Club Sale | It’s done!

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BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Ok, you have a certain view on Ratcliffe, that’s very clear, but “had been moving goalposts left right and centre (full ownership, 51% ownership, 25% ownership)” simply isn’t true. He put offers/bids in of differing types and the Glazers rejected them… that’s public record now. So he did what good businessmen do… stayed in the game, got something over nothing but with some clauses that made it more palatable for him and gave him chances/options to eventually get what he wants.
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I am just claiming facts here mate. Its not as if I am inventing stuff about him. One can applaud some aspects of a person and not like other aspects as well. For example I applaud SJR as a business man even calling him the Bill Gates of Petrochemicals. i criticized his track record in football although I also highlighted that he seem to have learnt alot in the past 12 months in the way he managed Nice. The club is managed very well at the moment and that was thanks to the reforms they did throughout last year. As a person I think that he lack morals and what he says might differ sharply from what he does. There again most multi billionaires are like that as well.

I was pro Qatar because I felt (based on the information we had being fed) that it was the better bid. I also made it obvious that I would change my stance if the information changed or a better potential owner came on board. My allegiance is towards Man United not the Glazers, SJR, Qatar or anyone else really.

My point regarding SJR was that yes, there was plenty of questions on Jassim. However SJR was hardly a knight in shining armor either.
 
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BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
I didn’t see Whitwell and Ornstein do what those others did (SKY is an overpaid aggregator and Jacobs/Mail have had their pants pulled down and getting hammered on social media and accused of being paid/used for PR… haven’t denied these claims).

Mail and reputable don’t really go together.. sports journalism or any type. I wouldn’t believe them if they said today is Friday
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Well no one really placed the Qatari bid in doubt and that despite many covering it up from the Athletic right to Bloomberg. Almost everyone believed that it was genuine up to this point. Back when the Qatari bid was believed to have won the only person I can think of who raised some doubts about the Qatari bid was Rhodes of the muppetiers. Back then no one thought of him being a reputable person and tbf I believe that he's part of INEOS PR
 
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devilish said:
Well no one really placed the Qatari bid in doubt and that despite many covering it up from the Athletic right to Bloomberg. Almost everyone believed that it was genuine up to this point. Back when the Qatari bid was believed to have won the only person I can think of who raised some doubts about the Qatari bid was Rhodes of the muppetiers. Back then no one thought of him being a reputable person
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Also, Mark Kleinman did not once talk about Qatari bid as a news. Probably as a sentence in a Ratcliffe report.
I raised this weird observation last year on this thread.

Probably Qatari bid was not that serious.

Look at Kleinman Twitter search regarding Manchester United
https://x.com/search?q=from:@MarkKleinmanSky Manchester united&t=ZW1nNe1GndWrnoXU7r5rCA&s=09

Not a single Qatari bid report.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
Also, Mark Kleinman did not once talk about Qatari bid as a news. Probably as a sentence in a Ratcliffe report.
I raised this weird observation last year on this thread.

Probably Qatari bid was not that serious.
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I have a feeling that Raine played a fast one on SJR TBH. Back then every one knew that the Glazers needed external investment which means that if there's only one bidder then this was pretty much a buyer's market. I suspect that Raine kept the Qatari bid alive simply to push SJR to 'structure' the bid the way the Glazers wanted it to be. Ultimately there's only one clear winner here and its neither SJR nor the Qatari.
 
devilish said:
I have a feeling that Raine played a fast one on SJR TBH. Back then every one knew that the Glazers needed external investment which means that if there's only one bidder then this was pretty much a buyer's market. I suspect that Raine kept the Qatari bid alive simply to push SJR to 'structure' the bid the way the Glazers wanted it to be. Ultimately there's only one clear winner here and its neither SJR nor the Qatari.
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Wow you're so clever devilish.
 
devilish said:
I have a feeling that Raine played a fast one on SJR TBH. Back then every one knew that the Glazers needed external investment which means that if there's only one bidder then this was pretty much a buyer's market. I suspect that Raine kept the Qatari bid alive simply to push SJR to 'structure' the bid the way the Glazers wanted it to be. Ultimately there's only one clear winner here and its neither SJR nor the Qatari.
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Raine was briefing all media outlets both ways.

Kleinman was being briefed by the board itself.

Richard Arnold was briefing Rio and probably the Athletic.

Thus the scattering of information, with alot of it being extremely dubious. It's incredible the circus that follows us even on simple things.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
Raine was briefing all media outlets both ways.

Kleinman was being briefed by the board itself.

Richard Arnold was briefing Rio and probably the Athletic.
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No chance Rio got his fake shit from Richard Arnold :lol:
 
devilish said:
How can you possibly do that? Owners have various tests that they can rely on (ex the proof of funds one). But those take ages to complete (its not easy to collect 5b even for a multibillionaire) and they aren't 100% fool proof. I mentioned two cases when it failed spectacularly. Journalists don't even have access to those (NDAs) and have to rely on third party information. We fans are a step below that as we don't even know whose that third party information comes from. The fact that this deal was being done by the Glazers (who are secretive by nature) for an asset whose registered in the Cayman Islands (we know the reputation there) while floating in the NY stock exchange makes all this deal an utter mess. May I also highlight that the options were neither great reputational wise. One came from Qatar from a guy who came out of nowhere (though his dad is one of the most respected people in the ME) from a filthy rich country with dubious human rights while the other one came from a tax avoider who lives in France while campaigning Brexit, whose a United supporter but who also wanted to buy Chelsea and Barca and whose company had been tanking in football for quite some time, who had failed to fulfill its promises to Lausanne/Nice fans and had been moving goalposts left right and centre (full ownership, 51% ownership, 25% ownership).

I was a 100% sure that it was a state bid. Turned out that it was probably wasn't at least in the short run.
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I imagine it would have been very difficult for journalists. In which case if they can't confirm the story then either don't run with it or at the very least don't run so hard with it and report it as 'true'.

But as we know journalistic integrity is virtually dead in the age of clickbait we currently live in.
 
stevoc said:
I imagine it would have been very difficult for journalists. In which case if they can't confirm the story then either don't run with it or at the very least don't run so hard with it and report it as 'true'.

But as we know journalistic integrity is virtually dead in the age of clickbait we currently live in.
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I agree
 
devilish said:
I have a feeling that Raine played a fast one on SJR TBH. Back then every one knew that the Glazers needed external investment which means that if there's only one bidder then this was pretty much a buyer's market. I suspect that Raine kept the Qatari bid alive simply to push SJR to 'structure' the bid the way the Glazers wanted it to be. Ultimately there's only one clear winner here and its neither SJR nor the Qatari.
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Feck ...that will be some proper 4D chess played by the Glazer's and Raine Group.
 
ColvaleGoa said:
Feck ...that will be some proper 4D chess played by the Glazer's and Raine Group.
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According to Sam peoples, Jassim made 4-5 bids. In each bid he never ever bothered to produce any proof of funds despite being repeatedly asked to do so. The Glazers kept stringing to that notion up until Jassim pulled out of the race on his own accord. How many months must pass and bids must be handled before raine concluded that he was not a serious buyer? Unless of course they were comfortable giving the impression that there were 2 bidders till the very end of the process
 
ColvaleGoa said:
Feck ...that will be some proper 4D chess played by the Glazer's and Raine Group.
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Lucky that they were only facing a naive young guy, with limited experience in business and especially huge corporate deals. And one without a shit load of advisors and lawyers.

Orrrrr, Ratcliffe started from his preference (majority buy), kept Glazers onside, worked backwards but stopped at his minimum requirement and told the Glazers late December they had a couple of days or he’d walk. And the clauses/his experience says he’ll get to 51% with or without the two biggest gnomes.

One or the other
 
devilish said:
According to Sam peoples, Jassim made 4-5 bids. In each bid he never ever bothered to produce any proof of funds despite being repeatedly asked to do so. The Glazers kept stringing to that notion up until Jassim pulled out of the race on his own accord. How many months must pass and bids must be handled before raine concluded that he was not a serious buyer? Unless of course they were comfortable giving the impression that there were 2 bidders till the very end of the process
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Raine are duty bound to try and retain potential interested parties as long as realistically possible. Or face a lawsuit from the Glazers for not obtaining best interest/price/deal nature.

That stopped October. Don’t think it’d have affected Ratcliffe one bit… he’ll keep going until hits his personal/advisors limit, like every business deal he’s done (or not done)
 
blackhawk747 said:
From SEC 14D9 filling


My take:
- Why Raine kept the line of representative of SJ opened and even exchanged drafts of agreement, if you had strong doubt of their financial capability?
- I think the SJ camp did hand in documents regarding their financing commitment, but it could be *doggy* and not meeting the requirement in Raine's POV, thus "sufficient evidence of the financing and customary financing commitment papers". Both Raine and SJ camp didn't lie about the financing commitment.
- Hamas attacked Israel on October 7,2023.
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A reasonable take though I think you are overthinking it with the political angle.
A pledge from a bank, if provided, might not meet "sufficient evidence of the financing and customary financing commitment papers", if that pledge was opaque wrt how the that pledge was underwritten- where were the supporting funds coming from and from whom? Could be an issue of funders rather than funding. The Qatar group were repeatedly warned that their bids lacked proof of funding so they had plenty of opportunity to be compliant. No excuses really.
The other thing I would note, and I don't think it has been mentioned, is that Qatar's last bid was pretty desperate and incredibly dumb. Desperate, in the sense that it hardly moved the needle in terms of overall equity valuation and dumb in that It was a bid that had to be summarily rejected- the Glazers couldn't accept a bid that saw their lot improved at the expense of other shareholders. Qatar's previous rejected bid of $30 a share would be the basis of A shareholder's successful litigation against the BoD. A pointless bid that did not reflect a sophisticated approach.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Again though why would United care about how highly a prospective student would rank a specific course. We aren’t sending players or staff to study?

REF is every decade or so and they scored the Uni very highly for sports research 2 years ago. It’s not really that interesting a story but the standard caf response was brewing of ‘oh look, shit Uni, classic United’ when it’s kind of irrelevant.
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I just don't know what to do with the info that we are working with Sport Research of a university? But of course connecting your self with top institutions would look better. All good if this is a good uni.
 
arthurka said:
I just don't know what to do with the info that we are working with Sport Research of a university? But of course connecting your self with top institutions would look better. All good if this is a good uni.
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There's a PR angle of course - creating opportunities locally/giving to the community but I would assume it will be super helpful to have access to the research facilities + students/academics who will choose to do PhD's and higher education that gives us data. No idea what on but a guess would be a lot of work going into fitness, different types of training and recovery etc. rather than anything football specific .
 
tomaldinho1 said:
There's a PR angle of course - creating opportunities locally/giving to the community but I would assume it will be super helpful to have access to the research facilities + students/academics who will choose to do PhD's and higher education that gives us data. No idea what on but a guess would be a lot of work going into fitness, different types of training and recovery etc. rather than anything football specific .
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Fully agree
 
stevoc said:
Of course we all do that mate, but some people (not saying you personally) were getting carried away and buying into the Qatar will pump in billions theory based on nothing more than the Qatari groups own press release saying as much.

Was there ever any reputable source that confirmed they had the money to spunk on a football club that they said they did?
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So those that opposed the Qatar bid based on the 'fact' it was a state bid and they didn't want to become a sports washing project and have bottomless pockets are now saying we should all be glad Ratcliffe won because the Qatar bid didn't really have the money and it was obvious all along?
 
MadDogg said:
Yep. Maybe he thought that if he got far enough that Qatar would step in and help him out, with it then becoming a state-backed bid with him as the face but that never happened. Or maybe it was a small group of individuals pooling their money together with him as the face. Or maybe it was just him all along and he thought he'd be able to get the money together. Perhaps he wasn't even serious about it and just wanted to get his name out there. Maybe it started out as a state-backed bid but then Qatar decided to pull the pin leaving Jassim alone. Maybe it was a state-backed bid all along and Qatar just decided they didn't want to go any higher.

There's plenty of options that it could be. None of us know for sure which one it was. We can just judge which ones were more or less likely based on the information that we know.
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Yep. You're right.
 
Brailsford has slowly transitioned himself out of the cycling team. I think he said himself he was just an overseer at the last Tour de France and said he had been promoted to being the main performance director for the entirety of INEOS Sport.
 
NWRed said:
So those that opposed the Qatar bid based on the 'fact' it was a state bid and they didn't want to become a sports washing project and have bottomless pockets are now saying we should all be glad Ratcliffe won because the Qatar bid didn't really have the money and it was obvious all along?
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Well if they actually had the money to back the levels of investment they claimed they wanted to pump into a football club, then it would almost certainly have had to have been a state backed bid.

It now looks like they didn't have the financial muscle they claimed. So maybe it wasn't a state backed bid. Just a bunch of bluffers.

Either way we should be glad they pulled out.
 
I said the press had no idea on incoming for new roles. He wasn't even mentioned. Likely the same with Ashworth and Mitchell.
 
Ciddy said:
Absol

I’ll hazard a guess that nobody saw this coming!! Wonder what he knows about City’s dealings over the last few years.
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Imagine if City got relegated and Pep ran here too :lol: He’s really cashed out on that state though well done to him. Could be City, Doncaster Rovers or Burnley. He wouldn’t care as long as the UAE is giving him those wads of cash.
 
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