Man Utd takeover latest: Sheikh Jassim calls Glazers' bluff

Stuart Telford

• 8 Oct 2023 08:56 BST
• 3 min read

Sheikh Jassim will not increase his bid for Manchester United from £5 billion, with the latest minority offer from Sir Jim Ratcliffe described as a 'pressure tactic'.

The Glazer family started inviting bids ownership of Man Utd last November, and two men became frontrunners: Qatari Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and Ratcliffe, the INEOS boss who was formerly the UK's richest man.

Both had tabled offers of at least £5bn for 100 per cent ownership of the club, but with the Glazers dragging their feet, it has been reported recently that Ratcliffe has made a revised offer of £1.5bn for a 25 per cent stake, which would keep the Americans in majority control.

READ: Man Utd takeover: Ratcliffe weighs up shocking new bid

It would also value the Red Devils at £6bn, which is a fee Jassim is unwilling to pay.

Ratcliffe's bid 'a pressure tactic'

"The Qatari group bidding for Manchester United will not increase their existing offer of £5 billion despite the threat posed by a new deal being tabled by Sir Jim Ratcliffe," report Matt Lawton and Matt Dickinson for The Times.

"However, sources close to the Qatari group being led by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani say that the news of Ratcliffe's restructured bid - he had initially offered to buy the 67 per cent stake belonging to the Glazer family - amounts to another pressure tactic…"

READ: Man Utd takeover latest: Sheikh Jassim to axe FOUR players

NFL franchise the Washington Commanders were bought by the Harris-Blitzer Sports Entertainment group for a world record $6.05 billion (£4.94bn) in June, so the £5bn bids for United would already have surpassed that.

Despite the controversy that has followed the Glazers since family patriarch Malcolm's debt-leveraged takeover in 2005, they have continued to invest in the playing squad.

Rasmus Hojlund, Mason Mount, Andre Onana, Sofyan Amrabat and Altay Bayindir were all brought to the club this summer for a combined outlay of £180 million.