Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, who made a final offer earlier this month, was about to purchase Manchester United PLC. The sale is being delayed, meanwhile, by internal conflicts among Manchester’s owners, the Glazer business family.
What is the problem? “It’s getting the kids to agree,” an M&A advisor familiar with the discussions told Global Finance. “Not all five of them want to do the deal.” Avram Glazer, Kevin Glazer, Bryan Glazer, Joel Glazer, and Edward Glazer are the five people in question.
The Glazers, who acquired the football club in 2005, have been looking to sell the team since November 2022. Raine Group, the merchant bank that advised the $21 billion deal between Endeavour, UFC, and World Wrestling Entertainment in April, has been assisting them.
However, the insider continued, the sale of Manchester “is just in shambles,” citing disagreements about the price and whether to sell to Qatar at all.
Requests for comment from Raine Group were not answered.
The cost of United is anticipated to be at least £6 billion. According to analysts at BlackBull Research, who compared the team to Formula One, which was sold to Liberty Media in 2017 for $4.4 billion, the team is valued at 7x to 8x sales.
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is staying busy signing other sports deals as the Glazer family disputes continue. Recently, as part of a $4.05 billion deal, it bought a 5% investment in the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals, and WNBA’s Washington Mystics.
The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia appears to be Qatar’s main influence. Saudi Arabia PIF has established itself in sports like Formula 1, Aston Martin, football (including the acquisition of Newcastle United in 2021), golf, and tennis with the ATP Tour, a tennis competition run by the Association of Tennis Professionals, reportedly a target, thanks to significant financial resources from oil funds.
“Sovereign wealth investment into sport has raised the bar to such a high degree that these types of investments going forward may increasingly be par for the course if teams are to remain competitive,” Kristian Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at the Baker Institute, said.
It is unknown if Sheikh Jassim’s business, Nine Two UK Holdings Ltd, will invest additional monies in Manchester to reunite the Glazer family.
Another question is if Qatar can win over the public. One of the most fervent fan bases in sports, Manchester’s supporters have been opposing both the owners and the potential bidders.
The Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, an advocacy group, wrote a harsh open letter to the Glazer family in 2022, saying: “The last 17 years have been marked by debt and decline—on- and off-the-field. It’s time for change, and the vast majority of United supporters will concur with you on that point.
However, Sheikh Jassim might not be the transformation they are hoping for. The Qatari proposal follows a contentious World Cup that was held there and was praised by FIFA but boycotted by supporters because of how the country treated migrant workers and committed human rights breaches.
A agreement with Jassim, the head of the Qatar Islamic Bank, which is backed by the government, would also mean another football club loss for billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos Group, located in London, is rumoured to have made an active play for Manchester United.
Last year, Ratcliffe tried unsuccessfully to buy Chelsea F.C.
Currently among the top 30 richest people in the UK is 69-year-old Ratcliffe. He also owns FC Lausanne-Sport in Switzerland and Nice, a French club that he would have had to sell if he had won Manchester United.
Ratcliffe also acquired the Team Sky cycling team in 2019, which is now known as the Ineos Grenadiers, in addition to football. He has partnerships with a Mercedes-Benz Formula One team for sponsorship.