Club Sale | It’s done!

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I see that people are still imagining that the Glazers are savvy owners who run the club as a commercial operation. They don't, the club isn't particularly well managed commercially, it's not as commercially heavy as clubs like Bayern or a few others and sine SAF left the Football side has consistently overspent and bled money for not good reason under their watch.

For the people who still don't get it the Glazers have no management abilties, they aren't masterminding the club and running as a commercial operation. They simply have no clue and failed to manage the club in all areas.
 
Ratcliffe/INEOS won't be handing over 1.5 billion to the Glazers saying: "Right, here's some money, we now own a part of this thing."

There will be specific terms, conditions, clauses, etc.

If the Glazers could just sell their remaining shares to the highest bidder, Jim obviously wouldn't have been interested in 25% in the first place.

Again: How stupid do people think Jim is?

Jim’s £1.5B could turn into £2.5B if the club sells for £10B in the future. Unless it’s a airtight agreement to take over full control eventually, anything is possible including SJR coming along for the ride
 
Do you genuinely believe the Glazers are going to relinquish all oversight and let someone else spend whatever they want? What if Ratcliffe dies and INEOS change direction and decide not to buy the club. What if for whatever reason INEOS goes into financial difficulties and cuts the sporting wing. Whatever the scenario, the fact of the matter is until they don’t, the Glazer’s will still be majority owners of this club and will have a vested interest in protecting their investment.


See above. I just don’t see any way that they do not still have some oversight on financial dealings. What if Ratcliffe’s football director and co decided to spend £500m next summer? That’s half his investment worth of club funds he’s spending, you don’t think the Glazer’s will be required to sign off on that?
How would we spend £500m? We don’t have the cash reserve.
 
The key point of everything is that path to majority control. If this is not bulletproof and signed without any loopholes and in a logical timeframe of course, it can end to so much drama and internal backstabbing like a game of thrones series.

Trust me, you cannot imagine how bad it can get. In my local team, Panathinaikos, something similar happened a long time ago, if you are searching for a similar case in Europe. The new investors were given around 37% and the sporting management for 2 years. After these two years, we were very successful but our own Greek Glazers (they are even worse and more vindictive) started to undermine everyone. They vetoed things, did not want further improvement via inflow of cash and they asked crazy money to sell their share. In the meantime, they undermined the relationships between the new investors (they were a diverse group). Everything went to bust, and suddenly we had a debt due to big transfers which we could not serve. The investors disappeared in the end, and believe it or not, even if they were shrewd businessmen outside of football they just threw their money away.

All this because they never had a contractual agreement that they will get majority control of shares. I hope Ratcliffe does not sign anything if he does not have that path officially agreed from now.
 
Do you genuinely believe the Glazers are going to relinquish all oversight and let someone else spend whatever they want? What if Ratcliffe dies and INEOS change direction and decide not to buy the club. What if for whatever reason INEOS goes into financial difficulties and cuts the sporting wing. Whatever the scenario, the fact of the matter is until they don’t, the Glazer’s will still be majority owners of this club and will have a vested interest in protecting their investment.


See above. I just don’t see any way that they do not still have some oversight on financial dealings. What if Ratcliffe’s football director and co decided to spend £500m next summer? That’s half his investment worth of club funds he’s spending, you don’t think the Glazer’s will be required to sign off on that?

I don’t know why people always jump to extremes like Joel/Avram will still have to sign everything off or what happens if INEOS spend all the money without asking. The Glazers are obviously not going to not let spend whatever they want (they can’t anyway because of FFP) and INEOS are obviously not going to have to default everything to those two idiots.
 
The key point of everything is that path to majority control. If this is not bulletproof and signed without any loopholes and in a logical timeframe of course, it can end to so much drama and internal backstabbing like a game of thrones series.

Trust me, you cannot imagine how bad it can get. In my local team, Panathinaikos, something similar happened a long time ago, if you are searching for a similar case in Europe. The new investors were given around 37% and the sporting management for 2 years. After these two years, we were very successful but our own Greek Glazers (they are even worse and more vindictive) started to undermine everyone. They vetoed things, did not want further improvement via inflow of cash and they asked crazy money to sell their share. In the meantime, they undermined the relationships between the new investors (they were a diverse group). Everything went to bust, and suddenly we had a debt due to big transfers which we could not serve. The investors disappeared in the end, and believe it or not, even if they were shrewd businessmen outside of football they just threw away their money.

All this because, they were never had a contractual agreement that they will get majority control of shares. I hope Ratcliffe does not get sign anything if he does not have that path officially agreed from now.


Good post. Very interesting.

You would hope that Ratcliffe and team are aware of what happened at Panathinaikos, or are at least anticipating the worst-case scenarios.
 
I don’t know why people always jump to extremes like Joel/Avram will still have to sign everything off or what happens if INEOS spend all the money without asking. The Glazers are obviously not going to not let spend whatever they want (they can’t anyway because of FFP) and INEOS are obviously not going to have to default everything to those two idiots.
Have you read the point I’ve actually been making?

It’s exactly this scenario:

Ratcliffe installs an entirely new footballing structure at the club. Murtough and all his staff gone.

Next summer they want to sign a player and he’s going to cost £100m.

That is still going to land on Joel’s desk as he is co-chairman (not a footballing position) Joel is still going to do his due diligence before signing off on it. That is still going to make us cumbersome in the transfer market.

The idea that the Glazers would totally relinquish 100% control of the purse strings for 25% of the company is beyond naive.
 
An asset worth more than they paid for it
Going by the previous post I quoted, they would get the full asset in about 10 years time at a value almost 1.75 time of their current valuation. That is a lot of money and I doubt football clubs are considered to be that big of an appreciating asset.
 
Sure, this has been posted before, but quite hilarious as Kaveh's source sounds like a butthurt CafTard.....



In fairness they are playing to their audience perfectly. It's how they've operated throughout and gained a significant portion of their loudest support.
 
That is a lot of speculation. What is in it for INEOS in all this?

Many things.
  • Control of a substantial part of the business
  • A 25% stake in the company they intend to grow the valuation of
  • An agreement to become full owners at a later date giving them more participation in valuation growth from that point on
  • Ending up with the club for less than it would cost to purchase the 75% at the higher end valuation as they already acquired 25% when the valuation was lower.

And then there are intangibles such as the PR of owning and resurrecting Man Utd. Improved access to other sport investment opportunities (if they go the City Football Group route) and others that I'm sure I have forgotten.
 
They can made a stipulation where the future transfer budget is pretty much calculated (+any Ineos added investment if that's possible/players sales, etc...). Anything under such budget the Glazers would be obligated to sign (no matter if it's 1 or 3 players) and anything on top of that requires their further blessings for example. It pretty much gives Sir Jim most of the power related to the first team. If he also has a power on making calls about the structure and people who will work under such structure he is pretty much in full control of football decisions. Which tbf Glazers never cared about one bit about. Well, at least the majority of them.

It is a all murky atm because we don't know shit about the deal. But the deal is in the making for probably few months now and if there is one thing that is true about any agreement, it is that you can cover pretty much all scenarios and all the possible holes to satisfy each party. Jim/Ineos arent't handing those £1.3bn just for bragging rights.
 
Have you read the point I’ve actually been making?

It’s exactly this scenario:

Ratcliffe installs an entirely new footballing structure at the club. Murtough and all his staff gone.

Next summer they want to sign a player and he’s going to cost £100m.

That is still going to land on Joel’s desk as he is co-chairman (not a footballing position) Joel is still going to do his due diligence before signing off on it. That is still going to make us cumbersome in the transfer market.

The idea that the Glazers would totally relinquish 100% control of the purse strings for 25% of the company is beyond naive.

What you are saying is beyond naive that the status quo just continues and INEOS have signed up for that. There is a lot in between the two extremes you are peddling of Joel/Avram still control everything or INEOS now control everything.
 
When Jim kicks the bucket in 5 years time. Who takes over?
Not sure why you assume he'll die in 5 years. Life expectancy for a 70-year-old male in the UK is 86. I'd imagine it's even higher for a billionaire who appears to be fit and in good health.
 
Good post. Very interesting.

You would hope that Ratcliffe and team are aware of what happened at Panathinaikos, or are at least anticipating the worst-case scenarios.

It is funny because I read some posts here and I remember our case exactly.

“Ratcliffe is very clever and surely has a plan”

“We are talking about shrewd successful businessmen”

etc etc

No. The path to majority control has to be signed from now somehow. Otherwise, it can get very ugly.

Our investors here underestimated the leeches that were facing, and thought that getting in was enough for now even if we as fans demanded a full sale. Since they were our only hope (only interested group) we forgot the partial sale since we were over the moon for “the new era” and trusted that they will find a way. They never did.
 
My point wasn't that they are reliable or reasonable, my point is they are no better or worse than any other United fan and on this very forum, you hear the same opinions, good bad or indifferent.

Also it is a channel that uses clickbait, it's almost as if they are using the same strategy as the written press has for hundreds of years with their headlines.

For me it's quite simple, if you don't like the content, don't watch it, don't read it and avoid it. It's very simple. But to describe them the way they've been described is way over the top because they have opinions you don't share and yet be a part of a forum that have voiced the same opinions/conspiracy theory's and sometimes even worse , does that make this forum as an entity a shit stain of a forum? Just read a match day thread on this forum and you'll see a different level of shit stainery.
Totally agree with that. I seem to have misunderstood your previous post.
 
We all care but what can we do to change what's going to inevitably happen?


Sorry, its your wording was out so I didn't quite grasp it.

What did he say about Ratcliffe?
Not watched the full thing yet (about 36 minutes of the full hour) but generally quite positive.

The journo himself said it's not the holy grail of Qatar magic money tree but Ratcliffe is well liked by the Nice fanbase (surprise for me) and that players themselves seem to have a very positive opinion of him, even after they've moved on from Nice.

He raised some other points about being more open with fans (contrasting this to the clown Glazers) but also mentioned him being seen as a bit cold (which was confusing and I need to listen again because maybe he was talking about the Glazers and I'm confused).

The other big soundbite I got was that Nice have spent 90m a year on average since Ratcliffe bought them 4 years ago. That is first promising since if you scale it to United and the money from TV rights in France, it sounds great. But then again they've finished 9th twice and 5th twice, so that's a bit of a bummer. This season is looking a lot better but also partially because PSG have started their own reorganization and it might give other big clubs like Monaco more of a chance to compete for the title.
 
What you are saying is beyond naive that the status quo just continues and INEOS have signed up for that. There is a lot in between the two extremes you are peddling of Joel/Avram still control everything or INEOS now control everything.
Yep and what I have said does not fall anywhere near those extremes. If you think it does you haven’t been listening.
 
Also, having 25% of Manchester is an investment for the future. Ineos idea is that club's value will go up in future. United (and any top club) is just a good investment with more and more money coming in football and with ME buyers lurking behind the corner you can always sell it for more money.

This is nonsense.

INEOS is a huge company. Whatever they can possibly make from owning United - especially in the scenario where they just keep doing what the Glazers have been doing - is peanuts.

But, look - all of this has been said a thousands times before in this thread. It's extremely unlikely that someone like Jim Ratcliffe would be seeking to buy a minority share in Manchester United simply in order to make a measly profit. It makes no sense whatsoever for all sorts of reasons.

You don't have to take my word for it - search this thread, do a Google search, whatever. The idea is nonsensical.
 
Sure, this has been posted before, but quite hilarious as Kaveh's source sounds like a butthurt CafTard.....


  • Constantly posts about people needing to move on and how Ratcliffe ain't all bad
  • Posts a twitter link which he/she knows has been posted numerous times and is a day and a half old, so knows has been discussed
  • Proceeds to make snark remarks
  • Accuses the others of childish behaviour
This is gaslighting 101, folks.
 
In fairness they are playing to their audience perfectly. It's how they've operated throughout and gained a significant portion of their loudest support.

And where has it got them?

They were meant to be in negation with The Glazers, not trying to win hearts and minds of the United's supporters.

They told the world about them spending billions on stadium, training ground, squad etc. Who negotiates by telling the seller how much spare cash to invest after the sale?

If I'm buying a house, I want to give the seller the impression that i'm already stretched to reach their valuation. Not that i'm going to come in and gut renovate the entire place.

Makes me a little suspicious about how real this bid was in the first place.

Or maybe Sheikh Jassim just isn't the smartest cookie....

crop-22788391.jpg
 
Yep and what I have said does not fall anywhere near those extremes. If you think it does you haven’t been listening.

People just need to apply common sense and stop moaning and leaping to extreme conclusions regarding everything. You can’t have sporting control without some form of control over money as well, we all know that so I’m sure INEOS do.
 
Have you read the point I’ve actually been making?

It’s exactly this scenario:

Ratcliffe installs an entirely new footballing structure at the club. Murtough and all his staff gone.

Next summer they want to sign a player and he’s going to cost £100m.

That is still going to land on Joel’s desk as he is co-chairman (not a footballing position) Joel is still going to do his due diligence before signing off on it. That is still going to make us cumbersome in the transfer market.

The idea that the Glazers would totally relinquish 100% control of the purse strings for 25% of the company is beyond naive.
Made the same point a couple of pages back but the screaming brigade refuse to engage their brains.

It's the typical Tory tactic. Give people freedom with the budget but set the budget, so as to ensure failure even if Warren Buffett himself is utilizing it.
 
It is funny because I read some posts here and I remember our case exactly.

“Ratcliffe is very clever and surely has a plan”

“We are talking about shrewd successful businessmen”

etc etc

No. The path to majority control has to be signed from now somehow. Otherwise, it can get very ugly.

Our investors here underestimated the leeches that were facing, and thought that getting in was enough for now even if we as fans demanded a full sale. Since they were our only hope (only interested group) we forgot the partial sale since we were over the moon for “the new era” and that they will find a way. They never did.
Exactly this, it was stated early on the 2 glazer brothers don’t want to sell as they think the value will rise to £8-10B. Good luck getting those 2 to agree to a deal that completes in 3-6 years based on current valuation instead of their extremely high future expectations.
 
People just need to apply common sense and stop moaning and leaping to extreme conclusions regarding everything. You can’t have sporting control without some form of control over money as well, we all know that so I’m sure INEOS do.
Sorry, you know jack shit and it comes through in this post.
 
And where has it got them?

They were meant to be in negation with The Glazers, not trying to win hearts and minds of the United's supporters.

They told the world about them spending billions on stadium, training ground, squad etc. Who negotiates by telling the seller how much spare cash to invest after the sale?

If I'm buying a house, I want to give the seller the impression that i'm already stretched to reach their valuation. Not that i'm going to come in and gut renovate the entire place.

Makes me a little suspicious about how real this bid was in the first place.

Or maybe Sheikh Jassim just isn't the smartest cookie....

crop-22788391.jpg
They really hung him out to dry :lol:
 
In fairness they are playing to their audience perfectly. It's how they've operated throughout and gained a significant portion of their loudest support.
To be honest we didn’t even know if any of that was real either. It’s easier to please fans with words than spend an extra 2.5 billion on debt and facilities.

I knew from the start Jim was the better businessman of the two. Certainly the smarter guy and he 100% did a number on them.

They seemed to be just throwing around their wealth and how great Qatar is with basically no track record in sport themselves.

I’ve been moaning a tonne about this minority stake but I’ll admit INEOS’s growth into sport intrigues me. He’s got some damn impressive contacts I’m sure and they are absolutely loaded as a company. It’s very impressive on paper.

The Qatar thing I’m not sure if they have a greater project in the game like INEOS do. It’s obvious INEOS are trying to replicate the City group with us “or at first Barcelona” as their leading team. That’s encouraging.
 
This is nonsense.

INEOS is a huge company. Whatever they can possibly make from owning United - especially in the scenario where they just keep doing what the Glazers have been doing - is peanuts.

But, look - all of this has been said a thousands times before in this thread. It's extremely unlikely that someone like Jim Ratcliffe would be seeking to buy a minority share in Manchester United simply in order to make a measly profit. It makes no sense whatsoever for all sorts of reasons.

You don't have to take my word for it - search this thread, do a Google search, whatever. The idea is nonsensical.
Ineos make their money back and probably a profit in future while SJR is the face of one of the biggest clubs in world football and a club he supposedly supports. It can be a business decision as well as a personal ambition at the same time.
 
  • Constantly posts about people needing to move on and how Ratcliffe ain't all bad
  • Posts a twitter link which he/she knows has been posted numerous times and is a day and a half old, so knows has been discussed
  • Proceeds to make snark remarks
  • Accuses the others of childish behaviour
This is gaslighting 101, folks.

It knew it was you that spoke to Kaveh!!!!

Never said Ratcliffe "ain't all that bad". I have my doubts, but im not crying into my cornflakes like you / Kaveh's source are.

"accuses the others of childish behavior". Please show me where I have done this and I will be happy to apologies.

If you feel like you are being gaslight, maybe its you that has become too emotional about all of this?
 
People just need to apply common sense and stop moaning and leaping to extreme conclusions regarding everything. You can’t have sporting control without some form of control over money as well, we all know that so I’m sure INEOS do.

Agree. People need to just see how this pans out.

I mean, the deal hasn't even been approved by the board yet.

We have some leaked stories that have come out, but as everyone knows, we have had a thousand other pieces of miss-information through this process. Many of which were started by members of this site when claming X, Y, then Z will happen.
 
Agree. People need to just see how this pans out.

I mean, the deal hasn't even been approved by the board yet.

We have some leaked stories that have come out, but as everyone knows, we have had a thousand other pieces of miss-information through this process. Many of which were started by members of this site when claming X, Y, then Z will happen.

Now that's an interesting question. Would the Glazers vote against a deal made with the Glazers.
 
Made the same point a couple of pages back but the screaming brigade refuse to engage their brains.

It's the typical Tory tactic. Give people freedom with the budget but set the budget, so as to ensure failure even if Warren Buffett himself is utilizing it.

Spends £1.5 billion, but still has to go running to Joel to make sure it's ok to buy a certain player.. Who we buy has always been a pretty minor thing in the Glazers ownership, you've just got to look at the squads we've had to know that.

If Ratcliffe wants to spend £500 million on the stadium whilst the Glazers are still there then I'd expect that to be a big deal, who we buy and and sell within a budget set by FFP I very much doubt it.
 
Agree. People need to just see how this pans out.

I mean, the deal hasn't even been approved by the board yet.

We have some leaked stories that have come out, but as everyone knows, we have had a thousand other pieces of miss-information through this process. Many of which were started by members of this site when claming X, Y, then Z will happen.

There are going to be positives and negatives I’m sure but so much moaning and nonsense is presented as fact without any thought put into it.
 
The Shiek and Spurs are a match made in heaven actually.

All the smaller London clubs apart from Arsenal are hungry for that outside investment just like their city is these days.

Can see them doing bits but also failing utterly since it’s spurs. Would be a wild ride. In the words of Kevin Keegan I love it if Qatar took over and we beat them. With an English owner would be rather sweet :lol:
 
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