Hes not going into a 25% stake without key footballing influence. He will have control, it's been reported heavily by all credible outlets. It's literally your punt vs theirs at this stage.
Club Sale | It’s done!
- Thread starter JB08
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Not one person said Joel would have a say on football matters. Now that’s come out. What’s next? It wouldn’t even surprise me if there’s no plan of a complete takeover like what was promised. We will have Glazers forever.
The indication to me was Jassim's withdrawal. There is little reason for him to withdraw his bid unless he believed he had no chance, namely due to something being imminent with INEOS. If there is no transaction whatsoever after all this, the lawsuits will be wild.
The board vote has not been confirmed. It may not get that far. Sir Jim is trying to screw the best deal he can as last man standing, but he might not get what he wants. If Qatar upset the Glazer’s by insinuating they had failed, then Sir Jim is doing a good job of going one better by telling them he wants to take control of the football operation (because they’ve failed)
No one said there would be no Glazer presence on the board either.
What is being leaked right now is that Avram Glazer is NOT on that committee anymore and Joel remains, but 2/3rds of that board are INEOS.
I am not entirely surprised by this, and it's consistent with the news that INEOS keep the footballing control.
If the tipped structure doesn't pass then itl collapse and I reckon Qatar will come back. They will come running if the Ratcliffe deal collapses, itl be an easy win for them.
What’s being reported is what INEOS wants for lining the Glazer’s pockets. There is nothing from the Glazer’s side to suggest this is acceptable to them.
There might be a plan but thats it. No way the Glazers have it written in stone they will sell by X date for X amount. They are parasites. Why would they?
There will be none.
In the years to come, there will be more chunks sold off to other investors.
Eh nobody would be my bet.
Qatar held negotiations with the Glazers in 2011 the price of £1-2 Billion scared them off. Reportedly Saudi Arabia made a few enquiries over the years but also decided it was too expensive. Qatar tried again this year and wouldn't go above £5.2 Billion. So nobody is buying United for £6, 7, 8 or 9 Billion in the next 5-10 years.
Our best bet now to get rid of the Glazers is INEOS increasing their ownership every few years.
How?
The Times article has him paying 1.5bn for 25% of the club - a significant amount of which will go to the Glazers. It also has him funding an Old Trafford renovation and expansion to a 90,000 capacity increasing the value of the club of which the Glazers still own a significant amount of. In exchange he gets control of footballing decisions - but not business ones. He may have even included some future share buys off the Glazers at the new premium price of the club having the new infrastructure investment - meaning even more money for the Glazers. Why in the name of feck would they turn it down? Incredible deal for them.
My order of disaster scenarios, the worst being at the top getting better as move down
1. Glazers staying no change
2. Minority investment by random 3rd party eg Apollo
3. Minority investment by SJR
4. Full purchase by INEOS
5. Full purchase by Jassim
1. Glazers staying no change
2. Minority investment by random 3rd party eg Apollo
3. Minority investment by SJR
4. Full purchase by INEOS
5. Full purchase by Jassim
Lads, it's been reported.
This whole “total control of football decisions but not business decisions” narrative is genuinely so stupid and doesn’t pass a scrap of scrutiny. Manchester United is a football club for feck sake, football is the core business, you cannot separate them without essentially passing total control to your minority investor. It’s beyond preposterous.
pretty much. Even if he does a good job of investing and making manchester united stronger, it means the glazers will just ask for more money in the future to fully leave the club, assuming that day ever happens.
Do you honestly believe they couldn't have found small minority investors to keep themselves in control?
I bet the Qataris regret that now. 1-2bn in 2011 to 6bn in 2023 - and that's with the club being mismanaged. Imagine Man Utd being worth 18-36bn in 2035. Sounds utterly impossible.
That is just patently untrue. It has been reported over the years that Joel is signing off on most incoming and outgoing transfer, amongst other things. He vetoed Martial's exit years ago, for example. I believe it was because he thought Martial is going to become Manchester United's Pele. God in heaven. Anyway, he is absolutely involved in the operations of the club. Richard Arnold, and his predecessor, have had to run most moves by him first. And what I told you was proven correct mere hours later.
If Ratcliffe didn't want to sit in a corner, he should have paid more. It is delusional to believe Joel and Avram will let him do as he pleases for a mere 25%. That's just not how it works. This would probably be the first enterprise in the world where a minority shareholder is calling the shots in any way. And you cannot separate football operations from financial operations in any meaningful way. Ratcliffe can appoint who he wants, but his appointees need money to do their jobs. And the ones holding the money are the owners of the club. What happens when Ratcliffe's Director-of-Football says he wants to sign Joe Schmoe for 80 million but Joel says "No", because that's too much or Joe's wage demands are too high? So, unless "football control" means Ratcliffe is going to come up with a new formation, coach the players, and prepare nutritional plans, it all remains window dressing when he doesn't control the funds. Well, unless he has decided to continue pumping hundreds of millions into the club each summer.
A-fecking-men.
Ah right. I’ll just ignore the Financial Times, Times, Ornstein, Crafton and the telegraph. Pexbo knows best. It’s all a myth. He’s giving them feck tons of cash for absolutely zero control because he’s a renowned moron. Makes perfect sense.
That would be nice. I don't think Joel is a competent enough owner to do that, but that would be nice. We arguably would have been far better off if we gave authority to a competent DOF and he did that as a matter of course. The hit-rate for transfers in good setups are generally 50-60%. If he had done that and forced the DOF to sign 3 lower value players the recruitment department were fairly certain on instead, that likely would have meant far less money wasted.
That said. The seperation has always been reported as commercial vs sporting- never financials.
Not with a valuation close to what Ratters is offering them no.
Otherwise the 'strategic review' would have ended back in February with Elliott or Carlyle.
And what everyone was saying at the time still holds true, these groups are not idiots. They're not going to line the Glazer pockets for a percentage of something they'd have no control over.
They wouldn't have needed close to that valuation just to stay in control. Most of that money goes directly to the Glazers anyway, supposedly, it doesn't benefit the club. Some of it will probably go to investments of some kind, but certainly not all of it. (edited for clarity)
That last part, I would assume, would also hold true for INEOS?
Again it is really about the finer details. I feel that the money will not all go to their pockets, but be used for infrastructure/stadium.
The reason is simply because their whole idea is that they want to make more money if they sell in the future, and so investing now will mean more money when they sell. I also don’t think Ratcliff would invest 1.5b for it all go to their pockets. Lastly, they sought investment from hedge funds groups because they need money for investment, not put in their back pockets. Clearly, they are in here for the long game.
Hook, line, and sinker.
No. It doesn’t. They’re setting up a new governance board containing three individuals. It will be clearly stated what that board has control over and what it doesn’t have control over. This new structure will be legally part of any deal. The idea that the football is all Manchester United is about goes completely against the last 17 sodding years where everyone has universally moaned that the Glazers couldn’t give two fecks about the football - that we don’t need to be great on the pitch for the business to thrive. This isn’t hard stuff. Football goes well - Glazers benefit - football goes badly - it is Ratcliffe to blame. They get shit tons of cash, less accountability, still own lots of the club to sell later when the asset increases as they think it will with the added bonus of piggy backing off Ratcliffe’s infrastructure funds to increase the asset even further. It’s a fecking dream deal for them. Ratcliffe is nuts to do it.
Foot in door. Plus winning (vs Qatar). All he cared about.
What he cares about in the short term is control over footballing decisions. As has been reported repeatedly in the last week.
Could be he's actually a fan
I suspect part of the reason has to do with how much easier it is to aquire the entire company when he's already on the inside, and a realisation that the brothers won't sell until closer to 2026 anyway, so might as well shave 25% off the price right now.
I actually hope all of the money goes to the glazers, resulting in the max possible stake for Jim.
Well exactly. Rather than just moaning on a forum about how shit the Glazers are, how they put no money into the club for infrastructure and how they’re fecking useless at overseeing the football side he’s only gone and offered to pay them 1.5bn for the privilege of completely overhauling the footballing side of things like this entire forum wants whilst also pumping in money to fix the stadium they all whinge about every day. What a tosser.Could be he's actually a fan
I suspect part of the reason has to do with how much easier it is to aquire the entire company when he's already on the inside, and a realisation that the brothers won't sell until closer to 2026 anyway, so might as well shave 25% off the price right now.
Not necessarily i think. Liverpool got a small investment at a valuation which is unlikely to have been paid in full if someone wanted to take them over.
It would be lovely for their share to drop to 44%, but that would make them idiots, and while they might be, I don't think their lawyers would let them do that. I reckon at best it's 18% them and 7% others - putting the Glazers on 51%.
Poor Jim, now he seems to be getting Glazer heat coming his way. I guess he knows what's coming.
How dare he take away our raison d'etre!
The votes in that committee will probably be based on shareholdings.
Joel representing the Glazer family gets 75% and Jim can decide how his 25% gets divided up between him and Dave Bikes.
Joel representing the Glazer family gets 75% and Jim can decide how his 25% gets divided up between him and Dave Bikes.
What you seem to be wilfully ignoring is that footballing and commercial side is intrinsically linked.
Do you think Ratcliffe’s football decision to sell Rashford wouldn’t be met with resistance from Joel and co?
What if Ratcliffe decided that Carrington needed an overhall? You know, for footballing reasons? Is he going to be able to spend £300m of club money for that footballing decision with his footballing control?
United’s summer tours have been poor footballing preparation for years now, instead of a big tour of America or the far East he wants to keep it more local with matches against Leeds, Sunderland, Celtic and Nice. Football or commercial decision?
Transfers - let’s say his new DOF looks at the squad and decides an overhaul is needed. His approach is a massive clear out - doesn’t matter if we don’t get full value from sales, more important we clear players off the books and raise some funds. Then he thinks we should spend the next three years budget in one window and be frugal in the following windows. A high risk strategy and if it goes wrong you have a shit squad and no money in future windows to rescue it and could be left in a terrible state - essentially risking the clubs future. A footballing decision right? Nothing to do with the commercial side of the club.
Can you explain how that will work. Does Ratcliffe get to decide who to buy and sell and what the transfer budget is? Does he get to hire a new manager or DOF.
If so what stops him from siphoning money off to Nice and Lausanne by spending £100m of United’s money on a nothing player.
This is PR from Ratcliffe. If you believe that any sabe businessman will allow a minority investor to have total control over the business’ most important operations then i have a bridge to sell to you.
There is no 'side'.
There is only tier one articles saying that INEOS are structuring a deal that will have 25% ownership at the start and footballing control. One Glazer stays on a footballing committee that is 2/3rds run by INEOS.
Now whether that gets ratified or not will be confirmed at a board vote, but this is the current state of play. Qatar wouldn't withdraw from the process if this structure was not attractive to the Glazers.
Heavens forbid you’d be sensationalising this lad.
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