Why Sheikh Jassim’s opening statement doomed Man Utd bid from the start with Sir Jim Ratcliffe set to buy 25% stake
IT APPEARS that two words “all but doomed Sheikh Jassim’s” attempt to buy Manchester United.
Almost nine months of detailed negotiations ended on Saturday when the Qatari withdrew his £5bn bid and told the Glazers he is no longer interested.
Sheikh Jassim pulled OUT of the race to own United after accusing the Glazers of demanding an “outlandish” price to sell the club.
The Glazers announced in November that they were open to a sale and the Middle East chief had been front-runner for much of 2023.
Now Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is believed to be proposing to purchase just a 25 per cent share of the Red Devils, is the option left on the table.
Now a fresh report from the Daily Mail has suggested that two key words from the Qataris seemingly “doomed” Sheikh Jassim from the very start.
After the first bids had been submitted, US merchant bank Raine that were running the takeover process on behalf of the Glazers, issued a warning for interested parties to “keep their mouths shut”.
That was seen as a direct warning to the Qatari group after they had spoken about returning United to “former glories” in their opening statement.
That comment had not gone down well with the Glazer family.
And this report states that “an offer many thought would render their purchase of the club a formality started on the wrong foot” and it “failed to recover” from that point.
FREE BETS – BEST BETTING OFFERS AND BONUSES NEW CUSTOMERS
Initially undeterred, Sheikh Jassim continued to be keen despite frustrations then starting to mount over the conduct of the Glazers and Raine.
He was only interested in buying the club outright and saw no fewer than five bids rejected over the course of the year.
We also revealed that a SIXTH offer after what were said to be “further and final discussions and negotiations” was also rejected in the past few days.
And that was the final straw for Sheikh Jassim as he is believed to have told the Americans that their £6bn-plus valuation of a club with a New York Stock Exchange capitalisation of £2.7bn that they were asking for a “fanciful and outlandish” price.
He is adamant that his cash bid would have cleared all of United’s existing debt and would have funded a rebuild of both Old Trafford and the club’s Carrington training ground.
And it would also have allowed him to spend an additional £1.4bn on transfers.
However, after more wrangling from the Glazers, he decided to walk away from any potential deal and would NOT be back in the frame.
That now leaves the Glazers, who have been in charge of United since the siblings’ late father Malcolm took it over in a £790m deal in 2005, weighing-up whether to accept the minority share bid by Ratcliffe and his Ineos petrochemicals group or to take the club back OFF the market.
MAN UTD NEWS LIVE: Stay up to date with all of the latest transfer and takeover news from Old Trafford