The goal at Nice isn’t to be worse than when they were taking over
Club Sale | It’s done!
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The third bid deadline was said to be the end of this week. Shit will likely hit the fan again by around Wednesday with leaks and briefs much like with the previous deadline, there's no surprise things are quiet between bid two and bid three, especially when bidders have been told to wind their necks in.
The big question is what the feck will happen after the third round of bidding.
Wouldn't be surprised if all interested parties pull out at the end of the week if Glazers ask for a 4th round.
At this point it feels like a smoke and mirrors exercise to improve collateral for additional borrowing and they had no intention of selling.
Why would they? The don't need the money now and Utd value is only going to increase.
Of course it’s going to be quiet. Bidders have til the 28th to submit a bid.
Ineos aims at Nice and Lausanne were quite clear
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Chairman of INEOS said: "We are absolutely delighted about acquiring OGC Nice. It has been quite a long journey getting here, but it is unique, and we were determined to complete the purchase of the club. We have looked at a lot of clubs in the manner we look at businesses in INEOS - for value and potential - and Nice fulfils that criteria. With some sensible, measured investment, we want to establish Nice as a team that competes in European club competition on a regular basis. And importantly, sustain it.”
David Thompson, CEO INEOS Football SA, says, “INEOS is excited about taking this major step into top-class football as part of our wider commitment to encourage youth sport in Lausanne and Canton Vaud. We hope and expect that this new investment in the team will take Football Club Lausanne-Sport forward to further success, and we see no reason why this could not mean playing in Europe.”
One is 10th and other one had been relegated
Without major infrastructure investment and ETH working more miracles I don't think this is necessarily true.
Feels like the right time to sell to me, but what do I know.
Man Utd would obviously be ran differently
This thread is so dead. Malaga are currently 19th and in relegation danger in the Spanish 2nd division. Massive red flags about private Qatari ownership.
Yeah and unless they sell the club tomorrow that's still the goal I imagine.
But the point stands the City group have clubs in various leagues not doing particularly well, yet Man City are and have been quite successful for a few years now. How one club is doing in a different league in a different country has little bearing on how another club will do with the same owners.
The two games per week has kept me sufficiently distracted. Hopefully, now that games will be less frequent, we get news this week and things get moving.
Holy shit, I didnt even know Al Thani was Malaga’s shitty owner before now. Impressive PR that Jim has gotten much shit publically with Nice and Al Thani hasn’t at Malaga when he’s performing arguably worse and has promised stuff he can’t fulfil. Banned from Europe due to dept, players not getting wages, new stadium promised (Old Trafford says hi), 19th in the league
Al No Thanks
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Different member of the Al Thani family, but the disaster at Malaga does demonstrate that Qatari ownership is not necessarily a panacea, especially since nobody really knows very much about this 40 year old banker Jassim, where the money is coming from or how much of it there actually is.
According to Wiki, Abu Dhabi group own a number of clubs including Melbourne City, Mumbai City, New York City and Manchester City
Manchester City are a success. We don't need to beat around that particular bush
New York City are currently 4th in their league table, 5 points away from New England
Melbourne are first in their league, 10 points clear from the rest
Mumbai City are first in their league, 4 points clear from the rest
Montevideo City Torque got their promotion and are now sitting at 9th place
Sichuan Jiuniu got promoted in 2020 and are currently 5th
The only clubs that seem to have done badly was Lommel although I have yet to understand how the Belgian system works at lower level and Troyes who were promoted under the Abu Dhabi's but are now at 18th place. Both had huge financial difficulties when Abu Dhabi swooped in.
That doesn't seem a bad track record at all especially when they seem to be buying clubs like candy.
Regarding INEOS their mission statement at Lausanne and Nice was quite clear. They promised Lausanne fans European football. They got them relegated instead. At Nice they promised regular European club competition. I doubt they ever qualified to the CL since buying them. The only constant thing with these guys is failure.
Big difference between buying a club for £5-6b and a few hundred million.
The Malaga purchase wasn't a state enterprise project, a United purchase obviously would be (however much this might be denied)
The NFL Washington Commanders selling for $6B USD is going to set the new floor for what the Glazers are going to ask for. The current Washington ownership has run the club down to the pits and yet they are commanding this insane valuation.
United is a much bigger club and brand and the stupid NFL deal is going to further inflate our owner's expectations.
United is a much bigger club and brand and the stupid NFL deal is going to further inflate our owner's expectations.
American sports League's are run completely differently, it shouldn't make any difference.
Al Thani and his close family have taken money out of the club and currently OWE Malaga millions.
He is nothing more than a Qatari Glazer.
Add Girona to that list as well and it's a mixed bag. Which is my point not all clubs owned by the same people will have the same success. There will be varying levels of focus and investment between clubs as is the case with the City group.
So fecking what.
I know you keep repeating all this shit every couple of pages because you're banging the Qatar Oil drum. But someone could say the same with Malaga and PSG both being shit shows under Qatari ownership. One's on the brink of being relegated and PSG have failed in the Champions League for the 11th season in a row.
What Ineos have done with Nice and Lausanne and Qatar with PSG is irrelevant mate. It'll have little or no bearing on how United will fare under the ownership of Ratcliffe or Qatar. So let's stop bringing this nonsense up every few pages.
Abu Dhabi only own a minority stake there.
My point is that INEOS has yet to show anything that remotely hint that they know what they are doing in terms of football. They tend to promise alot and yet they seem to tank wherever they go. I have great respect towards SJR as a business man but in terms of football, Ineos does come across as the Mr Bean of football. Even the form formula many pro Ratcliffe fans brought to the table seem not to work anymore. In fact they had 2 draws followed by 3 defeats (which came against the mighty Basel, Brest and Clemont)
Regarding Malaga they have nothing to do with Jassim and its evident that they have nothing to do with the emir. You can criticise QSI on many fronts but running out of funds is surely not one of them. Meanwhile the 'shit show' at PSG keeps shitting on Ineos owned Nice year in year out. Maybe you should ask Nice and PSG fans whether they would like to swap ownership. You might be surprised by the answer.
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This would appear to be relevant for this thread.
The Glazers not exactly behaving as if they're about to enter into an exclusivity period with a preferred full sale bidder, are they?
These kinds of transfer rumors float around all year. What does it have to do with the United sale?
United aren't going to pause all transfer business until a new owner is confirmed. This is nonsense logic.
That's not necessarily the case.
A- The club is owned by the Glazers until the very end. Buyers can pull out or due diligence may scupper everything at the last minute
B-Work for summer transfers need to start months before the transfer market is open.
Thus it would be responsible for the club to act as if its not on sale. It would then be up to the new owners to decide whether they'll give the thumbs up to previously negotiated deals or not. That happened even when SAF was retiring to give way to Moyes. In fact United lost Thiago Alcantara because of that
The Glazers aren’t actually ‘doing’ anything. The club are conducting business as usual - which has been the official line all along.
It's more than a rumour though. Matt Law isn't a Daily Star/Express journalist, he's a serious reporter that doesn't put his name to BS gossip.
Its a bit of a silly point. The owners plans and goals for those clubs were not the same and you have to judge the success vs the goals.
What we know is that INEOS have 2 clubs and are failing to meet their goals on both. Which tells you they cannot be viewed as good/successful club owners.
Thats not to say they wouldn’t be a success at United but it gives you an indication that there is a good chance they won’t be.
Agree it is responsible to behave as if the club isn't for sale.
But signing Kane would be a hugely strategic move given his cost (probably a £200m outlay over 5 years taking account of transfer fee, wages and agent fees). It's not a 'lets take a cautious approach and keep things ticking along' kind of signing.
Also it's worth noting that the situation with the ownership was cited as a reason why we weren't in the market for any permanent signings in the January window.
Regardless of a sale or not, the club still has to operate like nothing is happening, we can't just shut down all operations because the Glazers may or may not sell. They'd have absolutely nothing to do with these anyway, this is all down to the likes of Murtough and Ten Hag going with their plans, plans that they may eventually have to adapt in the presence of a new owner. But for now, it's business as usual.
A- The sale of a 5b-6b company takes time. Assuming we are indeed sold then the deal might even drag till June-July
B- We all know that Levy is a difficult person to negotiate with. Thus he'll drag such deal till its humanely possible
C- The Glazers love an endless saga. Its generate clicks which can be placed on a spreadsheet and used as proof to sponsorships of how popular United are. That might explain why we're so slow in signing players (Sancho, Maguire etc) and why we always seem to have a saga (Sancho 2 years in a row, De Jong last year etc)
Thus Kane is the 'perfect' signing for the Glazers. The transfer will be dragged as long as possible which means that by the time he's signed the ownership question would probably be answered. Ultimately we need a striker no matter what.
I was at the supporters club in Malta when SAF (not Law or Romano but the man himself) told us that Gazza will join us on Monday. Few years later he did something similar with Shearer. The reality is that transfers are so unpredictable that anything could happen and even the manager can end up with one hell of an egg on his face. For example someone very close to Houllier once told me that we didn't sign a young Michael Owen because his dad came with silly demands at the last minute forcing SAF to kick him out of his office. It was so close that the contract was literally on SAF's desk waiting to be signed.
Now I am not questioning Law's credibility at all. However we're still in April and alot of things can happen especially in a deal that involve the two of the slowest dealers in football (ie the Glazers and Levy)
I am surprised the club is even playing matches. Surely that's a sign of the Glazers staying put otherwise the normal thing to do when the club is potentially undergoing a sale is to stop all activities related to football.
Am I doing it right?
Isnt it final bids on the 28th? hmmm
Might be best if we just shut down OT and Carrington until the sale has gone through. The club need to show the Glazers are serious about selling!
edit - not the megastore though, wouldn’t want to miss out on those merch dollars!
The board aren’t picking transfer targets so doesn’t mean a thing
I know he is trolling but he is now using every piece of news to try and justify his stance of the Glazers already knowing they won't sell.
You have to admire his resolve and determination. Weird hill to die on though!
Minority stake? City group own 44.3% and Guardiola's brother by some stroke of coincidence also owns 44.3%. Of those two groups which one do you think is bank rolling the project?
Again so fecking what? Yeah Ineos know as much about football as the Qataris. Ie. not much. QSI promised PSG would win the Champions League just the same way almost all football club owners promise shit. PSG fans are still waiting for that one.
And well done to PSG they win a league where their wage bill makes up 30% of the entire leagues wages. And they pay 7 times more in wages than the next biggest side, what an achievement. The fact they haven't even won it every year since QSI took over highlights what a shit show PSG is as much as their repeated failures in the Champions League.
Yes Malaga have nothing to do Jassim. Just the same as PSG or Nice would have nothing to do with United. None of it has anything to do with anything. That's the point you are missing here.
Well done mate. I'm sure there's a relevant point in there somewhere.
Maybe but not nearly as silly as suggesting the fortunes of some Swiss club is a good indicator of how well United would do under different ownership.
The Glazers own an NFL side that won the Super Bowl a few years ago, does that mean they are competent sports team owners?
No of course not it's a nonsense point.
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Pere Guardiola is a football agent who was involved in the transfers of Thiago Alcantara, Iniesta and Luis Suarez. He is shareholder of Sports Entertainment Group (SEG) who represent more than 600 clients in 25 countries. One of their clients happen to be ETH. So I presume that he can afford 44.3% of a second division club especially one who previously had financial issues. Their transfer budget had been quite mediocre. They spent 8.75m euros in 2017-2018, 10m the year after, 5.70m during 19/20, they relied on loans/free transfers the two years after that and they broke the bank this year with 15m euros. That's something a second tier football agent (the likes of Mino and Mendes being first tier agents) can afford to pitch his fair share in.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani's net worth is said to be 800m dollars. He is the second cousin of the previous emir. He bought Malaga for 34m euros. Considering the fees involved, the fact that QSI didn't bail Malaga out and their reluctance to buy the club (although there seems to be a shift to that) then its highly likely that this was a private investment.
Jassim on the other hand is worth around 1.1B. He already offered a fee of around 4.5b-5b for Manchester United. So while not official, its highly likely that Qatar Sovereign fund is involved
Thus its wiser to scrutinize PSG ownership rather then Malaga's
There's alot to be said about PSG ownership. Quite frankly I am more impressed with Abu Dhabi's then them. However there's no denying that they took a modest side and made it a top side. 8 out of their 10 league titles was won under Qatar ownership. Some claim that its a farmer's league. Let's not forget though that INEOS lead Nice has yet to qualify to the CL and is currently lingering at a ridiculous 10th place having just lost against the mighty Basel, Clemont Foot and Brest. Since you're obsessed with salary bills, Nice has a salary bill of €32,600,000
Basel has a yearly salary bill of €12,260,000, Clemont salary bill is €6,200,000 and Brest is €10,750,000. You'll be surprised though that the normal fans dont' care how much salary is being paid for high earners/elite players like Messi or Mbappe or in Nice FC case high earners/erm elite players? like Ramsay and Schmeichel. What they care is about trophies.
The CL still eludes them though. There again that's quite a tough nut to win. SAF won it just 2 times which sounds quite underwhelming but is not when you compare that to how many times many times all the clubs in London had won it COMBINED (ie 2). Milan has last won it in 2007, Juventus has last won it in 96, Ajax in 95 while City and Arsenal has never won it.
Returning on INEOS. The structure is pretty centralised with all teams in INEOS group sharing the same head of football ie the very experienced Bob Ratcliffe (no prior experience in football), Sir Dave Brailsford and now Jean Claude Blanc. Ratcliffe himself had linked all clubs together in an interview he did when he bought Nice. In fact he said “We made some mistakes at Lausanne, but we are fast learners, these have been rectified and we are already seeing the benefits. Clubs need to be successful off the pitch, as well as on it, and OGC Nice will be no different, as we look to take the club from strength to strength in all aspects over the coming years.” The problem with that quote is that they aren't fast learners, they are still making plenty of mistakes at Nice and Lausanne and quite frankly they are still tanking in both.
On the other hand their wage bill is 'sustainable' (Ramsay is paid as much as Osimhen and far more then Khvicha Kvaratskhelia) so maybe they can celebrate that instead of trophies.
Pere Guardiola is a football agent who was involved in the transfers of Thiago Alcantara, Iniesta and Luis Suarez. He is shareholder of Sports Entertainment Group (SEG) who represent more than 600 clients in 25 countries. One of their clients happen to be ETH. So I presume that he can afford 44.3% of a second division club especially one who previously had financial issues. Their transfer budget had been quite mediocre. They spent 8.75m euros in 2017-2018, 10m the year after, 5.70m during 19/20, they relied on loans/free transfers the two years after that and they broke the bank this year with 15m euros. That's something a second tier football agent (the likes of Mino and Mendes being first tier agents) can afford to pitch his fair share in.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani's net worth is said to be 800m dollars. He is the second cousin of the previous emir. He bought Malaga for 34m euros. Considering the fees involved, the fact that QSI didn't bail Malaga out and their reluctance to buy the club (although there seems to be a shift to that) then its highly likely that this was a private investment.
Jassim on the other hand is worth around 1.1B. He already offered a fee of around 4.5b-5b for Manchester United. So while not official, its highly likely that Qatar Sovereign fund is involved
Thus its wiser to scrutinize PSG ownership rather then Malaga's
There's alot to be said about PSG ownership. Quite frankly I am more impressed with Abu Dhabi's then them. However there's no denying that they took a modest side and made it a top side. 8 out of their 10 league titles was won under Qatar ownership. Some claim that its a farmer's league. Let's not forget though that INEOS lead Nice has yet to qualify to the CL and is currently lingering at a ridiculous 10th place having just lost against the mighty Basel, Clemont Foot and Brest. Since you're obsessed with salary bills, Nice has a salary bill of €32,600,000
Basel has a yearly salary bill of €12,260,000, Clemont salary bill is €6,200,000 and Brest is €10,750,000. You'll be surprised though that the normal fans dont' care how much salary is being paid for high earners/elite players like Messi or Mbappe or in Nice FC case high earners/erm elite players? like Ramsay and Schmeichel. What they care is about trophies.
The CL still eludes them though. There again that's quite a tough nut to win. SAF won it just 2 times which sounds quite underwhelming but is not when you compare that to how many times many times all the clubs in London had won it COMBINED (ie 2). Milan has last won it in 2007, Juventus has last won it in 96, Ajax in 95 while City and Arsenal has never won it.
Returning on INEOS. The structure is pretty centralised with all teams in INEOS group sharing the same head of football ie the very experienced Bob Ratcliffe (no prior experience in football), Sir Dave Brailsford and now Jean Claude Blanc. Ratcliffe himself had linked all clubs together in an interview he did when he bought Nice. In fact he said “We made some mistakes at Lausanne, but we are fast learners, these have been rectified and we are already seeing the benefits. Clubs need to be successful off the pitch, as well as on it, and OGC Nice will be no different, as we look to take the club from strength to strength in all aspects over the coming years.” The problem with that quote is that they aren't fast learners, they are still making plenty of mistakes at Nice and Lausanne and quite frankly they are still tanking in both.
On the other hand their wage bill is 'sustainable' (Ramsay is paid as much as Osimhen and far more then Khvicha Kvaratskhelia) so maybe they can celebrate that instead of trophies.
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Well considering I have not suggested that then….
How INEOS has done with the clubs they own is relevant to how United may fair under INEOS ownership.
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