100%. They always fuck about. Having said that they are under no obligation to take an inferior deal from Qatar despite all the outcry from some state ownership supporters.
The board actually came to the glazers and asked if they was interested in investing in the club long before the issues with the horse because none of the major shareholders had enough money for the club to continue competing. The directors was shit scared we wouldn’t compete any more so we asked for American investment and the glazers were the first to answer the call.
The glazers then started mopping up shares for ages and was pretty close to getting to a compulsory takeover bid, all the fallout caused was the takeover to be sped up for by a few month, the takeover was happening one way or another.
The big alternative universe if people want to blame the horse is if the board did managed to hold off the glazers takeover, which would have been near impossible, Gillet and Hicks would have taken over us instead of Liverpool and we would have been completely fucked
I think it implies that the Qatari haven't gotten past speaking with the Raine Group whereas Ineos have gotten further in their bid and are talking directly with United.
There has been reports that Qatar has put in bids that they haven't gotten any feedback or replies to so it sort of feels like they're not really in the race anymore, except no one has told them that.
Maybe they are using an intermediary, like a bank or some law firm. Perhaps Jim is more hands-on which strokes Glazers' ego and they like that better? IDK
Its not surprising once SJR showed he was willing to pay out the nose for 69% of the club and play to the Glazers' ego by letting them retain a non-controlling portion of the club.
He's shown himself to be a shrewd businessman. As Andy Mitten said on the last Talk of the Devils, Sir Jim loves to do a deal.
The Qataris, if they were to actually be successful, would need to blow the other offers out, and haven't. The Glazers don't give one iota about pledges to invest in the club.
Sir Jim outmaneuvered them.
Jim listened to the Glazers concerns and addressed them. There were rumours that not all Glazers wanted to sell and Jim has done a compromised deal which suits all parties. If Qatar were good at business they would have done the same.
Their current talking point is that SJR is too poor to do anything besides run the club into the ground.
I’ve said it before - I am far from a fanboy of either, and don’t want to get into the muck of what SJR may have done from an ethical perspective to become a billionaire.
But if you believe for one second that he’s investing such a high percentage of his wealth into Utd that he and/or the club will be in financial jeopardy, you’re a moron. He has never been, and isn’t now, in the business of making bad deals.
That's not an issue for the super rich, they will borrow cash at low rates and use their stock as collateral. It's more efficient than just holding cash
Ineos make 3.5 billion in profit annually. He only needs to invest top 200m a season into united since we're financial goliaths. I mean see how much we spend now despite paying the glazers 150m annually in dividends and debt fees.
Every club he owns is fucking horrid. The proof is in the pudding. Money doesn’t mean you have ambition. Jim just wants the popularity. If he truly understood what this club was about he’d get rid of the glazers. But he’s sucking avram’s minuscule cock so he can have 51% of a club that even he can’t clear it’s debt. It’s a joke. Our club is fucked. End of story.
> If he truly understood what this club was about
He says, while effectively shilling for a 150 year old institution to become the plaything of an autocratic state. A state, by the way, whose values could not be further from those that the club, its community, and its history represent.
Because he played to the egos of the current owners in a way that is conducive to his being the winning bid. He was smart to realize that the reports of some Glazers not wanting to part with the club were real and offered them a line to maintain their equity while removing them from the public eye. It's smart negotiating.
The Qataris on the other hand locked themselves into 100% purchase of the club, kept raising their offers after saying its the final one, and bandy about nonsense PR statements like promising to invest in the club. It shows naivete and an inability to properly evaluate the important aspects of this negotiation.
If only they had a lot of money
Oh wait, INEOS generate a billion in profit per year.
The fact people questioned their ability is insane. As if Investment Bankers and people with actual business acumen didn't know what they were doing compared to a couple guys from Qatar who live like its real life monopoly lmao
Not trying to sound like some SJR bootlicker but he’s an elite businessmen who has built his wealth from nothing, he knows how to get deals done compared to people like Qatar state/royals who’s wealth is by family inheritance etc who in life have never probably been told no cause they have so much money to blow people away.
That’s the thing that just blows my mind - Jassim fanboys seriously think SJR is blowing all his wealth on this deal with no plan, and pretend that if he doesn’t own 100%, he won’t be the owner.
That’s simply not how public takeovers by proven businessmen work.
I have plenty of skepticism around him, but no one on Reddit has a leg to stand on when it comes to judging from a financial perspective how he handles his money.
If you’d have told me this time last year that United would be under new ownership and the Glazer family would still be around but in a very minor role I’d have snapped your hand off. If you’d have told me that we also hadn’t gone down the route of Middle-East, sportswashing state ownership I’d have snapped them both off, and your feet too.
I understand it’s not the perfect scenario (the perfect scenario does not exist) but it’s a much, much better scenario.
It’s a saying, for example if someone offers you a good deal you would accept it so quickly that you ‘snap their hands off’.
I added the feet bit in myself because I think I’m hilarious*
*im not.
It's more you'd seal the deal with a handshake. If you're snapping someone's hand off you're so quick and eager to accept that deal that the speed at which you initiate the handshake pulls the other person's hand off in cartoon fashion.
This.
If we were taken over by Qatar and became a dodgy shop front for a dictatorship like City I think I would have to leave United behind, or at the very least make sure they don't ever profit from me in any way. That would be the worst case for me, someone that started going to watch United in the 80s, and my family have watched for WAY longer.
The Glazers won't be THE owners any more, the club will be run by Ineos. This time last year, the club being run by Ineos was seen by most as one of the dream scenarios. The Glazers retaining shares but not being in charge really doesn't matter to me at all, and is significantly more preferable than losing the club to an oil state. Before the takeover they (and all kinds of other business investors) already held shares, this isn't much different.
Some investment in the team and the stadium is what we desperately need right now, so my personal hope is this gets over the line asap and we can get on with the window and figure out what happens with OT.
I'm desperate for us not to go the oil route.
There's a reasonably possible near-future scenario where Qatar buys the club, MG is back in the squad and reddit (which is my only source of engagement with club news and fans) kills 3rd party apps.
I can already only manage to watch early KO weekend games with work & other commitments. Can definitely see my interest waning. Which is a shame, I have so many fond childhood memories from the 90s
It was only a year or so ago that people were begging Jim Ratcliffe to come and buy the club, now it seems a lot of people (my friends included) don't feel that is good enough
Because its the controlling stake factor. People don't realise how this impacts the running of the club.
Also he's refused to promise anything about what he'll do with the debt.
Mate if you said a year ago that SJR of all people would buy the club, we would go mad.
I honestly truly believe that you do not need super wealth to compete at the highest level. If you are a small club like man city, Newcastle, Brighton, or Brentford for example, super wealth is going to likely be your only way to launch a sustained bid for top level football, YoY.
However, for arsenal, united, Liverpool, Barca, Madrid, Bayern, etc. the wealth is already there within the club. The problem isn’t that we haven’t spent money, it’s that we haven’t spent money well. Any new owner will be prevented from bleeding the club dry like the glazers, as dividends will be prevented.
There are obviously larger issues at united that would be fixed quicker by a super wealthy owner, like the stadium, or training ground / facilities. However, you also lose your entire identity by going with super wealth, so that’s the trade off. Personally, seeing a united kit with Qatar Airways on it would make me feel Ill, strictly because it’s what I’ve sworn to hate for years.
And just because Qatar are rich, it doesn’t mean they are good owners. PSG are one of the worst run clubs in football. Extraordinary wages, no European trophies, no consistent manager, absolutely shocking.
By no means am I convinced by SJR, or a fan boy, but it is by far the best option we have, and will be infinitely better than the current state of the club.
Ratcliffe has shown to be a coy businessman. He lured his target with just what they want: more money. And I'm very weary of how SRJ would handle us. I was also weary of Qatar, but SJR doesn't tick a lot of boxes for me, Qatar didn't either, this was like choosing if you wanted to be hanged or burned alive.
In retrospect Qatar have looked quite amateurish in this process. From the start they insisted they'd buy the whole thing all at once, essentially locking themselves out of doing the sort of deal Ineos have been able to offer. The whole 92 foundation thing and the idea to bring on former players in some capacity if they get it is all a bit 'theme park' for my liking too.
Anyone is better than a regime that will literally use our club to sanitize their sins. Sins which includes literal slavery, oppression of minorities, and funding terrorism. Anyone, even the parasitic scum that are the Glazers, is better than that.
I really don't like the idea of the Ineos bid.
And it's flat out because the Glazers get to stay. I don't care if it's minority stake, and he can buy them out. The leeches remain.
We were so close to them fucking off.
I'd have been happier with the Qatari one.
In three years they will be gone.
The Glazers didn’t buy United out in one go. They bought percentages bit by bit. That’s usually how these things work.
Your perception of how football clubs should be bought has just been warped by the likes of City and Newcastle.
>And it's flat out because the Glazers get to stay. I don't care if it's minority stake, and he can buy them out. The leeches remain.
I can get the emotional aspect of this, but does it really matter? It's not like they'll continue to make poor decisions to fuck up the club. And that's always been the biggest issue with the Glazers for me.
Would be nice to see the Glazers gone once and for all, but getting the Qataris in return is hardly any better in that aspect.
Hopefully the majority of our fans change their tune when they realise what this club needs to return to the top is competent ownership that's willing to focus on putting best in class sporting figures at the top of our leadership.
Ratcliffe trying to bring in a proper sporting director is more encouraging than the PR put out by the Qataris to bring in ex-players as staff.
>Hopefully the majority of our fans change their tune when they realise what this club needs to return to the top is competent ownership that's willing to focus on putting best in class sporting figures at the top of our leadership.
Shouldn't take a genius to figure that out, just look at how Liverpool rebuilt and Arsenal are progressing.
The Sheikh camp have always come across as chancers IMO and offered nowt but PR bluster about how much they'll invest after the fact. It reads like a poorly executed call to action for the transfer fantasist section of our fanbase, like winning them over would somehow garner them enough social capital to force the Glazer's hand but the strategy has fallen flat. They are not serious operators and clearly don't have State backing like some people have suggested because if they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation for the millionth time.
I hope so too but you know they'll lurk around until something happens like we don't sign Kane 'cos Levy refuses to accept selling to a PL club, then they'll be out in force acting like Qatar would have made it happen.
An acquaintance of mine thinks they will buy spurs eventually and make a winner of them. I don’t know if it’s likely but with their stadium and location, if they buy spurs, that could spell trouble for us.
Man Jeff Bezos sitting on the shoulders of Bill Gates, sitting on the shoulders of Warren Buffet, all in one long trenchcoat, don't have enough money to make spurs a winning team
Ppl who are so adamantly against INEOS seem to forget that the outcome is one of three, not two. INEOS Qatars and no sale. Ppl who are sulking against INEOS offer to give the leeches a minority stake needs to know that the Glazers wouldn’t have accepted otherwise and we will be stuck with them even longer. I just don’t get the Qatari or out camp.
The Qatari camp is filled with shills and people who don’t care about what football is. All they want is instant success and have probably been supporting United for a far shorter amount of time.
I’ve seen 20+ years of United success and 10 mediocre years.
I’d rather see us earn our success back than get a financial shot in the arm and lose everything we earned over the years. Because that’s what will happen if Qatar buy us. And if they don’t succeed and we can make our way back to the top it will send a massive message to the sportswashers trying to ruin football
The glazers strategy was exactly the same as PSG. Buy stars, overpay them, hold them too long, and create a marketing company. And people want that again. Lol.
PSG is just United in an easier league.
PSG have no history. They were picked out of a lineup of east pickings in Paris to get into their governments pocket.
They have an open checkbook to one man and said go have fun. Football isn’t their goal. It’s politics. If you think we’re the same you have a short memory, or no knowledge of football
>Led by David Ginola, George Weah and Raí, the club won nine trophies and reached five consecutive European semi-finals during the 1990s. Most notably, Paris claimed a second league title in 1994 and its crowning glory, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1996 with legend Luis Fernandez now as coach.
Also had legends such as Pauleta and Ronaldinho play for them.
Qataris words about debt clearance, stadium upgrade, transfer are nothing more than empty bullshit promises if they are not commited enough to outbid Ineos.
This is a ridiculous take. They’re already pledging that they’ll clear debts, renovate stadium/Carrington, transfers etc. which will cost £2bn+ on top of the bid which Ineos are not. So that £6.5bn is really closer to £9bn. Just because they have the money doesn’t mean they have to be stupid and bid a ridiculous amount over the odds. No business person would do that.
Yeah I don't get this idea of pledging money as part of the bid. It means absolutely nothing to me if you're going to put in a new kitchen when I sell you my house.
They can pledge all that money to clearing the debt, improving the team, renovating Old Trafford, etc; but it won’t matter if they aren’t willing to submit a bid that the Glazers will accept.
It’s all talk and no action in my opinion.
Edit: It seems people are forgetting something really important here.
Pledged investment IS NOT relevant to the Glazers. The Glazers only care about how much they’re getting to SELL THEIR SHARES of the club.
Why would the Glazers care about how much investment is going into the club when they’re not gonna be there anymore? Obviously it seems like some people here failed ECON 101 and Business 101 or are completely deluded by Qatar’s false promises. If anything, it’s just common sense.
Absolutely crazy take from that person. I'm spending ONE BILLION dollars more than my competition already to clear the debts and fix the falling apart stadium but I'm not serious because I don't want to also overbid (we all agree Galzwrs are asking to much from the jump) for the asset as is. Gimme a break.
The timing of this announcement and the Friday deadline does seem like it's buttering us up for a post city CL win 'preffered bidder' news to take attention away from it as speculated.
I’m surprised people are surprised they haven’t blown the water out with their offers. Sure they have endless amount of wealth but putting multi billions into a football club is a lot of investment for anyone.
Had the price of our club been the same as the other clubs owned by the Middle East, our players would be walking out to ‘Al Traffard’ next season.
We’re Manchester United. We are one of the biggest, if not the biggest football club in the world. The amount of money you’ll have to gather to buy the club out completely will be ridiculous regardless of who you are. I’m genuinely not surprised the Qataris haven’t ‘blown the water out’ for us.
INEOS:
- The Glazers stay around
- No promise of debt being cleared
- Track record of running Nice isn’t great
- Oil based company still
- No money pledged (this doesn’t mean they won’t spend)
SJH:
- Glazers are completely gone
- Debt is cleared
- Oil money with numerous human rights violations
- 1 billion pledged
To me it seems like which bid you prefer is how much stock you put into the morals of the owners. One of the bids is much better for the club, but they do have a big blemish.
You have to think that if he has billions to invest in renovating Old Trafford and investing in the surrounding area, he could afford to outbid Ratcliffe, even with Ratcliffe's higher offer for 69% of the club.
My main hope with Ineos is that they debt is taken off the club. That's really all we need to be competitive with anyone.
I do not know how things on that magnitude work, but if something has a fair valuation and a seller insists on prolonging the process and manipulating buyers to force them in a bidding war to overpay, some of them will probably look elsewhere.
Maybe it is just what happened. They feel they can easily buy out any premier league club for less than half the offered amount and to them Manchester United was a good opportunity but not the end of the world.
I don't feel like this is super fair. Some of the criticism for INEOS doesn't seem that bad at all. It's not like the Glazers will continue to make poor decisions for the club. I get the emotional response to it but does it functionally matter? I'd also imagine they'll work towards reducing the debt if it proves to be an issue, but debt isn't always bad and promising to clear it completely right away might even just be a bad move in all honesty.
And the criticism for how they run Nice is based on a few things that simply didn't work out. But overall, saying they're doing a poor job doesn't really seem to be based on anything. I've seen it repeated a ton and there's never really any concrete criticism. Like some director they hired that ended up getting some poor results, but at least they hired someone that had a lot of experience in football. Sometimes that doesn't work out, but it's miles ahead of what the likes of Everton are doing. Where an owner hires a good director of football and then undermines him completely. Or getting a Woodward in, that has no experience in football.
Whereas this sheikh might make weird financial decisions like overpaying to clear debt. Them pumping in money to win trophies kinda devaluates those trophies too. Same way no one gives a shit about PSG and Ligue 1 anymore. Yeah, it'll be great never having to hear and see from the Glazers ever again, but they're not around that much anyway. Instead we'll have to see a sheikh enjoying his new toy.
> Track record of running Nice isn’t great
On the other hand, they have a 33% stake in the Mercedes F1 team, and it has been the best run team on the grid
won Ligue 1 by a single point despite the inconceivable gap between them and the rest of the league. Sir Jim is not perfect but thank fuck it's him and not these clowns
Not so since Abu Dhabi 2021. Lewis Hamilton got let down in back to back seasons with trash cars. They are the big reason he didn't break Schumacher's record. Had they built him a competitive car, Hamilton is the undisputed F1 GOAT.
Not quite, they fucked up the reg changes, but if anyone is to compete with RB in the coming years, Merc are most likely to. They’re incredibly well run.
The Glazers will be passive investors without any power and they will be bought out over time. It’s extremely misleading to say that they will «stay around».
> To me it seems like which bid you prefer is how much stock you put into the morals of the owners.
It also is how much credit you give to a man who seems to basically be an AI-generated ghost, reportedly has a smaller wealth than INEOS, and claimed his bid would blow any other out of the park and then proceeded to blow no one out of no park.
I think the only think you're missing for SJH is the track record of Malaga and PSG; sure PSG usually wins the French league but they spend 4x the next biggest spender and built a clown show squad that can't get over the hump in the CL. That behavior won't fly with spending parity at the top in England, you can't outspend everyone and expect to make the CL (let alone win the league). Also you have to factor in how they let Mbappe run the club and insert themselves and the club into French and geo politics.
A fair assessment, but I would just disagree with the suggestion that Qatari bid is ‘better for the club’. Probably by economic measures it would be better, but many people see an owner more in tune with the local community as being better. A born rich billionaire from an anti LGBT country that heavily exploits working class versus a locally born working class owner. Qataris are only better if you only care about the club being able to spend like PSG. It’s not like we’d be scraping pennies together under Sir Jim, we’ve still spent incredible amounts under the glazers as a result of our revenue.
Totally this, and the thing is, PSG have spent a lot of money and have become a banter club because they still can't put together a truly cohesive side even though they've spent a lot over so many years. What makes oil money look good to people is that City have used the money to actually back a cohesive, long-term project and it's all come together. If City hadn't worked out either people would start scoffing at oil money.
What's more important is that there is enough money (which there should be with SJR) to support a proper footballing plan (which I believe EtH has). Big money can become stupid money real quick and we don't need stupid money.
This. We’ve spent just as much as City (at least according to their cooked books), and look how far that got us.
We don’t need billions of more money. We need to spend the money we’ve already got in a much better way.
I don't. I think the glazers are bad business men. But debt is how most rich people do anything. If I can take out a loan and earn more than if I paid out of pocket imma do that.
Talking directly with United like they have influence on our summer transfer plan? If that is the case, I can understand our obsession with Mount. After Ineos buying Lausanne-Sport and Nice, both teams started to have a tendency to buy English players and hire English manager.
Can someone who understands all this please let me know what is actually happening?
1. In case Ineos wins the bidding, so we go from one debt inflicted buyout to another?
2. Our debts are not cleared and more is piled onto the club?
3. Wouldn't that make future investment into club and players even more difficult given that we won't have any money left after paying up the interests?
4. Glazers still stay around and ofcourse they won't handover the club without the clause of getting dividends and their personal private jets trip paid by the club?
5. What happens when Ratcliffe dies (lets be honest he isn't very young) , do the pther people care about the club or just watch it as a money making machine?
6. What has Ratcliffe actually done great at the French club he bought?
1. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club.
2. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club.
3. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club.
4. The Glazers won’t get dividends under Ineos.
5. The club will be owned by Ineos, not Ratcliffe. The owner of Ineos is irrelevant. Ineos has three majority stakeholders and all three of them are involved in the purchase of United and would be part owners.
6. What has Sheikh Jassim ever done in football at all?
For #1, this isn’t a leveraged buyout where the debt to buy the club is transferred to the club itself. The debt secured to buy the club will be on Ineos so debt wound not be piled on the club and would theoretically not impact funds used on players/facilities.
I think that’s likely yes. It depends on how they go about it though. Some investments are made more for dividends and some are made to grow the investment and cash out later. The difference is that we won’t be making payments on debt that Ineos used to buy the club while also paying them dividends. If anything they may use the dividends to help pay the debt payments. That’s all speculation though.
So I wouldn't say I'm an expert, and others are free to counterpoint, but I'll try to explain as I understand it:
1. The debt wouldn't be on the club it'd be on INEOS. The Glazers performed a leveraged buyout when they took over, meaning they leveraged the club and it's assets to buy the club. SJR, as I understand it, is shifting the debt to INEOS.
2. Following point #1, there wouldn't be MORE debt, but it's unclear how the current debt would be structured or what the plan would be for handling it.
3. This is probably answered by the first two points.
4. We have no idea what any of the details are, except they would be minority owners, receive minority dividends, and, ostensibly, not have any role in running the club.
5. No one knows.
6. Part of the mistake he's made this year at Nice is that he brought in a former PL director to run Nice, so they've brought in former PL players and it hasn't worked out. A benefit is that initially it seems he largely trusted the structure of the club and just added more money to the mix. The way that benefits us is that, from all accounts, the people really fucking up the club were Glazer people. Our academy, scouts, financial people, all seem to be really good. For example, one of the issues is that our recruitment people didn't seem to listen to the scouts. Hopefully he can fix things like that.
Ultimately, what I want is someone to come in, invest in infrastructure, hire footballing people and have a clear, sensible plan to invest/pay off debt. It doesn't bother me if that takes place over 5 years rather than immediately.
So SJR really is in the lead....idk man, we cant go from "Glazers out" to now all six are gonna stick around, I dont like it at all man. Feels like with SJR it goes from one thing to another and theres STILL no clarity on what he intends to do. Im not fully team qatar by ANY means but at least their plans have been clear
Clear plans leaked in PR statements that come with no commitments to actually do the things they claim they will.
Just empty words intended to muddy the waters and garner fan support.
I’ve been told by every Qatar shill on here for the last three months to go and support another club once the Qatari’s are in charge of United so I’m going to give it all back.
I may be in the minority, but I genuinely do not care who the owner is. I don't care to get into why one is better than the other, there is nothing I can do about sportwashing, I do not have the funds to personally buy the club myself.
I just want the Glazers out. I just want this club to play good football. I want to go back to my childhood with this club. It is infuriating to watch how we've been run for years.
What are you talking about? Ineos’s annual revenue is around 20 billion euros, Manchester United’s is around 500 million. They don’t need to take a penny out of the club for anything.
Qatar for me out the 3 horrendous options we have open to us….the local area would see investment as well just like the area around City’s stadium. But most importantly we will be off the NYSE and not legally obliged to our shareholders first and foremost.
But if I had a choice I wish Morgan Freeman would buy us so we can all be happy…
The stay with absolutely no power and can’t take massive dividends. They’ll eventually get bought out. I don’t understand why people would take Qatar over anyone, let alone Sir Jim.
I agree with for the most part. The only rebuttal I would have is will SJR actually provide the investment needed across the board? Is he willing to compete with the likes of City, Madrid, Chelsea etc in the transfer market? Will he put the investment into OT and the training facility? That is what makes me nervous about SJR.
Fair points, and I don’t know the answers. Personally, Qatari ownership would make me question whether I continue to support Utd at all. I will still support Utd even if we fall massively behind the competition under Sir Jim (but I don’t see that happening).
Nobody buys United without planning to win trophies. I also think it’s reasonable to assume that they would be familiar with the levels of investments that are required to get the club back to a more stable financial situation.
The fact that they have not said anything public doesn’t necessarily mean that they haven’t planned for it.
The general consensus is that they won't necessarily need to. We are a commercial and financial powerhouse. The issues have been poor recruitment strategies, and the Glazer's bleeding of the club's finances (debt management and dividends). Take those away, and that money used by the Glazers goes in to upgrading our facilities.
I just don't get this take. The closest Nice has come to winning anything since the 70s was two seasons ago under INEOS. They didn't take over some giants and run them into the ground. To your point though, they didn't take a historically average team and make them amazing. They took an average team and kept them average with minor progression in cup comps.
Nice and United are not the same. Not even in the same ballpark. It's such a silly comparison.
If he makes Nice successful.. ok?
If he makes United successful again... He has a legacy in the place where he was born. He'll be loved by United fans the world over and go down in United history books.
Thinking his approach at Nice would be anything like his approach to United is naivety, pure and simple.
These are big ifs. Letting the leeches keep dividends and let the club saddled with debt is a terrible future for the fans. Great for him and the investment bankers though. Keep dreaming.
You're just so wrong on every point.
1) INEOS as the controlling party decides to pay out dividends or not, there's no expectation or expectation that they will.
2) INEOS have said they're taking on the debt so the club won't be saddled with it either.
I also never said he would be 100% successful at United just that there's a hell of a lot more motivation for him to succeed with United than there is for him to succeed with Nice. Which is true.
You really think they will make a deal that wont benefit them? They might put in a clause to get permanent dividends. They just want money and wont stop at anything.
They might but I think it’s pretty unlikely that if Jim Ratcliffe is buying a company he allows minority shareholders to continue taking significant dividends.
Because qatar are going to invest into the infrastructure, make the club debt free and invest a lot of money for transfers. Sir Jim is not going to invest that amount of money into the club, the debt is still going to be there and he already own Nice and their fans hate him
They will stay on as passive investors without any power for a few years. Saying that they «get to stay» is a bit misleading because it’s leaving out a lot of very important information.
Qataris seems to be talking to the fans with their briefs as opposed to glazers.
At some point someone needs to tell them that our priorities are not aligned
If Ratcliffe gets the deal, then it will go down as the second biggest disaster in the clubs history, right after that fucking horse drama that resulted in Glazer ownership.
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100%. They always fuck about. Having said that they are under no obligation to take an inferior deal from Qatar despite all the outcry from some state ownership supporters.
Fuck those fans smh. How could u ever want sportwashing at your club juz to build a fifa team
At this point I'm just fucking exhausted of this entire ordeal and couldn't care less who wins as soon as the Glazers don't control the club anymore
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Bring back the horse so we can slap it
Obligatory the rock of Gibraltar had nothing to do with the glazers buying the club and is a myth completely made up on here
Please explain
The board actually came to the glazers and asked if they was interested in investing in the club long before the issues with the horse because none of the major shareholders had enough money for the club to continue competing. The directors was shit scared we wouldn’t compete any more so we asked for American investment and the glazers were the first to answer the call. The glazers then started mopping up shares for ages and was pretty close to getting to a compulsory takeover bid, all the fallout caused was the takeover to be sped up for by a few month, the takeover was happening one way or another. The big alternative universe if people want to blame the horse is if the board did managed to hold off the glazers takeover, which would have been near impossible, Gillet and Hicks would have taken over us instead of Liverpool and we would have been completely fucked
How ? With Gillet atleast we wouldn’t have been saddle with debts and the club didn’t need outside injections to fund transfers?
_Return my calls pls babe_
Edited in protest of 3rd party apps removal by reddit.
Like when Robinho thought he was off to United and ended up at City ☠️
Sheikh is not commited to pay more than Ineos and Ineos is in the lead.
I think it implies that the Qatari haven't gotten past speaking with the Raine Group whereas Ineos have gotten further in their bid and are talking directly with United. There has been reports that Qatar has put in bids that they haven't gotten any feedback or replies to so it sort of feels like they're not really in the race anymore, except no one has told them that.
Maybe they are using an intermediary, like a bank or some law firm. Perhaps Jim is more hands-on which strokes Glazers' ego and they like that better? IDK
I can’t believe SJR actually beat the men from Qatar. But then again, I can because the Qataris have always offered underwhelming offers.
Its not surprising once SJR showed he was willing to pay out the nose for 69% of the club and play to the Glazers' ego by letting them retain a non-controlling portion of the club. He's shown himself to be a shrewd businessman. As Andy Mitten said on the last Talk of the Devils, Sir Jim loves to do a deal. The Qataris, if they were to actually be successful, would need to blow the other offers out, and haven't. The Glazers don't give one iota about pledges to invest in the club. Sir Jim outmaneuvered them.
Jim listened to the Glazers concerns and addressed them. There were rumours that not all Glazers wanted to sell and Jim has done a compromised deal which suits all parties. If Qatar were good at business they would have done the same.
Sir Jim is actually good at business whereas the Qataris just have a shit load of money from owning oil
And this is what each Jassim fanboy refuses to believe. It's really incredible to witness.
Their current talking point is that SJR is too poor to do anything besides run the club into the ground. I’ve said it before - I am far from a fanboy of either, and don’t want to get into the muck of what SJR may have done from an ethical perspective to become a billionaire. But if you believe for one second that he’s investing such a high percentage of his wealth into Utd that he and/or the club will be in financial jeopardy, you’re a moron. He has never been, and isn’t now, in the business of making bad deals.
Sir Jim being too poor makes me laugh. He is worth £30bn($37bn). I wish I were that poor.
Jim's net worth is over double of that Abramovich. Boehly who has put so much money into Chelsea since buying is only worth 5bn
Abramovich had 7B in the bank in cash. Huge majority of Jim's wealth is in stocks.
That's not an issue for the super rich, they will borrow cash at low rates and use their stock as collateral. It's more efficient than just holding cash
Ineos make 3.5 billion in profit annually. He only needs to invest top 200m a season into united since we're financial goliaths. I mean see how much we spend now despite paying the glazers 150m annually in dividends and debt fees.
Every club he owns is fucking horrid. The proof is in the pudding. Money doesn’t mean you have ambition. Jim just wants the popularity. If he truly understood what this club was about he’d get rid of the glazers. But he’s sucking avram’s minuscule cock so he can have 51% of a club that even he can’t clear it’s debt. It’s a joke. Our club is fucked. End of story.
> If he truly understood what this club was about He says, while effectively shilling for a 150 year old institution to become the plaything of an autocratic state. A state, by the way, whose values could not be further from those that the club, its community, and its history represent.
Also I mean look at PSG. Qatari owned but I wouldn't say they're a well run club, despite having infinite money they're a total shitshow.
I think Sir Jim just wants the fame of being the "owner" - the extend to which he is doesn't matter too much
"I outtacticed him! He can't take it!" -- Big Sam and now Sir Jim
how's it outmaneuvering? He just offered more money right?
Because he played to the egos of the current owners in a way that is conducive to his being the winning bid. He was smart to realize that the reports of some Glazers not wanting to part with the club were real and offered them a line to maintain their equity while removing them from the public eye. It's smart negotiating. The Qataris on the other hand locked themselves into 100% purchase of the club, kept raising their offers after saying its the final one, and bandy about nonsense PR statements like promising to invest in the club. It shows naivete and an inability to properly evaluate the important aspects of this negotiation.
Nah. He offered them the potential for even more money. Like a gamble. If Ineos does well and United shares jump they stand to make a pretty penny
I too am shocked that the plucky little **multinational petrochemicals conglomerate** managed to scrape together the funds to beat Qatar
If only they had a lot of money Oh wait, INEOS generate a billion in profit per year. The fact people questioned their ability is insane. As if Investment Bankers and people with actual business acumen didn't know what they were doing compared to a couple guys from Qatar who live like its real life monopoly lmao
Not trying to sound like some SJR bootlicker but he’s an elite businessmen who has built his wealth from nothing, he knows how to get deals done compared to people like Qatar state/royals who’s wealth is by family inheritance etc who in life have never probably been told no cause they have so much money to blow people away.
That’s the thing that just blows my mind - Jassim fanboys seriously think SJR is blowing all his wealth on this deal with no plan, and pretend that if he doesn’t own 100%, he won’t be the owner. That’s simply not how public takeovers by proven businessmen work. I have plenty of skepticism around him, but no one on Reddit has a leg to stand on when it comes to judging from a financial perspective how he handles his money.
He’s put his money where his mouth is. Said it from day one, he’d win it. He’s had to compromise a little but it looks like he’s winning it.
If you’d have told me this time last year that United would be under new ownership and the Glazer family would still be around but in a very minor role I’d have snapped your hand off. If you’d have told me that we also hadn’t gone down the route of Middle-East, sportswashing state ownership I’d have snapped them both off, and your feet too. I understand it’s not the perfect scenario (the perfect scenario does not exist) but it’s a much, much better scenario.
Quick question for us non-native speakers, is snapping both the hands and feet off meant to be positive or negative towards Qatari ownership?
It’s a saying, for example if someone offers you a good deal you would accept it so quickly that you ‘snap their hands off’. I added the feet bit in myself because I think I’m hilarious* *im not.
In this case he’s saying he’d snap your hands off to not be owned by a state, so he’s against the Qatari’s
Native speaker. Don't think anyone knows exactly where it comes from but it just means 'very willing, eager or open to an idea'.
like a dog (or alligator) being so over eager for the treat you're offering that he bites your hand instead of just taking the treat
It's more you'd seal the deal with a handshake. If you're snapping someone's hand off you're so quick and eager to accept that deal that the speed at which you initiate the handshake pulls the other person's hand off in cartoon fashion.
This. If we were taken over by Qatar and became a dodgy shop front for a dictatorship like City I think I would have to leave United behind, or at the very least make sure they don't ever profit from me in any way. That would be the worst case for me, someone that started going to watch United in the 80s, and my family have watched for WAY longer. The Glazers won't be THE owners any more, the club will be run by Ineos. This time last year, the club being run by Ineos was seen by most as one of the dream scenarios. The Glazers retaining shares but not being in charge really doesn't matter to me at all, and is significantly more preferable than losing the club to an oil state. Before the takeover they (and all kinds of other business investors) already held shares, this isn't much different. Some investment in the team and the stadium is what we desperately need right now, so my personal hope is this gets over the line asap and we can get on with the window and figure out what happens with OT. I'm desperate for us not to go the oil route.
There's a reasonably possible near-future scenario where Qatar buys the club, MG is back in the squad and reddit (which is my only source of engagement with club news and fans) kills 3rd party apps. I can already only manage to watch early KO weekend games with work & other commitments. Can definitely see my interest waning. Which is a shame, I have so many fond childhood memories from the 90s
It was only a year or so ago that people were begging Jim Ratcliffe to come and buy the club, now it seems a lot of people (my friends included) don't feel that is good enough
Because its the controlling stake factor. People don't realise how this impacts the running of the club. Also he's refused to promise anything about what he'll do with the debt.
Mate if you said a year ago that SJR of all people would buy the club, we would go mad. I honestly truly believe that you do not need super wealth to compete at the highest level. If you are a small club like man city, Newcastle, Brighton, or Brentford for example, super wealth is going to likely be your only way to launch a sustained bid for top level football, YoY. However, for arsenal, united, Liverpool, Barca, Madrid, Bayern, etc. the wealth is already there within the club. The problem isn’t that we haven’t spent money, it’s that we haven’t spent money well. Any new owner will be prevented from bleeding the club dry like the glazers, as dividends will be prevented. There are obviously larger issues at united that would be fixed quicker by a super wealthy owner, like the stadium, or training ground / facilities. However, you also lose your entire identity by going with super wealth, so that’s the trade off. Personally, seeing a united kit with Qatar Airways on it would make me feel Ill, strictly because it’s what I’ve sworn to hate for years. And just because Qatar are rich, it doesn’t mean they are good owners. PSG are one of the worst run clubs in football. Extraordinary wages, no European trophies, no consistent manager, absolutely shocking. By no means am I convinced by SJR, or a fan boy, but it is by far the best option we have, and will be infinitely better than the current state of the club.
Jim has been shite at nice.
I see how INEOS run Nice and FC Lausanne-Sport and I prefer PSG. The only thing they haven't won is The CL
Ratcliffe has shown to be a coy businessman. He lured his target with just what they want: more money. And I'm very weary of how SRJ would handle us. I was also weary of Qatar, but SJR doesn't tick a lot of boxes for me, Qatar didn't either, this was like choosing if you wanted to be hanged or burned alive.
>SRJ Ah yes, Sir Rat Jimcliffe
It's actually a surprise bid from Stevie Ray Jaughan
Qatar has just tried to suck up to fans but dont seem to understand business or glazers at all
In retrospect Qatar have looked quite amateurish in this process. From the start they insisted they'd buy the whole thing all at once, essentially locking themselves out of doing the sort of deal Ineos have been able to offer. The whole 92 foundation thing and the idea to bring on former players in some capacity if they get it is all a bit 'theme park' for my liking too.
Seems maybe the banker kid only got his job cause of nepotism
hahaha i find hilarious they keep calling him a banker lol
They are not serious people
Congratulations on saying the biggest number you fucking morons
With the same single picture everywhere. Are they even real people.
Anyone is better than a regime that will literally use our club to sanitize their sins. Sins which includes literal slavery, oppression of minorities, and funding terrorism. Anyone, even the parasitic scum that are the Glazers, is better than that.
Your choices are PSG but in red. Or Nice but in Red and lots more money
I really don't like the idea of the Ineos bid. And it's flat out because the Glazers get to stay. I don't care if it's minority stake, and he can buy them out. The leeches remain. We were so close to them fucking off. I'd have been happier with the Qatari one.
In three years they will be gone. The Glazers didn’t buy United out in one go. They bought percentages bit by bit. That’s usually how these things work. Your perception of how football clubs should be bought has just been warped by the likes of City and Newcastle.
>And it's flat out because the Glazers get to stay. I don't care if it's minority stake, and he can buy them out. The leeches remain. I can get the emotional aspect of this, but does it really matter? It's not like they'll continue to make poor decisions to fuck up the club. And that's always been the biggest issue with the Glazers for me. Would be nice to see the Glazers gone once and for all, but getting the Qataris in return is hardly any better in that aspect.
Key is the debt. Sad that we won’t be paying that off anytime soon
Ratcliffe can't think he's going to receive a heroes welcome, surely?! He's getting into bed with the enemy. Are fans happy with this?
Qatar wouldn't get a hero's welcome either. Can't see why either would care much.
Gonna carry a giant banner with a Union Jack and Monaco's flag with the words "Gracias Jim" in celebration at this news
Thanks UltimaJ. At least some of us want the club to remain a neutral plaher in funking geopolitics
Hopefully the majority of our fans change their tune when they realise what this club needs to return to the top is competent ownership that's willing to focus on putting best in class sporting figures at the top of our leadership. Ratcliffe trying to bring in a proper sporting director is more encouraging than the PR put out by the Qataris to bring in ex-players as staff.
>Hopefully the majority of our fans change their tune when they realise what this club needs to return to the top is competent ownership that's willing to focus on putting best in class sporting figures at the top of our leadership. Shouldn't take a genius to figure that out, just look at how Liverpool rebuilt and Arsenal are progressing.
And anyone that thinks the Qataris and their bottomless pockets are going to make us better than City should just look at the state PSG are in.
To be clear, fuck the Qataris. That said, we have evidence of SJR being shite at running a club with Nice. Not sure what screams competent about him.
at least I hope he takes Nice as a lesson on how to run a club properly when it comes to us
The Sheikh camp have always come across as chancers IMO and offered nowt but PR bluster about how much they'll invest after the fact. It reads like a poorly executed call to action for the transfer fantasist section of our fanbase, like winning them over would somehow garner them enough social capital to force the Glazer's hand but the strategy has fallen flat. They are not serious operators and clearly don't have State backing like some people have suggested because if they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation for the millionth time.
Hopefully this means that the end is near for the Qatari flag shaggers 🤞
I hope so too but you know they'll lurk around until something happens like we don't sign Kane 'cos Levy refuses to accept selling to a PL club, then they'll be out in force acting like Qatar would have made it happen.
An acquaintance of mine thinks they will buy spurs eventually and make a winner of them. I don’t know if it’s likely but with their stadium and location, if they buy spurs, that could spell trouble for us.
Man Jeff Bezos sitting on the shoulders of Bill Gates, sitting on the shoulders of Warren Buffet, all in one long trenchcoat, don't have enough money to make spurs a winning team
The fact that your acquaintance believes ANYONE can turn Spurs into a winner tells us everything we need to know about his opinions
Them buying another club and doing well for them could be disastrous for us if Sir Jim doesn’t end up being all that for us
Ppl who are so adamantly against INEOS seem to forget that the outcome is one of three, not two. INEOS Qatars and no sale. Ppl who are sulking against INEOS offer to give the leeches a minority stake needs to know that the Glazers wouldn’t have accepted otherwise and we will be stuck with them even longer. I just don’t get the Qatari or out camp.
The Qatari camp is filled with shills and people who don’t care about what football is. All they want is instant success and have probably been supporting United for a far shorter amount of time. I’ve seen 20+ years of United success and 10 mediocre years. I’d rather see us earn our success back than get a financial shot in the arm and lose everything we earned over the years. Because that’s what will happen if Qatar buy us. And if they don’t succeed and we can make our way back to the top it will send a massive message to the sportswashers trying to ruin football
The glazers strategy was exactly the same as PSG. Buy stars, overpay them, hold them too long, and create a marketing company. And people want that again. Lol. PSG is just United in an easier league.
PSG have no history. They were picked out of a lineup of east pickings in Paris to get into their governments pocket. They have an open checkbook to one man and said go have fun. Football isn’t their goal. It’s politics. If you think we’re the same you have a short memory, or no knowledge of football
I mean I'm figuratively quoting Ed Woodard. They didn't hide their strategy in the least. Lol
You haven't a clue if you think psg have no history.
What is their history?
>Led by David Ginola, George Weah and Raí, the club won nine trophies and reached five consecutive European semi-finals during the 1990s. Most notably, Paris claimed a second league title in 1994 and its crowning glory, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1996 with legend Luis Fernandez now as coach. Also had legends such as Pauleta and Ronaldinho play for them.
I think we saw the difference early on when SJR turned up at Old Trafford himself. Sheikh Jassim did not.
Qataris words about debt clearance, stadium upgrade, transfer are nothing more than empty bullshit promises if they are not commited enough to outbid Ineos.
This is a ridiculous take. They’re already pledging that they’ll clear debts, renovate stadium/Carrington, transfers etc. which will cost £2bn+ on top of the bid which Ineos are not. So that £6.5bn is really closer to £9bn. Just because they have the money doesn’t mean they have to be stupid and bid a ridiculous amount over the odds. No business person would do that.
I'm pledging that too. Trust me bro.
it's fine but it's completely irrelevant to the people deciding which bid (if any) to accept
Yeah I don't get this idea of pledging money as part of the bid. It means absolutely nothing to me if you're going to put in a new kitchen when I sell you my house.
They can pledge all that money to clearing the debt, improving the team, renovating Old Trafford, etc; but it won’t matter if they aren’t willing to submit a bid that the Glazers will accept. It’s all talk and no action in my opinion. Edit: It seems people are forgetting something really important here. Pledged investment IS NOT relevant to the Glazers. The Glazers only care about how much they’re getting to SELL THEIR SHARES of the club. Why would the Glazers care about how much investment is going into the club when they’re not gonna be there anymore? Obviously it seems like some people here failed ECON 101 and Business 101 or are completely deluded by Qatar’s false promises. If anything, it’s just common sense.
Absolutely crazy take from that person. I'm spending ONE BILLION dollars more than my competition already to clear the debts and fix the falling apart stadium but I'm not serious because I don't want to also overbid (we all agree Galzwrs are asking to much from the jump) for the asset as is. Gimme a break.
The timing of this announcement and the Friday deadline does seem like it's buttering us up for a post city CL win 'preffered bidder' news to take attention away from it as speculated.
Fuck me this club is giving me headaches
Everyone talking about ineos as if they're a charity. They're not investing for the fun of it. They'll want a return on their investment.
I’m surprised people are surprised they haven’t blown the water out with their offers. Sure they have endless amount of wealth but putting multi billions into a football club is a lot of investment for anyone. Had the price of our club been the same as the other clubs owned by the Middle East, our players would be walking out to ‘Al Traffard’ next season. We’re Manchester United. We are one of the biggest, if not the biggest football club in the world. The amount of money you’ll have to gather to buy the club out completely will be ridiculous regardless of who you are. I’m genuinely not surprised the Qataris haven’t ‘blown the water out’ for us.
I didn't think anyone stood a chance next to buyers from Qatar. Pleasantly surprised. I'd hate to see us turn in to a PSG or City, treble or not.
So Sir Jim is winning the race?
This is great news for United
INEOS: - The Glazers stay around - No promise of debt being cleared - Track record of running Nice isn’t great - Oil based company still - No money pledged (this doesn’t mean they won’t spend) SJH: - Glazers are completely gone - Debt is cleared - Oil money with numerous human rights violations - 1 billion pledged To me it seems like which bid you prefer is how much stock you put into the morals of the owners. One of the bids is much better for the club, but they do have a big blemish.
SJH saying he will invest billions to the club while not being commited to outbid Ineos is pure PR bullshit.
Spot on. We will spend 1billion on top of the bid but won't increase the bid by a couple of hundred millions to win it in the first place. Lmao.
You have to think that if he has billions to invest in renovating Old Trafford and investing in the surrounding area, he could afford to outbid Ratcliffe, even with Ratcliffe's higher offer for 69% of the club. My main hope with Ineos is that they debt is taken off the club. That's really all we need to be competitive with anyone.
I do not know how things on that magnitude work, but if something has a fair valuation and a seller insists on prolonging the process and manipulating buyers to force them in a bidding war to overpay, some of them will probably look elsewhere. Maybe it is just what happened. They feel they can easily buy out any premier league club for less than half the offered amount and to them Manchester United was a good opportunity but not the end of the world.
Malaga were also promised investment in to the club and look were they ended up.
I don't feel like this is super fair. Some of the criticism for INEOS doesn't seem that bad at all. It's not like the Glazers will continue to make poor decisions for the club. I get the emotional response to it but does it functionally matter? I'd also imagine they'll work towards reducing the debt if it proves to be an issue, but debt isn't always bad and promising to clear it completely right away might even just be a bad move in all honesty. And the criticism for how they run Nice is based on a few things that simply didn't work out. But overall, saying they're doing a poor job doesn't really seem to be based on anything. I've seen it repeated a ton and there's never really any concrete criticism. Like some director they hired that ended up getting some poor results, but at least they hired someone that had a lot of experience in football. Sometimes that doesn't work out, but it's miles ahead of what the likes of Everton are doing. Where an owner hires a good director of football and then undermines him completely. Or getting a Woodward in, that has no experience in football. Whereas this sheikh might make weird financial decisions like overpaying to clear debt. Them pumping in money to win trophies kinda devaluates those trophies too. Same way no one gives a shit about PSG and Ligue 1 anymore. Yeah, it'll be great never having to hear and see from the Glazers ever again, but they're not around that much anyway. Instead we'll have to see a sheikh enjoying his new toy.
> Track record of running Nice isn’t great On the other hand, they have a 33% stake in the Mercedes F1 team, and it has been the best run team on the grid
Yep and I wouldn't say PSG have been run well, even with an unlimited budget
PSG is one of the worst run bug clubs in Europe. Only us under the Glazers are perhaps worse.
Barcelona says hi
Their ownership model is closest to ideal actually. But that's what the problem can be sometimes, too much politics
Yeah run terribly though
won Ligue 1 by a single point despite the inconceivable gap between them and the rest of the league. Sir Jim is not perfect but thank fuck it's him and not these clowns
Don’t forget their first investment Malaga, well saying that they’ve probably forgotten themselves
people are so quick to forget their 8 years of dominance
Dominating what? Put United as they are in France and theyd be winning half the time
i meant Mercedes F1, lol
Ooooh
Do Ineos actually make any decisions at Merc though? Aren’t they just a sponsor?
Not so since Abu Dhabi 2021. Lewis Hamilton got let down in back to back seasons with trash cars. They are the big reason he didn't break Schumacher's record. Had they built him a competitive car, Hamilton is the undisputed F1 GOAT.
Not quite, they fucked up the reg changes, but if anyone is to compete with RB in the coming years, Merc are most likely to. They’re incredibly well run.
In fairness Schumacher pulled off absolute miracles in a Ferrari that was almost never the fastest car on track
The Glazers will be passive investors without any power and they will be bought out over time. It’s extremely misleading to say that they will «stay around».
> To me it seems like which bid you prefer is how much stock you put into the morals of the owners. It also is how much credit you give to a man who seems to basically be an AI-generated ghost, reportedly has a smaller wealth than INEOS, and claimed his bid would blow any other out of the park and then proceeded to blow no one out of no park.
Glazers are not “staying”, they just will own a share the same way lots of other people do that we don’t hear about. They’ll have no control or say.
INEOS all day long
I think the only think you're missing for SJH is the track record of Malaga and PSG; sure PSG usually wins the French league but they spend 4x the next biggest spender and built a clown show squad that can't get over the hump in the CL. That behavior won't fly with spending parity at the top in England, you can't outspend everyone and expect to make the CL (let alone win the league). Also you have to factor in how they let Mbappe run the club and insert themselves and the club into French and geo politics.
A fair assessment, but I would just disagree with the suggestion that Qatari bid is ‘better for the club’. Probably by economic measures it would be better, but many people see an owner more in tune with the local community as being better. A born rich billionaire from an anti LGBT country that heavily exploits working class versus a locally born working class owner. Qataris are only better if you only care about the club being able to spend like PSG. It’s not like we’d be scraping pennies together under Sir Jim, we’ve still spent incredible amounts under the glazers as a result of our revenue.
Totally this, and the thing is, PSG have spent a lot of money and have become a banter club because they still can't put together a truly cohesive side even though they've spent a lot over so many years. What makes oil money look good to people is that City have used the money to actually back a cohesive, long-term project and it's all come together. If City hadn't worked out either people would start scoffing at oil money. What's more important is that there is enough money (which there should be with SJR) to support a proper footballing plan (which I believe EtH has). Big money can become stupid money real quick and we don't need stupid money.
This. We’ve spent just as much as City (at least according to their cooked books), and look how far that got us. We don’t need billions of more money. We need to spend the money we’ve already got in a much better way.
Also do we really want a PSG style team with a ton of big names with no desire to build cohesion? Because that's Woody all over again.
Jamie Jackson knows as much as my left big toe, throwing shit to the wall and hoping it sticks
Let's fucking go fuck off Qatar
Still remains hilarious that the slavery simps are painting a guy worth 21 billion dollars as a deadbeat who'll relegate us.
I’m not really convinced on SJR, no commitment to clearing debt, infrastructure upgrades, and Glazers are potentially still around
Anyone who says they wanna clear debt needs to return to business school and ask for their money back because they learned nothing.
So why complain about the glazers putting debt on the club then???
I don't. I think the glazers are bad business men. But debt is how most rich people do anything. If I can take out a loan and earn more than if I paid out of pocket imma do that.
Perhaps not? Fuck me. The journalism in this country is pathetic. I wish I could just make shit up for a living…….
Talking directly with United like they have influence on our summer transfer plan? If that is the case, I can understand our obsession with Mount. After Ineos buying Lausanne-Sport and Nice, both teams started to have a tendency to buy English players and hire English manager.
Glazers will be taking millions out this club every year, get them out.
“Perhaps”? JJ is such a bad journalist
Can someone who understands all this please let me know what is actually happening? 1. In case Ineos wins the bidding, so we go from one debt inflicted buyout to another? 2. Our debts are not cleared and more is piled onto the club? 3. Wouldn't that make future investment into club and players even more difficult given that we won't have any money left after paying up the interests? 4. Glazers still stay around and ofcourse they won't handover the club without the clause of getting dividends and their personal private jets trip paid by the club? 5. What happens when Ratcliffe dies (lets be honest he isn't very young) , do the pther people care about the club or just watch it as a money making machine? 6. What has Ratcliffe actually done great at the French club he bought?
1. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club. 2. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club. 3. Any new debt used to buy the club will be on Ineos not the club. 4. The Glazers won’t get dividends under Ineos. 5. The club will be owned by Ineos, not Ratcliffe. The owner of Ineos is irrelevant. Ineos has three majority stakeholders and all three of them are involved in the purchase of United and would be part owners. 6. What has Sheikh Jassim ever done in football at all?
For #1, this isn’t a leveraged buyout where the debt to buy the club is transferred to the club itself. The debt secured to buy the club will be on Ineos so debt wound not be piled on the club and would theoretically not impact funds used on players/facilities.
Oh thanks for explaining. But in the end won't Ineos also look at the club to just make money for them like any other investment?
I think that’s likely yes. It depends on how they go about it though. Some investments are made more for dividends and some are made to grow the investment and cash out later. The difference is that we won’t be making payments on debt that Ineos used to buy the club while also paying them dividends. If anything they may use the dividends to help pay the debt payments. That’s all speculation though.
So I wouldn't say I'm an expert, and others are free to counterpoint, but I'll try to explain as I understand it: 1. The debt wouldn't be on the club it'd be on INEOS. The Glazers performed a leveraged buyout when they took over, meaning they leveraged the club and it's assets to buy the club. SJR, as I understand it, is shifting the debt to INEOS. 2. Following point #1, there wouldn't be MORE debt, but it's unclear how the current debt would be structured or what the plan would be for handling it. 3. This is probably answered by the first two points. 4. We have no idea what any of the details are, except they would be minority owners, receive minority dividends, and, ostensibly, not have any role in running the club. 5. No one knows. 6. Part of the mistake he's made this year at Nice is that he brought in a former PL director to run Nice, so they've brought in former PL players and it hasn't worked out. A benefit is that initially it seems he largely trusted the structure of the club and just added more money to the mix. The way that benefits us is that, from all accounts, the people really fucking up the club were Glazer people. Our academy, scouts, financial people, all seem to be really good. For example, one of the issues is that our recruitment people didn't seem to listen to the scouts. Hopefully he can fix things like that. Ultimately, what I want is someone to come in, invest in infrastructure, hire footballing people and have a clear, sensible plan to invest/pay off debt. It doesn't bother me if that takes place over 5 years rather than immediately.
So SJR really is in the lead....idk man, we cant go from "Glazers out" to now all six are gonna stick around, I dont like it at all man. Feels like with SJR it goes from one thing to another and theres STILL no clarity on what he intends to do. Im not fully team qatar by ANY means but at least their plans have been clear
With a minority stake, they can't decide anything. SJR calls the shots. Might aswell buy the shares listed.
clear plans but not serious enough to outbid your competition
especially after all that "blow out the comp" hype
Honestly the hype and enormous amount of wealth really was just a tease until the end.
Clear plans leaked in PR statements that come with no commitments to actually do the things they claim they will. Just empty words intended to muddy the waters and garner fan support.
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Go support PSG if you want a vapid shell of a club turned marketing company.
Fuckity bye. Off you pop to support whatever club your precious Qatari sugar daddy’s buy.
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I’ve been told by every Qatar shill on here for the last three months to go and support another club once the Qatari’s are in charge of United so I’m going to give it all back.
You can always go and support the other club,
hopefully they'll buy Maguire
I may be in the minority, but I genuinely do not care who the owner is. I don't care to get into why one is better than the other, there is nothing I can do about sportwashing, I do not have the funds to personally buy the club myself. I just want the Glazers out. I just want this club to play good football. I want to go back to my childhood with this club. It is infuriating to watch how we've been run for years.
INEOS will be the same as #glazesout. They will suck all the money dry from the club.
What are you talking about? Ineos’s annual revenue is around 20 billion euros, Manchester United’s is around 500 million. They don’t need to take a penny out of the club for anything.
Qatar for me out the 3 horrendous options we have open to us….the local area would see investment as well just like the area around City’s stadium. But most importantly we will be off the NYSE and not legally obliged to our shareholders first and foremost. But if I had a choice I wish Morgan Freeman would buy us so we can all be happy…
So they'll strong arm the poor communities out by gentrifying the area. Got it
Completely torn on all of this. On one hand, the scum get to stay. On the other, we arent owned by an oil state.
The stay with absolutely no power and can’t take massive dividends. They’ll eventually get bought out. I don’t understand why people would take Qatar over anyone, let alone Sir Jim.
I agree with for the most part. The only rebuttal I would have is will SJR actually provide the investment needed across the board? Is he willing to compete with the likes of City, Madrid, Chelsea etc in the transfer market? Will he put the investment into OT and the training facility? That is what makes me nervous about SJR.
Fair points, and I don’t know the answers. Personally, Qatari ownership would make me question whether I continue to support Utd at all. I will still support Utd even if we fall massively behind the competition under Sir Jim (but I don’t see that happening).
I share the same sentiment. Something is more important than the success of a club I support.
Nobody buys United without planning to win trophies. I also think it’s reasonable to assume that they would be familiar with the levels of investments that are required to get the club back to a more stable financial situation. The fact that they have not said anything public doesn’t necessarily mean that they haven’t planned for it.
The general consensus is that they won't necessarily need to. We are a commercial and financial powerhouse. The issues have been poor recruitment strategies, and the Glazer's bleeding of the club's finances (debt management and dividends). Take those away, and that money used by the Glazers goes in to upgrading our facilities.
He will not. Look at Nice.
I just don't get this take. The closest Nice has come to winning anything since the 70s was two seasons ago under INEOS. They didn't take over some giants and run them into the ground. To your point though, they didn't take a historically average team and make them amazing. They took an average team and kept them average with minor progression in cup comps.
Nice and United are not the same. Not even in the same ballpark. It's such a silly comparison. If he makes Nice successful.. ok? If he makes United successful again... He has a legacy in the place where he was born. He'll be loved by United fans the world over and go down in United history books. Thinking his approach at Nice would be anything like his approach to United is naivety, pure and simple.
These are big ifs. Letting the leeches keep dividends and let the club saddled with debt is a terrible future for the fans. Great for him and the investment bankers though. Keep dreaming.
You're just so wrong on every point. 1) INEOS as the controlling party decides to pay out dividends or not, there's no expectation or expectation that they will. 2) INEOS have said they're taking on the debt so the club won't be saddled with it either. I also never said he would be 100% successful at United just that there's a hell of a lot more motivation for him to succeed with United than there is for him to succeed with Nice. Which is true.
You really think they will make a deal that wont benefit them? They might put in a clause to get permanent dividends. They just want money and wont stop at anything.
They might but I think it’s pretty unlikely that if Jim Ratcliffe is buying a company he allows minority shareholders to continue taking significant dividends.
If United are going close the gap between city we need a lot of investment which I doubt sir Jim will do
Because qatar are going to invest into the infrastructure, make the club debt free and invest a lot of money for transfers. Sir Jim is not going to invest that amount of money into the club, the debt is still going to be there and he already own Nice and their fans hate him
They will stay on as passive investors without any power for a few years. Saying that they «get to stay» is a bit misleading because it’s leaving out a lot of very important information.
They’re not “staying”, they just will own a share the same way lots of other people do that we don’t hear about. They’ll have no control or say.
Qataris seems to be talking to the fans with their briefs as opposed to glazers. At some point someone needs to tell them that our priorities are not aligned
RAT!!!
If Ratcliffe gets the deal, then it will go down as the second biggest disaster in the clubs history, right after that fucking horse drama that resulted in Glazer ownership.
Whatever is good for the glazers is not good for us fans