EXCLUSIVE Qatar group Sir Jim Ratcliffe beat to Man United ownership WON'T renew their interest in the club despite share price plummeting on back of dire campaign
The Qatari group which failed to complete a £4.5billion takeover of Manchester United is not reviving its interest – despite a terrible season for the club which has seen its share price plummet.
Mail Sport revealed that the Doha-based outfit, led by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, had joined the hunt to buy the turmoiled Premier League giants after owners the Glazer family announced they were open to selling in November 2022.
However, following a protracted process the group eventually lost out to a bid for a minority share from petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, which valued the club higher.
Since that deal was completed last January, United have continued to underperform, aside from a shock FA Cup Final victory.
Defeat in the Europa League Final on Wednesday under manager Ruben Amorim means they will end the season trophyless and a maximum of two places above the relegation zone.
At a time of widespread cost-cutting and redundancies, overseen by Ratcliffe's INEOS group, it also means that in a further, heavy financial hit there will be no European football at Old Trafford next season.
The group had tried to complete a £4.5billion bid to buy United before Sir Jim Ratcliffe became involved with the club
United's share price is down more than 17 per cent year on year and speculation has been rife that the Qataris, against such a backdrop, may feel emboldened to launch a new bid.
However, Mail Sport understands that there is currently little chance of that happening and little appetite for such a move given how the process played out with the Glazer family.
To add to the matter, INEOS are thought to have no intention of walking away from the club following the amount of work they have already carried out to change its direction.
Fans are set to protest at today's season-ending fixture with Aston Villa, with the Glazers – who saddled the club with debt following their leveraged buyout in 2005 – coming in for the most criticism.
Last year, revealed details of 'Project Ruby', the Qataris' grand plan to restore United to the top.
It included proposals for a new stadium and a rebuild fuelled by vast wealth and a mix of United legends and some of sport's leading execs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
24 minutes ago
- The Sun
When are the 2025/26 Premier League fixtures released?
THE curtain may have only just gone down on the 2024/25 Premier League season, but fans are already itching for the return of top flight football. Liverpool head into the new campaign as champions of England after Arne Slot 's side convincingly wrapped up the title with four games to spare. 1 The Reds will be eagerly awaiting their opponents for the opening weekend as they begin their title defence and don the gold champions patch once again. Three new teams are set to join the Premier League following promotion from the Championship last season. Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland will mix it with the big boys once again as they replace Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester. Fans of the three promoted clubs are counting down the days until the fixtures are released as they prepare for trips to the likes of Anfield, Old Trafford, the Emirates, and many more! When are the 2025/26 Premier League fixtures released? The fixtures for the 2025/26 Premier League season will be released on Wednesday, June 18 at 9am BST. All 20 clubs will learn the provisional dates for all of their fixtures, although some fixtures are subject to change. The exact date and time at which individual matches take place will be determined at regular intervals throughout the season based on TV selections. When does the 2025/26 Premier League season start? The 2025/26 Premier League season will begin on the weekend of August 16/17, 2025. The start date allows for the maximum player rest time available - 83 clear days - from the end of the 2024/25 campaign. 33 weekend and five midweek match rounds will make up the 2025/26 season. The Premier League states that the schedule "continues to allow more rest time for players over the festive match-round period". No two rounds of fixtures will take place within 60 hours of each other and there will be no game on Christmas Eve.
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Live Spain vs France: Lineups and updates from Nations League semi-final
Welcome to our live coverage of the second of two Uefa Nations League semi-finals, following on from Portugal defeating Germany yesterday. What is on the menu tonight? It's Spain against France, probably one of the most high-profile matches between two giants of the game in the 21st century. Between them they have six European Championships and three World Cups – with six of those nine coming this century. Many were – and probably still are – sceptical of the Nations League since it was established in 2018. Yet it is better than the previous situation of friendlies with nothing at stake, as was the case for decades. As well as providing a back-door for European Championship qualifying it allows teams to play competitive games with teams at a similar level and creates situations like this. What are the respective camps saying ahead of this clash? Spain coach Luis de la Fuente denied that Spain were favourites. 'We're in the final four. We're playing against a European champion. There are no favourites. Four games, four finals. Germany vs Portugal could be the final of a Euro, or the World Cup. It's very difficult for me to say we're favourites when we're surrounded by such good sides. Anybody can win this.' Didier Deschamps, France's longstanding coach, has said he is not looking for revenge after his team's Euro 2024 defeat to Spain last year. 'I don't like the word revenge. This is a different tournament and it's a new semi-final with an opportunity to get into the final. I'm not going to go back to the semi-final last year even though Spain did dominate us, especially in controlling possession. 'I'm not denying that they were superior in some aspects last time we played them, but I don't think that there was much between us, and it was a close call.' Spain are favourites, though not by an enormous amount. As always, it's 90 minutes of football and it could go either way. We kick off at 8pm BST.
Daily Mirror
30 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Fernandes turned down Saudi riches - but Man Utd skipper still did club wrong
Probably - no, definitely - the most interesting five minutes of the recent Europa League final in Bilbao came soon after the last whistle of a truly abject football match. Bruno Fernandes, to his credit, fronted up as he always does. Unsolicited, in front of a knot of reporters in the bowels of Estadio de San Mamés following the loss to Spurs, he suggested he would understand if Manchester United wanted to sell him and move on without him. At that point, any elite club worth its salt might well have thought long and hard about selling him and moving on. This is Manchester United we are talking about. For all his foibles on the field, Fernandes is a good guy. Off the pitch, he represents United brilliantly, speaks well and comes across as a fine captain. He is a good guy and a very good player. But for him to now be lauded for deciding to stay at Old Trafford is not the best reflection of what the club has become. Re-reading his explanation of the dalliance with Al-Hilal - whoever they are - it is hard to believe his commitment to United is as rock-solid as everyone makes out. 'The president of Al-Hilal called me a month ago to ask me about the possibility of moving there,' he said. Which, in my old-fashioned mind, constitutes an illegal approach. Which, in my old-fashioned mind, is tapping up. And, in my old-fashioned mind, it should have elicited a response along the lines of…'mate, if you want to sign me, talk to the club that has given me a contract worth £300,000 a week for the next two years'. Phone down. Yes, tapping up has gone on since the dawn of professional football but this was still a bizarre way of doing things. To have your captain and star player in discussions with another club while under contract is just odd. Unless, of course, United gave him permission, which does not seem likely. Fernandes, apparently, had to 'wait a while to think about the future'. After all, the president of Al-Hilal was, Fernandes said, 'a fantastic person'. In the end, his wife and Ruben Amorim helped convince Fernandes that his immediate future did not belong to Saudi Arabia. Which, considering he has been a decent player in a terrible United team in recent seasons, is, on the face of it, a good thing for the club. But this should never have been an issue. That Fernandes took the call from Saudi when under contract at United, that he seriously considered the move, is still a slight against what remains an iconic institution. Openly, Fernandes has happily admitted to talking to a Saudi Arabian club while being under contract at Manchester United. That is just wrong. And don't forget, as good as Fernandes has been - and he is a smashing footballer - he is still the leader of a very mediocre Manchester United team. He is still a part of failure. There are many strange elements of the whole Fernandes-Saudi saga. Let's face it, if Al-Hilal had actually tabled an offer of £100million for a player who soon turns 31, would United really have pleaded with a captain - a captain who led his team to only 11 Premier League wins in one season - to stay? For a multi-billionaire, Sir Jim Ratcliffe sometimes seems daft … but not that daft. Fernandes is a rare talent. But as skipper of a side that needs total transformation, it might have been best, all round, if he had taken up an offer that he clearly gave serious consideration to. And I suspect he, and the club, knows it. Sky has slashed the price of its bundle ahead of the 2025/26 season, saving members £192 and offering more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more. Sky will show at least 215 live Premier League games next season, an increase of up to 100 more.
