Manchester United, ranked to be one of the most popular and marketable football teams in the world, is currently on sale.
The bidding war between Qatari businessman Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe seemed to progress before Finnish entrepreneur Thomas Zilliacus threw his hat in the ring.
The current owners of the club, the Glazer family, want £6 billion for it.
But who exactly is Mr Zilliacus, does his net worth cover the club’s asking price, and why does he want to buy Manchester United?
Here is everything we know.
Who is Thomas Zilliacus?
Thomas Zilliacus, 69, is a Helsinki-born businessman.
His great-great-grandfather, senator Henrik Wilhelm Johan Zilliacus, was the elected Mayor of Helsinki back in 1866, while his great-granduncle created the Finnish Activist Resistance Party to free Finland from Russia.
Mr Zilliacus followed in his ancestors’ footsteps by becoming the youngest member of the Helsinki City Council in 1979. He later ran for the National Parliament but didn’t get elected. In 1984, he was reelected to be a councilman for four more years.
As for his business career, Mr Zilliacus became Nokia’s Corporate Communications Global Head in 1980, before moving to Singapore to become the CEO of Nokia Southeast Asia.
He continued his career at Mobile Futureworks, an investment company, where prominent entrepreneurs were part of its advisory board, including the former CEO of Ericsson, the former CEO of Nokia Mobile Phones, and the former Minister of Communications of Finland.
In 2007, Mr Zilliacus was appointed executive chairman of YuuZoo, an online platform that combined social networking, e-commerce, gaming, and online and mobile payments.
After being unable to buy Nokia due to insufficient funds, the businessman decided to form his own company, Newkia, in 2013. He described Newkia as the “new Nokia”, and his goal was to employ former Nokia employees who would be keen to develop for Android.
As for his association with football, the businessman worked as the chairman of the Finnish football club Helsinki Jalkapalloklubi between 1982 and 1986.
After his move to Singapore, he took over Geylang International FC from 1989 to 1995.
More recently, he was an owner of Finnish ice hockey giants Jokerit until the team was sold to Russian investors in 2012.
What is Thomas Zilliacus’s net worth?
Mr Zilliacus’s net worth is not publicly known.
However, after studying his career, many experts estimate that he isn’t as wealthy as Mr Ratcliffe.
Similarly, he is thought to have less financial backing than the other contender, Qatari banker Mr Al Thani.
Why does he want to buy Manchester United?
In a statement, the Finnish businessman said that he believed “any sports club ultimately should belong to its fans”.
He explained: “The current development, where billionaire sheikhs and oligarchs take over clubs and control them as their personal playgrounds, is not a healthy trend.”
Instead, he wants to empower the fans to co-run the club.
Mr Zilliacus added: “The current market value of the club is just under 3.9 billion USD. That means that if every one of the fans of the club would join in buying the club, the total sum per fan would amount to less than 6 dollars. My bid is built on equality with the fans.
"My group will finance half of the sum needed to take over the club, and will ask the fans, through a new company that is being set up for this specific purpose, to participate for the other half. If every fan joins it means less than 3 dollars per fan.
"Each fan who joins will have access to an app which the fan, from anywhere in the world, can use to participate and cast his vote when deciding on footballing matters relating to the club. No decisions will be taken that are not supported by a majority of the fan base.”
He said that if his bid won, he would ensure that Manchester United operated “on a foundation of respect, equality, dignity, diversity, racial harmony, and democracy”.
