Figure United's lost badly creating despair (5)
I believe the answer is:
grief
'despair' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'figure united's lost badly' is the wordplay.
'united' becomes 'u'.
'lost' is a deletion indicator.
'badly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'figure' with 'u' removed is 'figre'.
'figre' anagrammed gives 'GRIEF'.
'creating' is the link.
(Other definitions for grief that I've seen before include "Distress" , "Deep sorrow" , "sad state" , "trouble" , "Sharp sorrow" .)