The co-founder of Raine Group, who acted as Manchester United’s monetary advisor throughout their current takeover course of, has confirmed Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani is an actual individual regardless of ideas in any other case.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS gained the race to buy a 28% stake in United after the membership confirmed in 2022 they had been contemplating funding choices. On the time, the Glazer household had been open to a full sale.
Although Ratcliffe was profitable along with his bid, he was rivalled for a number of months by Sheikh Jassim, a member of the Qatari royal household and chairman of Qatar Islamic Financial institution. Nevertheless, his low profile and minimal on-line presence led to varied columns questioning whether or not he was truly an actual individual, and Ratcliffe even joked about this throughout certainly one of his first interviews after being onboarded at United.
“Nonetheless no one’s ever seen him, truly,” Ratcliffe stated of Sheikh Jassim. “The Glazers by no means met him…he by no means…I am undecided he exists!”
90min Man Utd WhatsApp channel
Seeking to maintain updated with all the things occurring at Outdated Trafford? Click on this hyperlink or scan the QR code under to observe 90min’s Man Utd WhatsApp channel and activate notifications to obtain all the newest information!
However in an interview with The Instances, Joe Ravitch of Raine Group insisted Sheikh Jassim was certainly actual and detailed his bid for the membership.
“We met Jassim. He was in New York. He is a beautiful man; a really sensible man,” Ravitch stated. “The Qataris had been very actual. They had been very sensible guys, very considerate. I do not know why they did not respect the worth [of the club] however we weren’t their adviser.
“We tried as the vendor to elucidate the worth to them, they usually put what they thought was a collection of very critical bids on the desk.
“My shoppers [the Glazers] are additionally sensible guys. We thought the worth could be round $6.5bn [£5bn], so we had been type of spot on almost about the place Ratcliffe ended up.
“However when the Washington Commanders [NFL team] went for $6bn all of us thought: ‘Properly, United is crucial sports activities workforce on this planet; greater than a billion followers. The Commanders personal one thirty second of the NFL. Their economics are severely restricted by the industrial sharing caps positioned on it by the league. We all know that as a result of the Glazers additionally personal a NFL workforce. Subsequently if somebody is keen to pay six billion for the Commanders, somebody needs to be keen to pay extra for United’.
“I believe the Qataris obtained to about $5.75bn. We stated to them, ‘You are inside 10%, why do not you get in a room and attempt to get to a deal’. However they stated no. I believe they had been very acutely aware of criticism in the event that they had been seen to be overpaying.
“In the end we expect they’d have been good house owners however we expect the Glazers made the correct choice to not take the lesser worth, and go together with Ratcliffe as an alternative.”
