Sheikh Jassim 'favourite' to buy Man Utd

Jacque Talbot

• 15 Mar 2023 19:45 GMT
• 3 min read

Qatari Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani is now thought to be the favourite to buy Manchester United ahead of Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Both sides face their first face-to-face meeting with the club executive this week and

The Guardian report that representatives of the Qatari banker are expected to meet the hierarchy in Manchester.

Sheikh Jassim is emerging as the favourite partly to the fact he could open up business ventures to the Glazer family. This is compounded by the belief that the Glazers, controversial owners of Man Utd, have not yet warmed to Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest person, who will be at Man Utd on Friday.

READ MORE: Goodbye Glazers! - Bids in for FULL Man Utd takeover

The billionaire will travel after watching his club Nice play in the Europa Conference League on Thursday at home to Sheriff - while the Qatari camp will be getting there a day before. The Qatar side wishes to buy out the Glazers in their entirety - without taking on any debt. Ratcliffe is thought to want a’ 69% share.

As well as the two parties, there are several other groups interested in a deal - one includes Elliott Investment Management, a US fund.

The firm is not wishing to purchase the club but will instead look to finance to a buyer. Representatives of Elliott have already been at Old Trafford. They were present last Thursday for the Europa League last-16 first-leg win against Real Betis, where they had face-to-face meetings. There have been fears that should the Qatars buy the club it would raise problems for potential encounters between Man Utd and Paris Saint-Germain, who are owned by Qatar Sports Investments. Ratcliffe’s Ineos owns Nice and Lausanne, too.

UEFA’s president opens door for takeover

But UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, has said rules prohibiting sides with the same owners from playing in the same competition could be dropped.

He told Gary Neville on the Man Utd legend’s Overlap YouTube channel: “We are not thinking about Manchester United only. We’ve had five or six owners of clubs who want to buy another club. We have to see what to do. The options are that it stays like that or that we allow them to play in the same competition. I’m not sure yet.

“We have to speak about these regulations and see what to do about it. There is more and more interest in this multi-club ownership. We shouldn’t just say no to the investments for multi-club ownership, but we have to see what kind of rules we set in that case, because the rules have to be strict.”