Qatari Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Jassim, with the help of Jabr Al Thani, made a second offer to buy the prestigious English football club Manchester United, according to what a source close to the file revealed to Agence France-Presse on Wednesday evening.
Sheikh Jassim, the son of the former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim, made a preliminary offer in mid-February to acquire the England champion 20 times (a record), similar to the “Ineos” petrochemical group headed by its British billionaire owner Jim Ratcliffe, which also made a second offer. Today too.
Several English media reported that the two offers exceeded 5.7 billion euros, which means that if one of them is approved, it will be the largest deal to buy any club in the world in a group game.
And the American Glazer family, the current owners of the club, set nine o’clock local time and GMT on Wednesday as the maximum deadline for those wishing to buy the club to improve their offers that they made in mid-February.
The source revealed to AFP that Sheikh Jassim was “confident” that he had made “the best offer to the club, to his supporters and the local community.”
He concluded, “The next stages are related to the seller, and we do not expect a quick answer.”
Sheikh Jassim is the longtime Chairman of Qatar Islamic Bank and was educated at the British Military Academy Sandhurst.
Sheikh Jassim was born in 1982, the date the bank was established. He joined the Board of Directors when he was in his early twenties, and was its Chairman during most of its rise to become a leading Islamic financial institution.
“The bid plans to restore the club to its former glories on and off the field and, above all, will seek to place the fans at the heart of Manchester United Football Club once again,” Sheikh Jassim revealed in a previous statement.
The statement stressed that the offer will be completely debt-free through the Sheikh Jassim Foundation, which will look to invest in the football teams, training center, stadium, wider infrastructure, fan experience and the communities the club supports.