News that the Glazer family are now willing to sell their stake in Manchester United dominated headlines on Tuesday evening - with fans speculating on who could come in to replace them.
Buying their first share in United just under 20 years ago, the Glazers took majority control of United in 2005 - yet since then, the club have embarked on a downward spiral. Only the genius of Sir Alex Ferguson in the dugout and David Gill behind the scenes kept Premier League and Champions League titles on the horizon at Old Trafford before the Scot retired in 2012.
Since then, United have won just three major trophies in 10 years, and fans have become restless with management failures and ownership negligence as arguably the world's biggest football club continues to suffer. Yet with the news that the Glazer family are finally willing to sell the club following years of sustained pressure from fans to oust them from the hot seat, supporters have speculated on who could buy the club.
READ MORE: The Glazer family confirms Manchester United is up for sale
And, with formerly linked tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe being linked once again, we look at what the Englishman has previously said about taking control of the club.
“Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family. I have met Joel and Avram. They are the nicest people, I have to say, proper gentlemen. They don’t want to sell it,” Ratcliffe said at a Financial Times Live event earlier this year.
“It’s owned by the six children of the father. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes we would probably have had a go following on from the Chelsea thing. But we can’t sit around hoping one day Manchester United will become available.
“So what will happen now? We have a sports franchise. We own a third of Mercedes’ Formula 1 team. Robbed last year. The one thing we don’t have is football, the most popular sport in the world. We should have a premier club. Nice has got a very interesting history. We’ll have a look at what we might be able to do with Nice."
Having bought the French outfit in the summer of 2019 for a reported fee of around £150million - a record purchase for a Ligue 1 club - Ratcliffe stated that he believed there was better value for money in France.
"Our position has developed since the summer and we are now focusing our efforts in Nice and raising our ambitions for the club to make them into a top-tier club in France to compete with PSG. This would represent much better value for our investment than buying one of the top-tier Premier League clubs."
Only time will tell whether Ratcliffe will eventually plunge to make a move for the control of United. The process, of course, will be expedited by those currently in power such is their willingness to explore other alternatives, though this could still take quite some time to complete.
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