体坛英语新闻：Man. United's debt amounts to 1.17 billion dollars

LONDON, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The total debt for Manchester United has amounted to 716.5 million pounds (1.17 billion US dollars) and could rise even more, the English Premier League club announced on Wednesday.

The Premier League champions said last week that they had reduced their bank debt to 509 million pounds (829 million dollars) , but the overall increase in the debts of the Glazer-family owned Red Football Joint Venture Ltd. rose 17 million pounds largely because of the punitive interest rates on its so-called payment-in- kind loan.

That debt for the year ending June 30, 2009, increased 27 million pounds to 202 million pounds (329 million dollars).

And the interest rate on the PIK loan, which was initially for 138 million pounds (258 million dollars) in August 2006, is scheduled to rise from an already high 14.25 percent to 16.25 percent in August.

United hopes to refinance its debt and reduce interest payments through a 500 million pound (815 million dollars) bond sale it announced last week.

The overall debt was not contained in the prospectus United issued for the bond sale.

United paid more than 68 million pounds (110.7 million dollars) in interest last year, almost as much as the world-record 80 million pounds (131.7 million dollars) it received from Real Madrid in July for Cristiano Ronaldo.

The sale of Ronaldo meant that United made an overall profit of 6.4 million pounds (10.4 million dollars), compared to a 42.7 million pound (59.3 million dollars) loss 12 months earlier.