Club Sale | It’s done!

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Ratcliffe was caught out claiming the owners didn't want to sell at a time the owners were very much moving towards wanting to sell.

It was an incredibly short window between the "Guys I wanted to buy you, but the Glazers simply aren't interested in selling" and the Glazers putting up the 'For Sale' sign. I still find it amazing that this alone - quite apart from anything else, didn't make Ratcliffe's whole involvement a bit of a joke.

Only a few days ago there was a story outliing how senior figures doubted whether Ratcliffe's interested is at all serious. Would they have that impression if just a few short months ago, as he claimed, he approached them with a genuine (yet apparently, rebutted) enquiry to buy the club?

Months of literally nothing but convincing fans through the media he's really interested with literally nothing to back it up. His name being mentioned at all now is an embarrassing testament to our ability to believe literally any old shit if we want it to be true.

Though i see slight backtracking. Latest leak he was not willing to go above $4bn? Of course, and that'll be reason why he doesn't buy us. Not that his whole interested has been entirely fictitious from the start. His after-deadline bid for Chelsea too. Because when you get together billions in finance to make a bid is definitely plausible you accidentally overlook the deadline.

Just stop with this fecking clown already

I am not a Ratcliffe fan but

A- it's not over yet. For all we know Qatari interest might be over inflated by the Glazers to push the price up

B- Ratcliffe was the first to bid. He involved bankers and 4b is not spare change. We are not talking about Knighton here

C- 4b is a lot of money. That on top of another 2-2.5b needed to bring united on top. Unless you are some saudi/qatari tycoon then you won't find another billion that easily
 
For the record Ratcliffe told the press he had been categorically told by the Glazers that the club wasn't for sale in October. In November the club had released a statement confirming they were considering a sale.

Even giving an extremely generous benefit of the doubt there, why wouldn't the club immediately seek to open discussions on this with the only person established as a confirmed person that had interest just a few short weeks before?

Still I'll stop. I'm sure Sir Jim will confirm his "interest" again in the coming days.
If I remember correctly SJR released this comment in Oct about a meeting he held with the Glazers over summer. Therefore it was months not weeks
 
I may have missed this but why are Qatar constantly being quizzed about their ownership in terms of having 2 (big) clubs when Jim Ratcliffe would also own Nice if he bought us?

Even if Nice aren't likely to always be in the same competitions, it still is a strong chance. It's not like his other team are in the third tier of the Gibraltar football pyramid
 
I may have missed this but why are Qatar constantly being quizzed about their ownership in terms of having 2 (big) clubs when Jim Ratcliffe would also own Nice if he bought us?

Even if Nice aren't likely to always be in the same competitions, it still is a strong chance. It's not like his other team are in the third tier of the Gibraltar football pyramid
Also, it's not like there's no precedent for this with the Red Bull clubs, who faced each other in the EL in 2018, iirc. Apparently, all it took was being able to satisfactorily show UEFA that both teams are separate entities.
 
Also, it's not like there's no precedent for this with the Red Bull clubs, who faced each other in the EL in 2018, iirc. Apparently, all it took was being able to satisfactorily show UEFA that both teams are separate entities.

Yeah, it's what's confusing me. Outside of being owned by a state (officially or unofficially) this whole PSG complaint makes no sense when Nice would be the same even if a smaller club
 
That guy asks why United fans always have liked to think of their club as an exemplar, as somehow “more cherished and noble than any other”? Maybe the answer will come if we are bought by Qatar. Will the fans cheer on if we cheat the FFP rules, or request that things are done properly? The next time there are some incident with human rights, will the fans protest or let it slide?

Honestly, if it comes to Qatar buying this club, I am fairly certain that the club, we, are well equipped to handle that too. We are not Man City or PSG or Chelsea.
Judging by redcafe and twitter, sadly, I'm fairly certain that the majority of fans will ignore and forgive everything in the name of shiny new transfers and trophies.
 
That guy asks why United fans always have liked to think of their club as an exemplar, as somehow “more cherished and noble than any other”? Maybe the answer will come if we are bought by Qatar. Will the fans cheer on if we cheat the FFP rules, or request that things are done properly? The next time there are some incident with human rights, will the fans protest or let it slide?

Honestly, if it comes to Qatar buying this club, I am fairly certain that the club, we, are well equipped to handle that too. We are not Man City or PSG or Chelsea.
When will the penny drop that fans of every club contain exactly the same types of people. There's not a single fan base that is made of of morally just, model citizens, and there's no fan base made up of just dick heads. You may perceive it differently based on how you view online forums, but frankly online forums make up a tiny percent of an entire fan base and are mostly representative of the admins who set the rules.

Generalisation and stereotyping of other fan bases is bullshit, but it's just another way to point score. "Look at us, we use clean money to fund our players" "Look at us, we only spent £1.2bn in the last decade, you spent £1.4bn, ha ha" That's all this silly arguing about morals really comes down to. We want to look better than the rest. Yesterday Arsenal fans had banners alluding to their legit ownership. They failed to acknowledge one of their biggest sponsorships is funded by UAE. Lack of self awareness or stupidity? Not sure. But certainly another example of a pathetic and childish point scoring exercise that supporters of rival clubs love to indulge in

When it really comes down to it, the majority won't give a feck who we're owned by as long as we're spending bucket loads of cash in the summer
 
That last one sent cold chills down my spine. Please, no. No more. Nightmare scenario.
Fans are happy to take Qatar money but will tar the same brush for every American. While also at the same time get jealous of Chelsea's spending. Please make it make sense!!
 
That guy asks why United fans always have liked to think of their club as an exemplar, as somehow “more cherished and noble than any other”? Maybe the answer will come if we are bought by Qatar. Will the fans cheer on if we cheat the FFP rules, or request that things are done properly? The next time there are some incident with human rights, will the fans protest or let it slide?

Honestly, if it comes to Qatar buying this club, I am fairly certain that the club, we, are well equipped to handle that too. We are not Man City or PSG or Chelsea.

United was once the gold standard of well run clubs in a league on the rise. Clubs all across the world would try and copy us as we were both successful and profitable

It was the British government and the Uefa who ruined everything by allowing these bloodsucking to own the club and for nobodies to be both by states and oligarchs. Why do you blame fans who has no say about this whatsoever?
 
United was a well run club in a league on the rise. It was the British government and the Uefa who ruined everything by allowing these bloodsucking to own the club and for nobodies to be both by states and oligarchs. Why do you blame fans who has no say about this whatsoever?
Sky wanted to take us over, promised us the worlds best players and we took to the streets to protest. We have protested the Glazers every step of the way even under SAF and the success he brought.
It’s widely unfair to somehow think we haven’t been in this position before or even suggest we’ll sit back with wide grins simply because we won a league title
 
Why would UEFA just be questioning the Qatari's and not Jim Ratcliffe for his involvement in Nice too? I don't get why that's hardly ever mentioned by the papers etc.
If Nice won their cup final last year we’d be in the same competition right now
 
Sky wanted to take us over, promised us the worlds best players and we took to the streets to protest. We have protested the Glazers every step of the way even under SAF and the success he brought.
It’s widely unfair to somehow think we haven’t been in this position before or even suggest we’ll sit back with wide grins simply because we won a league title

We fought against a bid (sky) who had the potential to turn us into the Bayern Munich of the EPL. What was the thanks to that? Richer people came in. They bought nobody clubs who were then permitted to cheat their way to success. Meanwhile we were laughed at by fans of these nobody clubs due to us being crippled by the Glazers huge debt

So I say feck that. If everyone is cheating and cheating is allowed than no one is cheating. Actually those who do not cheat are the suckers for not doing it
 
That last one sent cold chills down my spine. Please, no. No more. Nightmare scenario.
Tbh I’m surprised it not really been mentioned before. In the same away the gulf dictatorship want to clubs as political tools, the Americans could also want to do something similar and keep PL clubs in house.


techno feudalism coming to a city near you, soon!
 
Fans are happy to take Qatar money but will tar the same brush for every American. While also at the same time get jealous of Chelsea's spending. Please make it make sense!!

Of course I will tar them with the same brush - because they are incompetent. Boehly is spending so much because it was part of the deal to invest another 1,75 billion or whatever. Be interesting to see how much he invests after that condition is met. To say nothing of his decisions or how exactly the transfers are done (sacking Tuchel, 8 year contracts, have they even appointed a DoF yet?). He is running that club pretty much how I would expect from a clueless person.

I seem to remember the guy who was running the show for FSG when they bought Liverpool admitted he knew absolutely nothing about football, so he had to read books and stuff, kudos to him for at least educating himself, but those first years were terrible for them. They struck gold when they hired Klopp to run the club for them, but I wouldn't credit them with that decision anymore than I would credit the parasites for hiring Ten Hag. And before anyone says Liverpool won this and that under FSG, yeah, we also won the Champions League and the Premier League under the Glazers. It was in spite of them not because of them. They've repeatedly underinvested in that squad which seems to be coming to a head this season. They also seem to insist that further expansion of their stadium can't go ahead without raising prices of tickets, because they can't be arsed to invest any of their own money.

I'll pass on any American ownership, thanks. I will even take Ratcliffe before them.

EDIT: I also love it when some people point to fecking Arsenal as an example of good American ownership after this one strong season after being completely irrelevant for more than a decade. :lol:
 
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We've been burnt by the Glazers so much it's only natural people don't want another Yankie owner. Not sure why people even need to explain that.
 
If Saudis get involved then surely it's an auction between them and Qatar?
A lot of the information we have currently seems to suggest no one is willingly to match the 6 billion number the glazers want(I think most value the club at around 4 - 5 billion).

So at the moment it seems even the gulf states have limits on how much they are willingly to spend to get the club.
 
I'm scared the Glazers might decide they won't sell the full club if their inflated asking price isn't even met by the Gulf states.
 
Don't get why the American bidders are keeping so quiet, at some point they're going to have to show themselves if they're going to take it forward.

Massive negative fan reaction now, or massive negative fan reaction in 2-3 weeks time, it's all the same.
 
Don't get why the American bidders are keeping so quiet, at some point they're going to have to show themselves if they're going to take it forward.

Massive negative fan reaction now, or massive negative fan reaction in 2-3 weeks time, it's all the same.

It's easier to spook minor shareholders before the company enters in an unpopular acquisition rather then after
 
Don't get why the American bidders are keeping so quiet,

That's what everyone who is serous about bidding does though. It's how bidding usually always works. There's so much that leaking or making public statements can do to threaten the price you have to pay or even scupper the bid entirely.

Putting together bids by themselves are expensive. You don't just write a figure on a piece of paper. There's huge expense and manpower involved in consultation fees, charges, costs incurred through negotiating financial backers and getting their sign-off and guarantee to underwrite whatever bid you're proposing..

If you're noticing Sir Jim miraculously not seemingly burdened by any of that, then it makes two of us.
 
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