The delay in the takeover process at Manchester United has caused a degree of frustration ahead of Friday's third and final deadline for bids.
There are multiple offers to buy the club including a group led by Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and another from Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The Glazers have continually pushed back their deadline to complete a sale of the club with the ownership situation at Old Trafford still unclear.
This week it emerged that Ratcliffe had tabled a fresh proposal that would enable Avram and Joel Glazer to retain a small stake in the club. Sheikh Jassim remains intent on acquiring 100 per cent of the club rather than a minority stake – with differences between the bids now becoming starker.
Ratcliffe’s stance may be somewhat of a risk. The Glazer family are deeply unpopular among the club's fans, with the Red Devils having gone a decade without winning the Premier League title. United fans want them to relinquish the club in its entirety.
Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim still haven’t met the Glazer family’s £6billion valuation - and are understood to both be more than £1billion short of the asking price being demanded. No other parties are understood to want to wrestle control away from the Glazers.
At least two of the six Glazer siblings – Joel and Avram – are understood to prefer an option which would see an outside investor buy a stake in the club to help finance huge capital projects like the redevelopment of the Old Trafford stadium and Carrington training ground.
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Under Ratcliffe’s proposals, Joel and Avram would retain a minority percent in the club but would no longer be responsible for major club decisions and would take a backseat at Old Trafford as Ratcliffe’s INEOS group assumed major control.
However, the delay in the process favours Ratcliffe ahead of Qatar. The INEOS owner had always wanted to wait until the end of the season before making a final decision on a bid, as this would allow him to fully assess United’s financial health and outlooks – depending on income from the season and potential Champions League qualification.
The drawn-out process may make a negative impact on United’s long-term planning including over the upcoming summer transfer window. Any new owner will now have a drastically reduced timescale to action any plans with the instability and uncertainty unlikely to be helpful for club officials and will weaken their negotiating position.
In a March interview with the New York Times, Ratcliffe said when speaking of his thought process: “How do you decide the price of a painting? How do you decide the price of a house? It’s not related to how much it cost to build or how much it cost to paint.
“What you don’t want to do is pay stupid prices for things because then you regret it subsequently.” Ratcliffe added that his interest in United would be “purely in winning things”, calling the club a “community asset”.
Sheikh Jassim, the chairman of Qatar Islamic Bank, is the son of a former Qatari prime minister and has previously claimed that this bid is a private initiative that is not connected to the Qatari state and is instead through his Nine Two Foundation. Should his bid be accepted – that claim would be examined through vetting processes.
Qatar Sports Investment – who share a direct link to the Qatari state – are likely to increase their investment into Paris Saint-Germain and remain committed to the French club amid interest in buying Spanish team Malaga. It is unclear if this will impact the bid for United – but the prolonging of the bidding process is likely to pour doubt on the situation.
