As it’s the ‘soft’ deadline day for potential new owners of Manchester United to make their bids, who are the contenders interested in buying the club from the Glazer family?
With a deadline set for 10pm and an asking price tag of £6bn, there’s expected to be a flurry of updates today about who might be in the running. Manchester United’s shares have already soared, currently trading at 24.54USD.
Although only INEOS billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has publicly expressed interest, there’s been much speculation about other offers. Could other contenders include consortiums from Qatar, Saudia Arabia or even Twitter honcho Elon Musk, Sky or tech giant Apple?
Existing owners the Glazer family, who have owned the club since 2005, announced at the end of last year that it would be carrying out a strategic review which could potentially include the sale of the club. The owners could be looking for investors instead of an outright sale too, with Old Trafford and the training ground in need of restoration.
All interested parties will need to submit their offers to US investment banking company The Raine Group, who are handling the sale.
We take a look at all potential owners who could be in the race for Manchester United and some unlikely contenders who’ve placed bids in the past:
Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Following months of speculation, one of Britain’s richest men Sir Jim Ratcliffe finally confirmed his interest in buying the club in January.
At the time, a spokesman from Ratcliffe’s company confirmed they would be “formally” slotting themselves into the process.
The INEOS Group already has a number of sports clubs and interests under its belt as owners of French Ligue 1 club Nice, Swiss club Lausanne as well as Team Sky in cycling, following a takeover in 2019.
Born in Failsworth in Greater Manchester, the entrepreneur and life-long fan of the club has made his desire to become owner obvious.
He made an unsuccessful bid of £4.25bn to buy Chelsea last year, and later revealed he’d made enquiries about Utd before Glazer’s intention to sell.
Groups from Saudi Arabia and Qatar
According to reports from The Telegraph yesterday, multiple private groups from Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh have made enquiries about buying the club. In 2021, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, RB Sports & Media and PCP Capital Partners purchased a controlling stake in Newcastle United.
There are further rumblings that a Qatar-based consortium linked to the Qatari royal family want to snap up the club too, which could lead to significant investment being plunged into the team, the grounds and the wider city. With state investors already owning a stake in French club Paris Saint-Germain, it could pose challenges in any takeover.
Uefa has already been asked to block any Qatari-led takeover, according to a letter seen by the BBC this morning, from human rights group Fair Square. In the letter, it highlights “several issues of serious concern” about the bid and referred to Uefa’s rules to protect the “integrity of its competitions”.
With Qatar controversially hosting the World Cup last year, sparking protests over human rights issues, campaign groups such as Amnesty International recently criticised any Qatari bids for the club. Amnesty UK’s economic affairs director Peter Frankental recently told PA agency the Manchester United bid would be a “continuation of this state-backed sportswashing project.”
Elon Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk has been touted as a potential contender. He said he’d buy the club in a tweet last year, although it may have been in jest there has been silence about it ever since.
Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2022
After causing a stir following his purchase of social media platform Twitter last year, he is also the owner of Tesla and private space company SpaceX with a net worth estimated to be around $196.5bn.
Apple
Last year, reports emerged that tech giant Apple were interested in buying the club.
Although a potential bid from Apple has since been downplayed, and an offer might seem unlikely, the company has previously stated it was on an “aggressive hunt” to push for more sports content onto its Apple TV streaming service.
Sky
Although a fresh bid is unlikely to surface, Sky has previously placed a £623m bid to buy Manchester United. Known as BSkyB back in 1999, the offer was blocked at the time by the Department of Trade and Industry on competition grounds following a six-month investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
The offer came from previous owner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s company 21st Century Fox, which sold its stake to US media firm Comcast in 2018.
The Sky Group has an estimated $20.3bn revenue with offices across the North, including at Leeds Dock, a digital campus in Sheffield, Newcastle and Stockport.
