Keegan is clearly getting info from someone directly involved. Everyone else has no clue.Is it a minority stake or a full sale? Seems no one knows what the fecks going on.
Club Sale | It’s done!
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No we are not. We are talking about a football club, who has been taken over by a state entity.
Bollox. They are doing what? Managing Man City? Don't try to change the subject. And as for the betterment of their people... Right.
The US is weird about gun laws. Nothing to do with 'Sportswashing', ....
No other Nation States except the ones to which you refer, take over football clubs in other countries as PR exercises. Or is that for the good of some people, too?
It's also clear he's been fed the information wrapped in blatant PR. There's inconsistencies in his reporting too. Last night he said only a full blown sale was on the table, now he's saying a minority stake is a possibility.
Has Keegan reported that it could be minority stake? Think that's coming from other journos.
Let me log in to my bank account to check for the 100quid first... then I will get back to you for the rest by mid-Feb.
Correct.
I used to live near there 20 or so years ago, went to the odd game now and then, first time I went I was like WTF, I knew it had a slope but that was ridiculous!
Yeah just like someone predicted earlier he is firmly doubling down on his stance
Wrote a long response but I’ve deleted it due to having little interest in getting into a back and forth about morality, xenophobia and politics on a footy forum.
As you were.
Certainly there are people whose critique of qatari royalty’s sports investments boils down to that Qatar is simply a nation they don’t like the politics of. But to refute some undigested opinions, I think you ignore the basis for critique, and indeed resistance here. The valid points are still valid, which is more important than who states them.
One thing I think you don’t discern, is that something being a recognized state does not exclude the fact that it can be a de facto dictatorship, in fact this normally is the case in the modern era. A dictatorship is somewhere where the nation is not controlled by the people living there in any meaningful sense, a dictatorship is exactly a nation were it is a betrayal of most of its inhabitants to say stuff like ‘they want’ or talk aboit the state as if it represents all the people. Most people living in Qatar are living in slavery conditions, without basic rights as citicens. I suggest it’s naive to speak as if the royalty of Qatar represents their wishes or common interest in amy meaningful way, as if it was ‘they’ who arranged the World Cup or are represented by PSG with Messi and Neymar. Even to the extent that some if them do feel like that, it points to the effectiveness of what the term sportswashing targets and proves it’s validity. Bread and circus, minus bread, as it used to be. The military dictatorship of Myanmar does not represent the people when they kill parts of it. Saying Qatar only wants the betterment of their people is clearly a suspect statement to say the least. South Africa under apartheid is a better comparison than South Africa after apartheid, and that of course is the entire difference.
Secondly, of course you can say that when the rulers of Qatar pay David Beckham millions to parade round at the beautiful parts of the stadia not mentioning workers recently killed there with a word, no one can prove it is PR. Not many will believe you, hopefully, I think it’s just as obvious as Germany staging the Olympics in 36 and Argentina WC in 78. Of course to the junta it was more about PR - outwards and inwards, than about the wish to improve the nation or do good for the people living in Argentina. Comparing the controllers of the state spending billions on parades with any entertaining act going on in a whole country (like Las Vegas) is again conflation. It’s not the same thing. One is mostly PR, the other is more of a mixture of things.
Thirdly, again, conflating the rulers of a tyranny with anyone living there is also actively misunderstanding what the discussion is about. If Trump or even Biden were to buy Man Utd, it would be hugely problematic, even depressing. Regardless of how nice people Glazer’s aren’t, it would be silly to say that they owning it is just as if Trump owned it. Saying that Glazers are as responsible for American drone bombing as Obama was, is also plain wrong, even if I prefer Obama as a person any day of the week. If Putin puts in a bid for United, it would be barred no questions asked. Also if one of his known cronies did it. If an exile russian, associate of Navalny did so, the matter would obviously be entirely different (even if it would probably be barred just the same, on principle). I would not protest it, for sure.
The only reason sportswashing has become a term (not reserved for Middle Eastern aristocracy by the way, where does that idea come from?), is not that it’s new - it’s older than the roman empire - it’s that that it has grown more systematic recent decades, and is camouflaged to a greater extent under globalization of capitalism. It’s important to reveal and out it, that’s the only way to counter it’s effects. Rather than absolve the Emir of Qatar for this kind of cynical misuse of a public spectacle, you should rather point out if Sunak does something similar as Head of State.
We’ve gone from a massive 8b takeover to feck all in the space of 24 hours. Shite
As many of you no doubt know, since MUFC is a public company, the club cannot be sold at all, since any sale would occur while the NYSE exists
Is it a minority stake or a full sale? Seems no one knows what the fecks going on.
Confusing. But essentially, all these sources are saying in one way or another, Qataris are interested in Man Utd. The problem seems to be, working out how to dilute and structure things in a way so that state involvement appears to be as minimal as possible. In my view, the main takeaway from everything being reported is simply this though: Qatar, it's Qatar that want to buy us.
Is it a minority stake or a full sale? Seems no one knows what the fecks going on.
Of course, nobody knows what's going on. Everyone's just getting fag ends at this point.
Even the Raine Group won't know anything till all the bids are in after the closing date -- and then they can go over them.
Matt Slater from The Athletic was a podcast a while back and said one of the takeaways from the recent Chelsea deal, is that investors tend to think it was very overvalued.
United is still going to go for insane amount of money but I do wonder if the Glazers are asking for too much the club.
This reads like a PR to me to distance themselves from owning two clubs at once. QSI definitely do not want to raise concern that they'll own basically two European clubs, so they're trying to alleviate the fears. It seems to me that the most likely scenario is some royal Qatari or a 'private' investor group, not affiliated with QSI, but still under the direct supervision of the Qatar state, buying the club. That way QSI can say they have nothing to do with it, but I think we all know that would be a lie.
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Once the bids are in, I am sure they will re-adjust their expectations.
So your going to be to Paris what RB Salzburg is to RB Leipzig + sportswashing?
It’s all speculation. Like I said yesterday, Jamie Jackson talking about the value of Qatars opening bit - pure guesswork. We won’t know until something legitimately happens. Until then it’s just noise.
Wouldn’t the most logical thing for the Qatar’s to do to avoid owning 2 clubs be adding another billionaire to the ticket, someone like Jim Ratcliffe.
Two big egos of people who run their respective large organisations? I doubt it would work though. They have Becks there to be the face already.
From The Times journos, Ziegler and Lawton.
"A fund linked to the Qatari royal family has expressed an interest in buying Manchester United, with a bid now under consideration before next week’s deadline for interested parties."
"The Qataris have already joined other groups from around the world in contacting Raine to gain access to the documents from which they can do their due diligence before deciding whether to join the race to purchase a club with a claimed global following of more than a billion people. It is believed that direct conversations with the Old Trafford hierarchy have taken place."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/manchester-united-interest-from-qatari-fund-confirmed-lz8xh2plf
They also report that there could be bids from Singapore and China in addition to American and Middle Eastern bids.
"A fund linked to the Qatari royal family has expressed an interest in buying Manchester United, with a bid now under consideration before next week’s deadline for interested parties."
"The Qataris have already joined other groups from around the world in contacting Raine to gain access to the documents from which they can do their due diligence before deciding whether to join the race to purchase a club with a claimed global following of more than a billion people. It is believed that direct conversations with the Old Trafford hierarchy have taken place."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/manchester-united-interest-from-qatari-fund-confirmed-lz8xh2plf
They also report that there could be bids from Singapore and China in addition to American and Middle Eastern bids.
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The problem with becks is he doesn’t have the money to solve the owning majority shares in 2 clubs problem, whereas Jim would, also these billionaires are involved in companies with other billionaires, they know how to put there egos aside.
This isn’t needed as proved by the Red Bull model. Owners can be the same if they have different directors running each entity.
What do you mean? Of course it can be sold.
I really hope United won't become another oil state club like City or Newcastle.
If it really happen, I'm wondering what all the fans here, who constantly emphasis (rightfully) the success and titles of City are worth nothing and don't count, will come up with that in United's case it's different.
If it really happen, I'm wondering what all the fans here, who constantly emphasis (rightfully) the success and titles of City are worth nothing and don't count, will come up with that in United's case it's different.
The PL is getting very hard to compete without huge investment and with Chelsea spending more than ever, Newcastle about to pop off and a possible new owner at Liverpool it’s only getting worse.
IF it happens I will just get on with it,yes for the purists local boy Ratcliffe is the preferred choice but long as it's not Glazers or similar US owners I'm fine with it
Undoubtedly. However, is the right move to become another soulless oil state club?
Will the huge part of your fan base, which criticized, belittled and ridiculed the achievements of the sugar daddy and oil state clubs for decades, just shut their mouth and celebrate future success and trophies under the banner of Qatar or another state?
Or will a significant of your fanbase become disillusioned and turn their back on United, if this happens.
For me as lifelong Bayern Munich supporter, if an foreign state takes over the club, I just would be done with football. Bad enough these plastics clubs with unlimited funds are around, but once the club I love and support would become another toy of some Middle Eastern autocracy I would a call it a day.
No way I could support a club which became exactly that what I have detested for years.
Our future success, if we indeed are successful, won't be as a result of being pumped with oil money. Remove our debt and Glazer dividends and we've more than enough to compete with any club, within the boundaries of FFP. That's something the club is entitled to enjoy as a result of many decades of hard work and success, enabling us to grow commercially. We'll not become super rich and successful overnight, we're already super rich and have a history of success.
City bypassed decades of hard work and instead chose to go down a route that has led to them being investigated for over 100 breaches of the rules. No matter who owns us we are not comparable to City, and we'll not be deserving of the contempt they've received.
I would say to that, that if any new owners invest the money that the glazers should have in the stadium and training facilities that are crumbling and let United run itself economically on the football side then that is the ideal. It’s how far from that ideal the we move that would dictate my opinion of any validity of success.
If the owners pump in billions to buying every superstar under the sun, create fake revenue streams to falsely justify the spending and pay players and managers off the books, effectively cheating the league....then my view on any success would be very tainted and the wins would be meh. Anything even slightly down this path would taint everything beyond.
I’d probably enjoy the football, and I’d enjoy another CL win as I’ve not seen us win that enough, I’d probably try to justify it with talk of Real Madrid and state funding but it would be what it would be.
In short I’d rather the infrastructure of the club was developed and the football side ran itself with its own revenue.
I don’t think either of these are black and white. But if we did exactly or even along the lines of.....then other than the football on the pitch anything else would be hollow.
Quite unlikely to have bids coming from Singapore and China.
For Singapore, there aren’t any billionaires here rich and daring enough to spend such a significant portion of his own net worth to buy United. Yes Peter Lim is a Singaporean and he has links to the Class of 92 and all, but he can’t afford us.
Singapore’s 2 sovereign wealth funds would absolutely not have any interest to invest in United.
As for China, tight capital control means that nobody can move such a huge amount of money out of the country to complete the deal.
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Without repeating what other posters have already written, let me just put it like that: when a gay woman in Qatar is able to run for office, I'll be the first to welcome a Qatari bid to own Manchester United.
When a gay footballer feels like this country is forward enough to come out and not get abused back into the closet, I'll feel I can judge another countries morals and ethics
why can't you judge both countries morals and ethics?
We don't need to cheat and fake sponsorships, we currently can't even spend our own money due to the parasites upstairs. The fans have no say in the next owners
Times in on it now
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