Fabrizio Romano has confirmed, courtesy of sources close to Sheikh Jassim, that the Qatari billionaire’s decision to exit negotiations over the ownership of Manchester United is ‘100% guaranteed’.
The Italian journalist provided the most recent update on the subject on X on Tuesday afternoon, amid reports that the Qatar Islamic Bank chairman may now make a play for Manchester United’s league rivals Liverpool.
“The Qataris set aside about $8bn [£6.57bn] for the United project,” Mike Keegan said on the It’s All Kicking Off podcast (via the Daily Mail).
“That money is there and ready to go, burning a hole in their pockets, so what a story [buying Liverpool] would be.”
“From what I understand, they are extremely disappointed and enraged by how this has turned out.”
“What better way to respond than to get United’s biggest rivals from down the road and throw all that money you were going to throw into Manchester United into making them pay for that decision not to sell to you.”
Assuming if the Qatari, whose family’s wealth is estimated to be approximately $275 billion, is a true Manchester United supporter (though this has yet to be confirmed), one could argue that such a scenario is unlikely to occur.
Moving on to the Liverpool side of the issue, we’d be surprised if John W. Henry and FSG were willing to sanction the club’s sale to such a person.
Fenway has certainly stated that any new custodian would have to mirror our ideals while they were reviewing prospective proposals.
In that perspective, and given that a minority investment from Dynasty Equity has been successfully obtained, it’s difficult to conceive a situation in which we’d welcome a bid from Sheikh Jassim in the near future.
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