Club Sale | It’s done!

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Whoever was begging for SJ..

Again, I wanted neither, but the SJ begging and subsequent meltdown is completely shameless
Only if your view was state owned bad, business owned good. Otherwise it is all the same.
States have been investing in all kinds of businesses in all the countries. Investing in a football club is just another business deal. Anyways, that discussion has been done to death here.
 
Pot calling kettle black, much?

You’re having a right old hissyfit cause King Jim of MUFC has won.

Deal with it!
I'm having a 'hissy fit' because the club's ethos built up by SAF of competing to win is dead in the water. We've gone from a scary club to a laughing stock in the past years. With this, we're truly on the path of fallen giant.

Not because some rando from Qatar didn't take over. If we got a Boehly (who despite his issues has spent the money and even wanted to build a new stadium) or if Ratcliffe took over 100%, that'd be acceptable.

However, I cannot and will not stomach a ruse like the one Ratcliffe has pulled off where the future of the club is in limbo, just so he can get to play with United, while the parasites stay and enrich themselves further.

I have learned my lesson in the past on empty promises and propaganda from people like Ratcliffe. You can feel free to believe him but that won't change the reality.
 
You, like many others are just thinking that money = success. Not true.

The Glazers have spent a fortune on the team and look at the state of it. We could have spent 1/3 of that wisely and been in a much better position.

The Qatari's were putting forward a faceless nobody as the club buyer, someone there is what, 3 pictures of? It's totally weird.

People are too quick to abandon their morals for some money, it's sad.

Ratcliffe is already talking about employing Michael Edwards, one of the best football operators. If he follows his lead, I'm fairly positive about it all. The Glazers are clueless.
You are once again talking from an anti-state owned point of view. Qatar is out and that discussion is done.
My point was that there is no proof what control Glazers are giving to Ineos or what control Ineos wants right now. It is too premature to say "All is well now".
 
You, like many others are just thinking that money = success. Not true.

The Glazers have spent a fortune on the team and look at the state of it. We could have spent 1/3 of that wisely and been in a much better position.

The Qatari's were putting forward a faceless nobody as the club buyer, someone there is what, 3 pictures of? It's totally weird.

People are too quick to abandon their morals for some money, it's sad.

Ratcliffe is already talking about employing Michael Edwards, one of the best football operators. If he follows his lead, I'm fairly positive about it all. The Glazers are clueless.

I agree with your first 3 sentences.
I just wish people would stop talking about morals. Jim isnt some saint. His company is a terrible company that has close ties to the Saudis. Neither Qatar fans nor Jim fans should pretend to have some moral highground. Its nonsense.

IF he employs Michael Edwards that is indeed very good. So far that is all pr talk to speak to the fans, much like Qatars pr babble.
 
You are once again talking from an anti-state owned point of view. Qatar is out and that discussion is done.
My point was that there is no proof what control Glazers are giving to Ineos or what control Ineos wants right now. It is too premature to say "All is well now".

I am not saying that, but at present there are two options: Ratcliffe or no Ratcliffe. I'd rather he got involved and at least tried to right the ship.

Otherwise the Glazers just stay and we carry on as we are - nobody wants that.
 
Was the Qatar bid even legit?

I say that because of Qatar lack of flexibility around the deal - 100% or nothing. Why not find a compromise, as it was clear some of The Glazers wanted to remain?

Why tell the world you are about to spend an extra $2.5bil on stadium, training ground, players, city redevelopment etc? You are dealing with The Glazers - why tell them you have more money allocated to this project? They have no interest in what happens to the club once they are paid out. Appealing to the fans means nothing to The Glazers.

Ben Jacobs reported ... "One of the issues Nine Two Foundation faced was a lack of face time with Sheikh Jassim." Why would that be?

He has also said "while insiders close to the sale have continually argued the reality of Qatar's bid didn't match the PR."

So, was this all a PR move for Qatar?
 
I'd rather everyone pulled out. We're at our financial limits, the Glazers wouldn't be able to hold onto United for too many years longer and would be in a weaker position when having to put the club up for sale again. This is why I can't stand the INEOS bid, we could be looking at the Glazers having a strangle hold on our club for a further 10 years or more. They can talk about how they plan to buy them out by 2026 and all that, but unless Sir Jim worked a flanker and have some sort of cast iron obligations that the Glazers have to sell by a certain time, what's to force them to sell in the future?

I personally couldn't think of a worse case scenario that what we have right now

As long as more and more money keeps pumping into the game, United's turnover & valuation will keep rising, even if we sit in mid-table. So seen solely as an asset, I see little downward pressure for the forseeable future and little more reason for the Glazers to sell than now.
 
I agree with your first 3 sentences.
I just wish people would stop talking about morals. Jim isnt some saint. His company is a terrible company that has close ties to the Saudis. Neither Qatar fans nor Jim fans should pretend to have some moral highground. Its nonsense.

IF he employs Michael Edwards that is indeed very good. So far that is all pr talk to speak to the fans, much like Qatars pr babble.

I don't disagree with that in principle, if Qatar had taken over I would accept it and get on with it, but if we can avoid being reduced to a sportswashing operation, that is a positive in my book...
 
Felt a bit weirded out by the Qatar interest when Jassim didn't even bother turning up to any of the rounds to negotiate while Ratcliffe did.

Then we heard annoying Qatar media soundbites saying Manchester United is Qatari.

Now we are hearing how it's our loss and they were our only shot at narrowing the gap.

I dont enjoy being claimed by a state and trying to be forced to feel like we depended on them for glory. Go feck yourselves, we are a big club and ultimately need owners with some money and some football sense. If INEOS can bring that then its worlds better than what we had. Go make PSG more of a circus, bellends.
 
I don't disagree with that in principle, if Qatar had taken over I would accept it and get on with it, but if we can avoid being reduced to a sportswashing operation, that is a positive in my book...

On that we agree 100%.
And while I have my doubts about Jim, things are as they are now and I hope he brings about positive chance and that he actually succeeds in getting the glazers out of the club.
 
Was the Qatar bid even legit?

I say that because of Qatar lack of flexibility around the deal - 100% or nothing. Why not find a compromise, as it was clear some of The Glazers wanted to remain?

Why tell the world you are about to spend an extra $2.5bil on stadium, training ground, players, city redevelopment etc? You are dealing with The Glazers - why tell them you have more money allocated to this project? They have no interest in what happens to the club once they are paid out. Appealing to the fans means nothing to The Glazers.

Ben Jacobs reported ... "One of the issues Nine Two Foundation faced was a lack of face time with Sheikh Jassim." Why would that be?

He has also said "while insiders close to the sale have continually argued the reality of Qatar's bid didn't match the PR."

So, was this all a PR move for Qatar?
Think it wasn’t state backed like PSG was. It was more of one rich family looking to do private investment.

I just didn’t understand why they didn’t negotiate any other way of financing this deal. And stadium redevelopment and squad funding budget was probably to win fans and create pressure on Glazers to accept the bid. But they horribly misunderstood who they were dealing with
 
We really need to know what's been agreed before knowing how to feel about it. If, for example, Ineos has agreed this initial 25% purchase with some mechanism to get to over 50% that's one thing. If it's just a minority stake though...
 
Our absolute spend was never the problem. It was how well the money was allocated. To quote you - "How this is hard to grasp for some of you is beyond me."
Our spend may not be sustainable without more money from outside flowing in. We've been buying on credit the last two summers where we pay off the transfer spend with the matchday proceeds the following June.

Unless you think Ratcliffe will have close to 100% success on both incomings and outgoings Liverpool-style and we won't ever waste money, we're going nowhere fast.

This is assuming no transfer inflation and no accounting for the fact we need to spend MORE than our rivals just to catch up. This while City are spending €100m on a single defender.
 
Hopefully by the end of the week we will be a bit more familiar with the details given the requirements of the process and obligations to the stock exchange.

The process
  • It was commenced by the club. The Raine Group acted on behalf of the club and not the Glazers.
  • The club will need to formally end that process, we assume this will follow the forthcoming board meeting.
  • The directors are technically supposed to act in the best interest of the club and not for their personal interests. Obviously, the Glazers have their personal interests at heart however they cannot be seen to be openly acting out of self-interest.
  • You would assume that the directors would need to explain why the Sir Jim deal is in the best deal for the club and in so doing for the shareholders.
  • The main details of the deal would need to be released accordingly there cannot be any suggestion that there is a side deal for Sir Jim to do something extra in the future.
  • No doubt they will need to explain, in some manner, to the Class A investor groups why they turned down a better deal from Jassim, however, you can guess that they will say that the alternative Jassim bid would never have seen the light of day because the largest shareholders would not be agreeable.
  • If it is a deal to purchase the whole of the club, a structured purchase over a number of years, as per some wiser forum members, Woziak, and Gaffs, who referenced an American lawyer commenting in the Athletic that the argument of dissent becomes material.
  • It will be interesting to see how the investor groups respond.
Glazers
  • If they are receiving 1 billion, then that could be divided by them in whichever way they choose. It may be that Joel doesn't take any money now etc.
  • They also lose their ability to give to a new buyer overall control, 67%. It will no longer be available to a prospective purchaser accordingly they will be looking for compensation for the loss of that element. For this reason there must be a longer term agreement with Sir Jim?
Class A investors
  • The only real motivation for investing is to see a return and not waiting for a stadium to be rebuilt. The return on the table is less appetising than the one that has been turned down, no doubt they will examine the director's duties and examine if there was any, obvious, conflict of interests.
Sir Jim
  • Hopefully has some money in his back pocket to upgrade the facilities in addition to the team. If he does clear the debts it will only be replaced by new debt payable to him, no way is he simply just giving away money when he doesn't own the club in its entirety. What is of interest will he charge or will he provide some sort of discount.
Jassim
  • We're told he has withdrawn. In withdrawing he has essentially ended the process however will the club return to him if the proposed deal is not as good as we believe.
  • You would assume that he has spoken to the Class A investors and has been told there is little leverage for them to pursue legal action?

Good post and really good points.

The most interesting, I still believe, is how the minority shareholders will be satisfied by this deal.

Unless Ineos 25% is targeted largely towards the class A shares that the speculators have bought, they cant be happy about not being bought out fully by Jassim.
That may suggest that there is a mechanism / guarantee for Ratcliffe to buy them out in the near future.

There has to be a way to satisfy the class A shareholders, otherwise they will be sitting on stock that will rapidly devalue.
 
Good post and really good points.

The most interesting, I still believe, is how the minority shareholders will be satisfied by this deal.

Unless Ineos 25% is targeted largely towards the class A shares that the speculators have bought, they cant be happy about not being bought out fully by Jassim.
That may suggest that there is a mechanism / guarantee for Ratcliffe to buy them out in the near future.

There has to be a way to satisfy the class A shareholders, otherwise they will be sitting on stock that will rapidly devalue.

Ineos is borrowing all the money to buy 25% of the business.

Which is sensible, they make around 2 billion a year on average, gross profit, so they cannot blow cash at the levels needed to buy Manchester United.

But it does suggest a quick acceleration of their purchase is very unlikely.
 
Our spend may not be sustainable without more money from outside flowing in. We've been buying on credit the last two summers where we pay off the transfer spend with the matchday proceeds the following June.

Unless you think Ratcliffe will have close to 100% success on both incomings and outgoings Liverpool-style and we won't ever waste money, we're going nowhere fast.

This is assuming no transfer inflation and no accounting for the fact we need to spend MORE than our rivals just to catch up. This while City are spending €100m on a single defender.

All debt could be cleared, we could have a new stadium, we could have a 500mil per window budget, but if we keep buying players that don't work, we will fail.

The Glazer leveraged buy out and debt has been a gut punch.
But their biggest sin is not creating the structure for continued success post Fergie.
INEOS plan to do this, so what is the objection?

Plus, you are not accounting for the potential of INEOS buying more of the club and working towards clearing the debt.

And just because Qatar stupidly told the world that they were ready to pump in billions post takeover, it doesn't mean that INEOS wont, if/when they get full control/ownership.
 
Ineos is borrowing all the money to buy 25% of the business.

Which is sensible, they make around 2 billion a year on average, gross profit, so they cannot blow cash at the levels needed to buy Manchester United.

But it does suggest a quick acceleration of their purchase is very unlikely.

Do we know this for sure? Source?
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this already, but we may have dodged a bullet with a Qatari investment given the current situiation in the Middle East. Qatar are in bed with Iran and provide safe haven for Hamas' leaders. If things were to escalate further, then sanctions against Qatar could be a real option for the West, and we could end up in a situation similar to that which Chelsea found themselves in last year.
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this already, but we may have dodged a bullet with a Qatari investment given the current situiation in the Middle East. Qatar are in bed with Iran and provide safe haven for Hamas' leaders. If things were to escalate further, then sanctions against Qatar could be a real option for the West, and we could end up in a situation similar to that which Chelsea found themselves in last year.
Qatar is one of the Wests biggest energy suppliers and hosts thousands of soldiers, on top of being a huge defence spender on western arms. The likelihood of Qatar being sanctions is close to 0%.
 
It's sad that the discourse around this has basically turned United fans against each other. Folks on both sides of the fence have taken to devaluing the good that either party taking over from the Glazers could do for us. Even now there are plenty of posters more interested in gloating about the Qatari withdrawal than asking what this offer actually means for United going forward.

Let's be fairly clear about this, either of the parties succeeding in a full takeover of United would have put the club in a much better situation; Jassim taking over would have left us debt free to spend our own money, as well as with a large immediate investment in the club's infrastructure, and INEOS while not having the same cash on hand to invest would at minimum have allowed us to take the Glazer dividend money and use it to pay off the debt (and likely would have invested a decent chunk of cash too). They also hopefully have gotten through a lot of the trial and error in running a football club with Nice.

United doesn't need a bottomless pit of cash - I'd be quite happy with anyone at the helm interested in securing the long term success of the club rather than treating it as a cash cow to milk dry. We make more than enough of our own money, except when that's drained by leech owners and meaningless debt.

The problem with the current offer is that it's not a takeover, and without it involving a guaranteed path to a takeover, it's hard to envisage how one could come to be without things going so badly wrong for United that the Glazers are forced to bail out. Pretty much any positive path forward for the club requires some sort of guaranteed buyout price for INEOS in the near(ish) future or something along those lines, otherwise it would be against their interests to invest money in improving the club's situation, and would seemingly just be another head at the Glazer table.
 
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Our spend may not be sustainable without more money from outside flowing in. We've been buying on credit the last two summers where we pay off the transfer spend with the matchday proceeds the following June.

Unless you think Ratcliffe will have close to 100% success on both incomings and outgoings Liverpool-style and we won't ever waste money, we're going nowhere fast.

This is assuming no transfer inflation and no accounting for the fact we need to spend MORE than our rivals just to catch up. This while City are spending €100m on a single defender.
What makes you think our spend is not sustainable?

We were touch and go on FFP in the last window because we needed to renew some sponsorship deals and also had an issue with our covid year p&l. We also overspent last summer (poor transfer decisions) which meant we had to be tighter this window.

We've since struck a new lucrative deal with snapdragon and been cautious with our spend this summer (and stil spent 200m) whilst selling players atrociously like novices.

If Ratcliffe can get capable people in charge who can buy and sell better, which it sounds more than likely he would, then it's going to be a massive upgrade.
 
MUST said it better than anyone.

United fans could be happy about this news but all the speculation about him controlling football operations etc. who can trust the Glazers? Everything about this decision will be in their own interest. It’s hardly as though they are holding their hands up and saying they got the football side wrong but please can we stay.

It does seem though that they are on the road to the exit door, but gradually, same as how they came in. This news would have been met gleefully by United fans 2 years ago.

Unfortunately, we were expecting a club sale and this is not what is happening right now. The off the field speculation continues. We need some more assurances. I am happy that it isn’t Qatar, but this is another thing, they offered this 100% control with immediate investment and many fans will have been hoping for this immediate change of direction with a City-esque set up.

Overall this is great news for United but we need SJR to come in with assurances.
 
Maybe someone needed to teach Jassim the very basics such as what should come first.

1. Takeover
2. /3. Investment in infrastructure, clearing debt, signing players, PR and even more PR, …

Turns out insisting on 2nd/3rd step before the 1st and doing PR linked to class of 92 and Becks isn’t enough to take over one of the biggest football clubs in the world.
 
Maybe someone needed to teach Jassim the very basics such as what should come first.

1. Takeover
2. /3. Investment in infrastructure, clearing debt, signing players, PR and even more PR, …

Turns out insisting on 2nd/3rd step before the 1st and doing PR linked to class of 92 and Becks isn’t enough to take over one of the biggest football clubs in the world.

Not with the Glazers around no
 
Maybe someone needed to teach Jassim the very basics such as what should come first.

1. Takeover
2. /3. Investment in infrastructure, clearing debt, signing players, PR and even more PR, …

Turns out insisting on 2nd/3rd step before the 1st and doing PR linked to class of 92 and Becks isn’t enough to take over one of the biggest football clubs in the world.
to be fair, it;'s quite hard to take over a club where the vampiric owners never had any real intention of selling
 
You are once again talking from an anti-state owned point of view. Qatar is out and that discussion is done.
My point was that there is no proof what control Glazers are giving to Ineos or what control Ineos wants right now. It is too premature to say "All is well now".

Also all of the INEOS PR coming out now seems pointless. Sure he might get say over footballing matters, but that only means so much if he still has to beg the Glazers for every financial outlay. You can have all of the structure in the world but if every decision still needs final approval from the parasites then none of it matters.
 
The United Stand is actually the same as the Glazers, they are an absolute shit stain of a channel and completely thick conspiracy theorist wankers.

Totally agree. They love nothing more than there being issues at the club. It is great for their views.

I honestly have my doubts that the guy is a real United fan.
 
to be fair, it;'s quite hard to take over a club where the vampiric owners never had any real intention of selling
Then start with part ownership. Find a way if you really want United. Or maybe his/their real motivation and prime target was always the real estate potential around OT.
 
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