Earlier this week, former Manchester United director Michael Knighton claimed that he was interested in bringing together a consortium to buy the club from the Glazer family. Now, British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has confirmed his interest in the same.
A statement released by Ratcliffe’s representatives confirms his intentions, although with the added caveat that the only way any potential deal can move forward is if the club is for sale.
According to Bloomberg, the Glazers are not prepared to lose majority control of the club at this point in time. However, they are ready to offer any interested parties a minority stake.
“If the club is for sale, Jim is definitely a potential buyer. If something like this was possible, we would be interested in talking with a view to long-term ownership,”
said a statement from his camp.
Per the Bloomberg report, United’s valuation – if a total takeover takes place – could reach as high as 5 billion pounds, exceeding the record fee Todd Boehly and his group paid for Chelsea mere months ago.
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Recently, former United director Knighton announced to the media his intentions to assemble a consortium to snatch control of the club from the Glazer family.
However, Knighton has since claimed that his words were a ploy to get bigger and richer parties interested in buying the club – such as Ratcliffe. He added that although he and his group will be moving forward with the takeover bid, they do not have the resources to wrestle majority control from the current owners.
“If we can smoke the great Sir Jim out to buy Manchester United, my consortium will be punching the air because we’ve achieved what we want to do.
We will make the bid with our own consortium but, I’ll tell you this, we do not have the resources available to do everything that is needed,”
Knighton said.
While the Glazers maintain the “not for sale” stance, the ongoing protests from multiple fan groups have brought worldwide attention to the issue. To that end, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, too, tweeted his interest in buying the club before retracting his statement later.
