"Feelings are running very high and I can see a huge backlash building from Manchester United supporters against Murdoch's empire," said Lee Hodgkiss, a spokesman for the Independent Manchester United Supporters' Association.
Hodgkiss said a hostile reaction was certain during Wednesday's home match against Charlton.
United supporters, among the most passionate in a country of fierce regional loyalties, fear their sport and club are being hijacked by a man with no roots or loyalties.
"Rupert Murdoch doesn't care about the club," said one caller to a radio show. "It's not about the club, it's about business."
Exclusive live television coverage is clearly the driving force behind the Murdoch bid.
Shares in the club soared on Monday after Murdoch's satellite television company British Satellite Broadcasting confirmed it was interested in acquiring Manchester United.
A report in the Financial Times said British leisure group Enic Plc was poised to mount a counter-offer.
Murdoch has long realised the power of sport, telling the annual general meeting of News Corp that soccer was far more powerful than films in drawing viewers to pay television.
"We have the long-term rights in most countries to major sporting events and we will be doing in Asia what we intend to do elsewhere in the world, that is use sports as a battering ram and a lead offering in our pay television operations," he said.
Media analyst Albert Scardino told Reuters on Monday that the potent attraction of televised sport was the key to understanding Murdoch's bid to become the first media magnate to buy a British soccer club.
"If you think of the players as 11 actors, you've got it," he said. "Television is what it's about, filling up television programming.
"You've got lots of hours of programming. You can look at is as an extension of the film production business."
Sunday's announcement is the logical extension of BSkyB's move to secure television rights to the new premier league six years ago.
Manchester United have been the trail blazers in the premier league, winning four championships in five seasons, as the gap between the wealthy elite big city clubs and the others has widened.
Now Murdoch has brought England into line with the major continental leagues where former Italian prime minister and media giant Silvio Berlusconi owns A.C. Milan and Canal Plus controls Paris St Germain in France.
It could also have been only a matter of time before Murdoch turned his attention to the world's most popular sport after buying the television rights to rugby union in the southern hemisphere three years ago and making successful acquisitions in the United States.
The Australian-born entrepreneur, now a U.S. citizen, owns the Los Angeles Dodgers and has part shares in the L.A. Lakers and New York Knicks basketball teams and the New York Rangers Ice Hockey team.
Murdoch's initiative leaves him poised to take full advantage of the digital television revolution and the limitless appetite of the committed fan for sporting nostalgia.
Manchester United were the most glamorous side of the 1960s as well as one of the most successful, and archive film of Denis Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton could be endlessly recycled.
"It's an entertainment business," said Scardino. "It's a great advance over the movie business.
"If you can make the club self-sufficient and make it break even as a sporting entity then the television money is pure profit.
"That's the attraction of Manchester United."
Reuters
