base – facilitated by persons unknown – at a time many males his age were being conscripted into the Armed Forces ahead of deployment in Europe or Korea. Hmmm...
When Chris Blackhurst’s book on the Glazers was eventually released in late 2023, I was promised a copy but never received one. However, I learned (and was slightly surprised) that my information about Zapata, including reference to the company’s CIA links, had been included at length over two pages:
“Mention Zapata in some quarters of Washington DC in particular, and eyebrows will shoot upwards and knowing looks will be exchanged. Zapata was almost certainly a commercial front for the CIA for many years.”
Despite this, it’s obviously quite a leap from there to the Glazers actually being a CIA front – even though such a proposition makes a lot more sense of much that has gone on since 2005. However, over the last two-and-a-half years it’s something I’ve kept an eye on and – even allowing for confirmation bias - it would appear to me that there might well be something in it, given the continual cast of Intelligence-connected characters who have drifted through Old Trafford’s Boardroom for the last 40 years and more. See what you think…
The Epstein Connection
Mere mention of the name ‘Rothschild’ is enough to induce in people eye-rolling and a Pavlovian “Oh, here we go!” response to what we are all conditioned to see as an inevitable descent into wacko conspiracy theorising. Yet despite the Rothschilds being a family of whom it is supposedly “antisemitic” to claim run global finance, their own website boasts how they bailed out the Bank of England, whilst an officially-sanctioned history tells how they took over the Royal Mint’s gold refinery at a time they were also bankrolling Prince Albert - the husband of the woman ruling over the richest empire in history. They also fronted the finance for the British government to buy the Suez Canal in 1875, through which much of European trade flowed, whilst their website also boasts how the global gold price was fixed every day in their London office which, throughout the days of the Gold Standard, sounds something akin to them controlling global finance. Suffice to say, they had a few quid. And people who have the level of wealth and influence to bankroll royalty and empires don’t usually tend to just give it up....
....MUCH MORE
Possibly related:
BOMBSHELL: Prince Was Secretly Married, Died To Protect CIA Connection !!!
