Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, president of BIQ, the Islamic Bank of Qatar, the second largest financial institution in the Persian Gulf gas producer, announced that he would offer around 6 billion euros to buy Manchester United.
No one has paid more for a team in the history of professional sports.
It is the minimum figure that the owners of the English club, the Glazer family, expected in the last round of offers, whose deadline is scheduled to close this Wednesday at 10:00 p.m.
The Glazers must decide now if they sell the club to whoever pays them the most, if they follow other criteria, or if they keep 69% of the property, as they have been up to now.
The process by which they began the sale, in November, is subject to the last will of a family that shows signs of exhaustion after a decade without being able to win the Premier.
Sources close to the Glazers indicate that the owners' desire is to transfer United to the Al-Thani.
If they have not closed the agreement so far, it is due to legal scruples.
The link between the Al-Thanis and the fund that owns the property of Paris Saint-Germain is public and notorious.
Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, the aspirant to preside over United, is the son of Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, former Qatari prime minister between 2007 and 2013, and cousin of Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, father of the emir.
This can trigger legal consequences, in UEFA regulations.
Article 5.01 of UEFA competitions prohibits the participation of a club if there are indications that it may be controlled by another, even if formally the owners are different persons or entities.
That the president of the Islamic Bank of Qatar does not have a relationship of dependency with the emir of Qatar – PSG's ultimate strategist – is a matter of debate in England.
Whether or not they accept the Qatari proposal, the Glazers are one step away from closing a historic deal.
The pull effect has also attracted the interest of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the owner of petrochemicals INEOS, whose bid to buy United, if won, would also result in a world record.
Only Rob Walton, owner of American supermarkets Walmart, offered more for a sports partnership.
It was in the summer of 2022 and the bid, of 4,650 million dollars (about 4,700 million euros, at the exchange rate of the time), earned him the acquisition of the Denver Broncos of the NFL.
Just under 4,500 million euros Todd Boehly paid for Chelsea, and the appraisers of the multinational consultancies that evaluated the club affirm that anything above 3,000 million was an overprice.
United, by capital and economic and sports potential, the most powerful sports company in the United Kingdom, is not worth more than 5,000 million, according to independent appraisers.
But, as Ratcliffe said in
The Wall Street Journal,
"how do you decide the price of a painting?"
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