Finnish entrepreneur, Thomas Zilliacus, has joined the race to take over Manchester United.
The former Global Head of Corporate Communications at Nokia wants to buy 50% of the club, with the other half being bought by fans.
”Any sport club ultimately should belong to its fans. The current development, where billionaire sheiks and oligarks [sic] take over clubs and control them as their personal playgrounds is not a healthy trend,” he explained.
“The current market value of the club is just under $3.9bn. That means that if every one of the fans of the club would join in buying the club, the total sum per fan would amount to less than 6 dollars. My bid is built on equality with the fans.
“My group will finance half of the sum needed to take over the club, and will ask the fans, through a new company that is being set up for this specific purpose, to participate for the other half. If every fan joins it means less than 3 dollars per fan.”
69-year-old Zilliacus lives in Singapore, where he’s lived since he headed up Nokia’s Asia-Pacific operations.
He left Nokia in 1993 to set up an investment firm, Mobile FutureWorks Group. He’s also listed as Chair and Founder of Newkia and YuuZoo.
