Eleven years ago on Wall Street, Joel Glazer rang the bell when Manchester United were listed on the Stock Exchange. It is for Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani whom the bell has tolled.
Speaking to a financier a few minutes walk away from the bronze Charging Bull in Manhattan in July, they confided that the Raine Group, overseeing the possible sale of United, felt they had been tasked with selling something unsellable.
The ‘United, United, not for sale’ chant has been adopted by the Glazers.
For some time now, it has seemed inevitable United would not be outright sold. A high-ranking official at the club reminded us on the pre-season tour in Las Vegas that the statement announcing the strategic review last November did not explicitly state the final outcome would be a sale.
Plenty of staff have kept their powder dry. Collette Roche, the chief operating officer, looked rather sheepish when she was unwittingly captured in photographs with Sir Jim Ratcliffe while a colleague cooed about what a “brilliant person” Joel Glazer is.
This newspaper wrote as far back as February – before the first deadline for offers – that Joel and Avram Glazer were reluctant sellers. That stance has hardened.
Sheikh Jassim’s pitch ticked every box for several United supporters, with “plans to return the club to its former glories both on and off the pitch, and – above all – will seek to place the fans at the heart of Manchester United Football Club once more.”
It promised to make United debt-free, invest in the men’s and women’s teams, the training complex, Old Trafford and fan experience and communities. It was a more bullish press release than Ratcliffe’s.
The prospect of state ownership was still anathema to many other supporters. A ‘No to Qatar’ banner appeared in the away end at Brighton and West Ham in May.
The geopolitics of a potential Qatari takeover would have taken another turn amid the conflict in the Middle East. Leaders of the barbaric Hamas group reside in Qatar and the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has been urged to sanction the Gulf state that hosted last year’s World Cup.
It would be remiss to overlook the fact the Glazers are Jewish. Hamad bin Jassim, the father of Sheikh Jassim and former prime minister of Qatar, has been accused of antisemitism by the Middle East Media Research Institute. In an interview with Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, Hamad bin Jassim said, “Imagine oil [was sold] by some Jews…what would be the price of a barrel of oil? It would be the most expensive thing in the world. It would be more precious than anything, like medicine.”
The ownership of a football club pales into insignificance as news bulletins continue to be dominated by the horrors in the Gaza Strip. United-supporting Jews who reside in the UK feel unsafe in the wake of the abominable massacres of Israelis nine days ago, while there have been large turnouts in cities across the country in support of Palestine.
It is possible to abhor the atrocities committed by Hamas and aspects of Israel’s retaliation that have not had ample regard for civilians in Palestine, where half the population are children aged 18 and under.
Any protests from United matchgoers over Sheikh Jassim’s withdrawal from the bidding risk exacerbating existing dichotomies in the fanbase. It is worth noting Avram Glazer owns the Desert Vipers cricketing franchise that is based in Dubai and he has travelled to Saudi Arabia. Until last year, United had a long-running partnership with Saudi Telecom.
For tens of thousands whose life revolves around following United from the banks of the River Irwell to the shores of Sicily, the club’s ownership remains a fervent topic. The Glazers remain the biggest obstacle to United ending a title drought that is certain to reach 12 years.
Ratcliffe has played the politics after some early missteps. Some United fans turned against the prospect of Ratcliffe as owner after he described the Glazers as “the nicest people, I have to say, proper gentlemen” a year ago. The Ineos Group have kept their cards close to their chest though a handful of journalists granted access to Ratcliffe have obtained specific information regarding his impending investment.
When it came to meeting United officials at Old Trafford in March, Ratcliffe positioned himself front and centre in the foreground for photographers who captured the stadium looming in the background. That will be the money shot of this tedious process.
Ratcliffe’s past sporting ventures indicate he is not a bit-part player. His minority stake will come at the cost of £1.5billion and he merely resides across the English Channel rather than the Atlantic. Presence is key for a club with absentee landlords.
The Glazers are the producers and Ratcliffe is a star director poised to have ample creative control. Ratcliffe is staking more than just his financial resources on the future of United. Should the club fail to arrest their current malaise with his investment and input, Ratcliffe’s card will be marked by supporters as he strives for the end goal of majority ownership.
Heralding change has worked at the Ineos-owned Nice, currently second in Ligue 1 and above Paris Saint-Germain. Nice hired Fabrice Bocquet as chief executive in September 2022 before Florent Ghisolfi arrived from Lens as sporting director in October.
Richard Arnold warmly greeted Ratcliffe outside Old Trafford and he has cultivated a more autonomous culture at United than his predecessor, Ed Woodward. But mud has stuck from the handling of Mason Greenwood’s abandoned reintegration and Arnold is a Glazer acolyte.
Ratcliffe described United’s recruitment as “the dumb money” in 2019, though John Murtough assumed the football director post in March 2021. United’s hit-rate under Erik ten Hag has plummeted since the start of the current season.
Sir Dave Brailsford, the director of sport at Ineos, flanked Ratcliffe at Old Trafford seven months ago and would purportedly oversee changes. That is not entirely reassuring for United followers. Brailsford’s forte is cycling and the Ineos Grenadiers, née Team Sky, are a spent force
David Walsh, once commissioned to write a book on Team Sky’s dominance of the Tour de France when Brailsford was the team principal, wrote in The Sunday Times yesterday, “I do not care” for Brailsford and “the greater truth is that Brailsford let things slip” with the Grenadiers.
Team Sky also “crossed an ethical line” with its use of a Therapeutic Use Exemption, according to the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. In 2021, Dr Richard Freeman, the lead doctor of Team Sky and British Cycling, was struck off the medical register and received a four-year doping ban for possession of a banned substance and twice lying to UK Anti‑Doping investigators.
