UEFA prepare to approve bid for Manchester United after meeting with Emir of Qatar

UEFA is pre­pared to approve a bid for Man­ches­ter Unit­ed from Qatar, despite ini­tial doubts that it would vio­late the rules.

The Red Dev­il has been on sale since Novem­ber, and nego­ti­a­tions are expect­ed to progress. The Raine Group, which is facil­i­tat­ing the sale, has set a Fri­day dead­line for sub­mit­ting bids and proof of funding.

It is expect­ed that inter­est from all over the world will be gath­ered by then. Bids from the US, UK, Sau­di Ara­bia and Qatar are expected.

Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is believed to be lead­ing the Unit­ed buy­out, with fund­ing from the Qatar Invest­ment Author­i­ty (QIA). But UEFA rules could put the brakes on takeover offers from Gulf countries.

Euro­pean foot­ball gov­ern­ing body rules state that “no nat­ur­al or legal per­son may con­trol or influ­ence more than one club par­tic­i­pat­ing in a UEFA club com­pe­ti­tion”. QIA cur­rent­ly owns a stake in Qatar Sports Invest­ment, which owns French pow­er­house Paris Saint-Germain.

Under this rule, you can­not own both Unit­ed and PSG. Because Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani does not want to lose his stake in the French giant. How­ev­er, UEFA has giv­en Man­ches­ter Unit­ed and hopes of an ear­ly com­ple­tion of the deal a major impetus.

Accord­ing to Mail Online, UEFA offi­cials are expect­ed to make sure there are no rule vio­la­tions as the acqui­si­tion will come from a dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tion. UEFA’s approval of Qatar’s bid would be help­ful, but it remains to be seen whether this will give a boost to a poten­tial deal.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is report­ed­ly already plan­ning a stay at Old Traf­ford, even though the acqui­si­tion is still in the works. It has been sug­gest­ed that the new own­ers will eval­u­ate all depart­ments of the club before mak­ing any major modifications.