Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has been involved in Manchester United’s takeover bid

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Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has played an important role in talks over the purchase of Manchester United by a group that Qatari King Sheikh Jassim is facing.

United were put up for sale by majority owners, the Glazer family, last November, and the competition to buy the Premier League club quickly degenerated into a two-horse race between the Sheikh Jassim Nine-Two Foundation and British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Sheikh Jassim’s bidding team initially consulted Al-Khelaifi for advice on United’s valuation as the Glazers indicated they wanted $8bn (£6.4bn) for the club.

But the PSG coach, one of the most powerful men in world football, was later approached by the Glazers in an attempt to persuade Sheikh Jassim to increase his offer.

Al-Khulaifi, in his capacity as advisor to Sheikh Jassim’s case, met with Glazer & Rain Group, the US bank making the sale on behalf of the Florida-based family, to discuss the proposed acquisition.

Earlier this week, amid growing frustration with the slow pace of the process and a sense that the wind was blowing in Ratcliffe’s direction, the Sheikh Jassim Group submitted what it described as the fifth and final bid in an important sign of their continuation in the race. .

In the region of £5 billion, that offer is for the entire club, including shares held by several minority shareholders, and United would exit the NYSE and return to private ownership. This means that United will no longer need to file quarterly accounts and make regular calls to investors.

Ratcliffe is another challenger to rivals United (Picture: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

Ratcliffe’s bid values ​​the entire club a bit higher, but his proposal is a phased takeover that leaves some or all of the six Glazer siblings as minority shareholders, before buying them out at a later date. Only then would he consider making an offer to the remaining shareholders.

This approach means that Ratcliffe, the founder of the petrochemical empire Ineos, will have a smaller initial outlay, but that Glazer will get more money from it than from the Qatari bid.

Sheikh Jassim himself took no personal part in the negotiations with Raine or the Glazers, leaving that to the law firm Macfarlanes and his financial advisors at Bank of America.

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His representatives have repeatedly stressed that he is a very wealthy person and that the Nine Two Foundation is independent of the Qatari state. But his lack of involvement in the process has led to concerns among vendors about who is actually leading the bid.

Sheikh Jassim, the second son of the former Qatari Prime Minister, joined the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse International Bank in 2010 at the age of 28, and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Qatar Islamic Bank. But until he was announced as the leader of a Qatari bid for United, no one outside Gulf banking circles had heard of him and those who called him undervalued. In fact, his profile was so low when the bid was announced that many media outlets initially associated him with the wrong Sheikh Jassim and only a few photos remain publicly available.

On the other hand, Al-Khelaifi is the chairman of the beIN Media Group, a state-owned entertainment and sports network based in Doha, and the European Clubs Association, the lobbying group that represents the interests of the most successful clubs in Europe. The 49-year-old is also a former tennis professional who runs Qatar Tennis Foundation and Premier Padel, the fast-growing new professional squash/tennis hybrid circuit.

Al-Khelaifi has become one of the most influential figures in football (Photo: Mehdi Ta’mellah/NoorPhoto/Getty Images)

His involvement in United talks, even in an advisory capacity, has caused eyebrows elsewhere in the Premier League, with many club owners worried that the prospect of becoming England’s biggest side is the latest to fall under what many believe. effective state ownership.

The rationale for these concerns is that Al-Khelaifi is also the chairman of Qatar Sports Investments, a subsidiary of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. In fact, Al-Khelaifi is also a board member of the Qatar Investment Authority, and was asked by the Qatari government to expand the Gulf country’s interests in global sports after its successful hosting of the 2022 World Cup. The move into Padel Tennis is an example of this, as is QSI’s recent purchase of a minority stake in Portuguese side Braga. But it is also widely known in league circles that Al-Khelaifi spoke to Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy about a possible investment in the north London club earlier this year.

As a result, a number of English Premier League clubs fear that Sheikh Jassim is just a face of the Qatari state if he is to become the owner of Manchester United, and want to thoroughly investigate the source of any money. As mentioned earlier, Sheikh Jassim’s representatives strongly deny that this is the case, and so do Al-Khulaifi, whose role it is very clear is purely advisory.

Under Premier League rules, there is nothing to prevent Al-Khelaifi, QSI or QIA from owning or co-owning United, although Al-Khelaifi is quick to quash any speculation that that could be the case. However, UEFA has a rule that prohibits two teams under the control of the same entity or person from playing in the same competition, which means that both Paris Saint-Germain and United cannot play in the Champions League at the same time, for example. , if they have joint ownership. The question then for UEFA will be who owns and controls the clubs.

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All parties to the takeover talks, including the Glazer family, were aware of these concerns from the start, which is one reason many observers speculated that Ratcliffe’s bid would raise fewer regulatory concerns.

However, Ratcliffe already owns French side OGC Nice, a team that has mostly played in European competitions in recent seasons and has a stated ambition of becoming a league. If his bid for United is successful, the 70-year-old will likely have to sell Nice or reduce his stake in the club.

However, there is a chance that neither he nor QSI will have to do anything, should they take control of United, as UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has made it clear he is no longer certain of the ban on clubs under joint control to play in his squad. Leagues are tenable in the era of multi-club ownership.

Of course, according to Sheikh Jassim’s team, this is a moot point, as he only wants to own Manchester United and he will own it himself, not next to Al-Khulaifi.

Al-Khulaifi, The Glazer, Ren and Sheikh Jassim declined to comment.

(Photo: FRANCE FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

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