Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who owns Ineos, and Sheikh Jassim, a banker from Qatar, will make better offers to buy Manchester United before Wednesday at 21:00 GMT.
This month, United officials met with the only two known bidders.
People say that when they went to Old Trafford and Manchester United’s training ground, they talked with interesting people.
Ineos wants to buy all of the Glazer shares, which are worth about 69% of the club. The Qataris, on the other hand, want to buy the entire club.
BBC Sport discovered that United officials met with representatives from Ratcliffe, Sheikh Jassim, and seven other possible investors over ten days.
Their first bids have not been made public yet, but reports say they are around £4.5 billion. This is a long way below what the club’s American owners, the Glazers, have set as a value of $5 billion to $6 billion.
The next big question is if they or any other possible bidders can make an offer that makes the Glazers want to sell.
If not, and since United’s luck has improved a lot under manager Erik ten Hag in the last few months, the Americans might still decide to keep the club and instead try to sell a minority stake to a US hedge fund like Elliott Investment Management.
In November, the Glazer family said that they might sell United.
In its first bid, Sheikh Jassim’s Qatari group said, “We plan to return the club to its former glory.”
Sheikh Jassim is the head of the Qatari bank QIB and the son of a former Qatari prime minister. He has always liked the team Manchester United.
Ratcliffe, a 70-year-old British billionaire, owns the Ineos group. He has always spent money on sports and now owns the French Ligue 1 team Nice and the Swiss team Lausanne.
It also gives money to the famous sailing team Ineos Britannia, led by Sir Ben Ainslie. It also has a five-year deal with the Formula One team Mercedes and took over the British cycling team Team Sky in 2019.
At the time of the first bid, people thought the proposal would emphasize that Ratcliffe, born in Manchester, would be “a British guardian for the club” and try to “put the Manchester back into Manchester United.”
Who else is running?
At least two offers will be made for United by the US, and Saudi Arabia has shown interest.
This means that up to five people could be trying to negotiate a full sale, while others could be looking to make a smaller investment in exchange for a smaller share of the 20-time English league champions.
Even though he might not have a direct role in the club, Nasser al-Khelaifi, the president of Paris St. Germain, is likely to be a key figure in any bid by Qatar to buy the club.
Al-Khelaifi was thinking about having his company, Qatar Sports Investment, buy a smaller piece of a Premier League club (QSI).
But Uefa rules say that one person can’t own more than one club, so Qatar would have to work with private people or another group to buy all of United.
Human rights and LGBTQ+ groups are worried that Qatar might buy a Premier League team and then own two of the best teams in Europe.
Manchester United could possibly be sold
People in the Gulf state look confused when they hear that Qatar might buy Manchester United and that Qatar already owns Paris Saint-Germain, which could cause a conflict of interest.
They think that two or more groups own about half of the Premier League clubs.
One example is that Manchester City is a part of the City Football Group. Daniel Kretinsky is the president of Sparta Prague, and he also owns a piece of West Ham. Both teams played in the Europa League last year.
They also know that Ratcliffe wants to buy United and that there is no sign that he will give up control of French club Nice, only four points away from a spot in Europe.
Also, Uefa has given both RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg permission to play in the same European tournaments.
Read Also: Manchester United receives a bid from Ineos
Since Nasser al-Khelaifi is the chairman of both PSG and the European Clubs’ Association, which has been working more closely with Uefa, it is safe to assume that any problems have been fixed.
But people who know about this offer say it has nothing to do with who owns PSG. Also, the bid is just a thought. Also, sources say that United’s “data room” information isn’t very good.
All information about the Old Trafford club’s finances must be made public.
People think this is just the beginning of the process, but Sheikh Jassim is serious about taking the club away from the Glazer family for the first time since 2005. He also wants to spend money on the whole Trafford area.
