Manchester United sale: World record total from Qatar

Glazers want to sell

In the race to take over the English record champions Manchester United, the two best-known interested parties submitted their final offers shortly before the end of a period. The Qatari Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani is offering at least 5 billion pounds (5.65 billion euros) and thus more than has ever been paid for a sports club, the English broadcaster reported “sky‘ on Saturday night. In addition, the head of one of Qatar’s largest banks has promised an undisclosed sum for investments in the team and in infrastructure.

The British entrepreneur Sir Jim Ratcliffe, on the other hand, only wants to take over a little more than 50 percent of the shares. The current owners, the US Glazer family, would retain a minority stake of around 20 percent and thus some influence, it said. Fan organizations strictly reject this. They have been protesting against the Glazers for years, accusing them of running the club down. Ratcliffe, boss of the chemical company “Ineos”, which sponsors a successful cycling team, also owns the OGC Nice and the FC Lausanne-Sport.

The Glazers are demanding £6bn for the club they acquired for £750m in 2005. The last offer period ended late Friday evening. The Finnish businessman Thomas Zilliacus had announced that he would not improve his offer again.

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