Maybe you should read beyond the headline. It’s a slightly longer article.
Club Sale | It’s done!
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Just because he was so unliked, untruthful and unsuccessful in ownership of other football clubs doesn't mean he can't help Man United to glory. He's a Manchester United fan and local. He wasn't a Nice fan. So that should fill the gap.
It's not like Sheik has any football expertise either. So what about him, huh?
And you can't forget about Biden either. At lease Ratcliff isn't as sleepy as Sleepy Joe.
I prefer being run by an imbecile over being run by the ruler of a country that allows slavery, enforces gay punishments, green lights female imprisonment over cheating and finds judicial corporal punishments okay. To me, trophies doesn't outweigh being owned by a monster.
So to answer your question - it worries me and it doesn't. It does because if we get JR we will continue having an owner a thousand miles off our rivals in terms of know how - in an ideal world, that's not that ideal. It doesn't because it will mean we won't be a commercial billboard for a regime that practice oppression, hate and brutality.
Why didnt SJR buy Chelsea again? Did he find the price too expensive or did Boehly simply outbit him?
If Qatar government give you $10 million when your visit there, just to say "I love visiting Qatar" on TV, would you accept it?
Imo - it takes a lot of time for an owner to have a true impact, unless he is leading it like a sugar daddy. If he wants to transform a team into a sustainable, smart operating club, it takes time for that to be successful, even on the assumption that they make every single decision correctly. And it's not easy to do that, you can have all the right intentions and still make mistakes along the way. Croftons article said the same basically, they've adjusted because it hasn't gone the way they wanted it to in terms of appointments just yet so they are trying to get there, and are adapting pretty quickly to do so.
The Glazers refused to change the structure that worked because of Sir Alex for a decade after he left. They bled money from the club, put nothing into it, and completely neglected it. Trying to improve in a smart way is not neglecting it, and it takes time and making mistakes along the way isn't a problem for me if you recognize them. Lausanne and Nice were his first forays into football, but haven't they done well in other sports?
Aside from all that, I think United is more of an ego thing than other investments. Richest man in Britain wants to own the biggest club in Britain and doesn't want foreigners to own it. Probably more motivation for getting it right.
He went too late into the process and probably was undecided about it for a while.
On the nail.
Those are fair points, but there's plenty of articles that argue they were operating as the benchmark for smaller clubs in Ligue 1 prior to Ratcliffe's arrival.
That went out the window and it's turned into a chaotic mess since he took over.
So essentially you think daft xenophobia will be Jim Ratcliffe’s driving motivation to make Utd successful again… awesome.
Even if we ignore how utterly bizarre and surreal a take that is, it prompts the questions, why isn’t it him that’s removing the Glazers then - who are foreign…?
Why is he keeping the (foreign) owners on when they’re clearly open to being bought out completely and removed?
And if foreigners owning footy clubs is something that you reckon Ratcliffe gets bothered by, why has he himself bought 2 clubs in a different country!?
Why hasn’t he been buying League 1 and Championship clubs in England?
Seems a really odd logic to arrive at.
I doubt that most people think that Qatari ownership wouldn't have better footballing outcomes. I just don't care about football enough to pay that price.
Which also doesn't mean I like INEOS of course.
Which also doesn't mean I like INEOS of course.
They all have their personal generative AI chat that has timer settings.
I get that point.
Not going to measure the morality values of both suitors, but for this price point, every potential owner is going to have skeletons unfortunately.
Its been clear from the start that he sees himself as that. What's doing himself a disservice for his self-appointment has been in username.
Supporting a club owned by a regime like Qatar. Obviously.
But ultimately what is the price for supporting it if Jassim wins? All decisions have plus & minuses. Everything comes at a cost. Top-Top reds may have personal costs... determinantal to their personal relationship or personal health as in the case of the Aussies.
What's that actual cost then if it swings to Jassim?
By that logic, we should convince Kadyrov to buy an American sports club in order to shine a light on what's really going on over there.
The cost is I either carry on supporting United and have to live with us being owned by a despicable regime or give up supporting the club I have followed for my entire life. The Glaser years have already hugely reduced my love for the club and the game in general. Qatari ownership may finish it off completely.
Much how predominantly Tory rule followed by Brexit has affected my feelings for Britain.
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Is that really far-fetched?
Just read in the FT, its looking very dodgy economically going forward. Stagflation and few tools to change things around.
Less time for United, and more for other things that will bring you more joy perhaps. (Fyi McQueen used to be my fav player, signed poster on the wall as a kid.)
He's a billionaire who has gone on record many times to say he thinks owning a football club is a dumb idea financially. He's the richest man in Britain (or was). Of course he has a huge ego, and I think that would be a driving factor. Especially at the price of United. Not surreal at all of a take imo.So essentially you think daft xenophobia will be Jim Ratcliffe’s driving motivation to make Utd successful again… awesome.
Even if we ignore how utterly bizarre and surreal a take that is, it prompts the questions, why isn’t it him that’s removing the Glazers then - who are foreign…?
Why is he keeping the (foreign) owners on when they’re clearly open to being bought out completely and removed?
And if foreigners owning footy clubs is something that you reckon Ratcliffe gets bothered by, why has he himself bought 2 clubs in a different country!?
Why hasn’t he been buying League 1 and Championship clubs in England?
Seems a really odd logic to arrive at.
And why is he keeping them there? Smarter business? Wanting to do something for your ego or so a foreigner doesn't win out and own doesn't mean you are dumb about it. You said he was a huge brexiteer, so doesn't it make sense that that's a motivation? He goes into other clubs to learn about football. I don't understand why you think it's a stretch when it's a very plausible motivation for himself.
Whoever gets it, I hope they don't "do a boehly". Use the gaffer, be smart in spending. I presume we would have learnt from Chelsea's farcial last 6 months.
Hey, fellow United fan(?), chill why don't you?
To paraphrase, you asked where/from whom do people buy shares in the UK? I answered, rather whimsically, "Arthur Daley". I could have answered "Del Boy" in the same vein seeing as they're both ficticious, tv comedy characters well known (in the UK at least) for their rather questionable/shady/dodgy approaches to doing business.
They might even know a bloke down the pub when it comes to buying United shares off the Glazers.
RMC corroborated it, saying their sources info matches Reuters'.
This is a really good analogy, Tory rule and Brexit and all the subsequent sh1t that has been a direct result have changed my feelings towards Britain and specifically England hugely. I used to be proud to be from the UK but that feeling has long gone and has been replaced by embarrassment, dislike and a need to leave.
When do you guess we’ll get something concrete?
2027.
I’d feck a camel live on tv for that.
I have no morals
Big rumours in the business pages that Musk is sniffing around and mulling about a $8Billion bid, a new Tesla HQ Europe at OT with a new 90,000 seater stadium OT named The Tesla Stadium complete with showrooms.
Although we left 30 years ago Brexit was the thing that finally made it a 100% certainty that we would never return.
My son now works in Europe and the US and we thought we might as well get him another passport. Sadly we never considered a UK one and applied for an Irish one. To me at least, this was symbolic of our self-destruction over the last 30/40 years
Gonna need examples for this. The flaw in your explanation here is that Reuters claims this as an exclusive.
That way we could end the tedious earthbound calls for better trams and just built a space shuttle port.
Boring
I don't think their motives are that different. But the vanity project is not mutually exclusive to the idea of sportswashing. It can be both simultaneously.
With regards to the club, I think the club would benefit more from the touted owners than the unashamed capitalists who use it just for profit.
But with a wider lens than just football, perhaps there are worse ways to achieve profit that just accountancy.
In ways it's fascinating. The whole highly partisan media war bit was a bizarre tangent.
I also loved McQueen although Robbo was probably my favorite from that era.
Supporting United feels pretty hollow already and the megabucks corporate nature of the whole football thing doesn't help. 100 million quid or more for any good player just seems madness but maybe that just makes me an old bloke shouting at clouds.
It probably doesn't help that my son plays pro water polo, a sport where there is very little money. He plays in Greece (probably the strongest league in the world) at clubs just below the very best but not far off (5th this year and qualified for Europe). He will only play 1 or maybe 2 more seasons before retiring at 25/26, as he doesn't want to start trying to earn a proper living in his 30s.
America isn't trying to buy United.
Ah come on. The 'special relationship' has been the subject of lots of analysis and criticism over the years.
And the financial structure in the US is very different to that of Qatar.
US billionaires are frequently made by the market. I'm not a fan of capitalism so I'm not defending them but it's a poor analogy.
Billionaires influencing policy is skewed democracy, we have an entirely different ethical issue when policy directs the billionaires. Neither is desirable but they are not the same.
The really odd thing about such a heated debate is that it isn't two clashing ideologies but it seems to be a group of people with concerns and another group just shutting down the concerns.
It's isn't a row between people who think the treatment of migrant workers is abhorrent and another group defending forced labour and non payment. It's one group with concerns and another group shutting down the conversations with mitigation, accusations of racism, platitudes and whataboutery.
It's the language and cant of politics in a public forum. It's very depressing.
It's isn't a row between people who think the treatment of migrant workers is abhorrent and another group defending forced labour and non payment. It's one group with concerns and another group shutting down the conversations with mitigation, accusations of racism, platitudes and whataboutery.
It's the language and cant of politics in a public forum. It's very depressing.
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