Sir Jim Ratcliffe makes official bid to take full control

Sir Jim Ratcliffe makes official bid to take full control of Manchester United – The Athletic

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made an official bid to take over full ownership of Manchester United.

Ratcliffe has joined Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani in a bid for the Premier League club ahead of today’s soft deadline.

Sources close to the bid say Ratcliffe wants to “bring Manchester back to Manchester United” should he take over the Old Trafford club.

Ratcliffe, 70, is one of Britain’s richest men and has been a United fan since childhood.

Raine Group, the investment bank responsible for the sale of Manchester United on behalf of the current owners, the Glazer family, has today given a soft deadline of 10pm (UK time) to formulate the official interest in writing.

The Glazers announced in November that they were reviewing “new investments in the club, a sale or other transactions related to the company,” potentially marking the end of their 18 years as owners.

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Ratcliffe expressed interest in Chelsea last year but the club were sold to Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital.

He also claimed in October that he would have tried to buy United if the club had been up for sale in the summer.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he said: “I’m a lifelong Manchester United fan. I was at that most remarkable game in Barcelona in 1999. That is burned deep into my memory.

“Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family. I met Joel and Avram. They are the nicest of people, I must say, real gentlemen.

“They don’t want to sell it (the club). It belongs to the father’s six children. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes, we probably would have tried it after the Chelsea thing. But we cannot sit around and hope that one day Manchester United will become available.”

Ratcliffe’s INEOS already owns French club Nice, FC Lausanne in Switzerland and Racing Club Abidjan in Ivory Coast. They also own the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team and are involved in the Mercedes F1 team.

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(Photo: Getty Images)