Manchester United Football Club could finally be sold by its American owners after a 17-year reign dominated by fan protests and declining on-pitch performance.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that the Glazer family is preparing to formally announce its intention to examine potential sources of outside investment that could include a full-blown auction of arguably the world’s most famous football club.
Sources said on Tuesday that investment bankers were being instructed by Manchester United‘s owners to advise on the process, which is likely to include a full or partial sale, or strategic partnership with third parties.
A statement confirming their intentions could come imminently, one of them said.
The announcement of a review of financial options that could include a sale process would signal an end to years of speculation over whether the Glazers might be persuaded to offload a club which for the past decade has experienced an almost-unmitigated footballing decline.
The Old Trafford side has not won the Premier League title since 2013, and has sacked a succession of managers in the aftermath of the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.
More on Manchester United
Related Topics:
More recently, the club has become embroiled in a bitter legal fight with Cristiano Ronaldo, its best-known player, over an interview in which he questioned United’s ambition and lambasted the Glazers’ approach to owning it.
On Tuesday, United announced that Mr Ronaldo had left “with immediate effect”.
Advertisement
It remains possible that the family, which took control of United in 2005 in a £790m deal largely funded by debt, opt not to sell.
A partial sale to new investors, with capital being raised to fund an overdue redevelopment of Old Trafford, is one potential outcome from the process.
Image: Manchester United fans protest ahead of the Liverpool match at Old Trafford in August 2022
The Glazers have acknowledged the need for new infrastructure investment to transform the stadium into a genuinely world-class venue, while substantial funds are also required to enable the men’s team to compete once more at the top of the European game.
If United was sold outright, it would be the latest top-flight club to change hands, after Roman Abramovich agreed a £2.5bn sale of Chelsea to a consortium led by the American businessman Todd Boehly earlier this year.
United’s valuation in a sale would inevitably exceed the roughly $2.15bn market capitalisation implied by its share price during Tuesday’s trading session on the New York Stock Exchange.
Reports in recent months have speculated that any transaction would need to value the club at anywhere between £5bn and £9bn to persuade the owners to sell.
The Glazers listed a minority stake in the company in 2012 but retained overwhelming control through a dual-class share structure which means they hold almost all voting rights.
For more than 18 months, the club has been promising to introduce a modestly sized supporter ownership scheme that would give fans shares with the same structure of voting rights as the Glazers.
The initiative has, however, yet to be launched despite a pledge to have it operational by the start of the 2021-22 season.
It was one of a number of commitments made by Joel Glazer, United’s co-chairman, in the wake of the European Super League (ESL) debacle, in which the club played a pivotal role.
Manchester United was one of six Premier League teams to agree to join the project, which collapsed within hours of its official launch amid public and political acrimony.
In May 2021, Red Devils fans forced the postponement of a home match against rivals Liverpool after protesting against the ESL and the Glazer family.
“Love United, Hate Glazers” has become a familiar refrain during their tenure, with supporters critical of a perceived lack of investment in the club’s infrastructure while the owners have extracted hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of dividends as a result of its continued commercial success.
If a formal sale process is initiated, attention will turn to the identities of potential buyers.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos billionaire who has supported United since childhood, said in August that he was keen to buy the club but has since suggested that English football’s elite names are overvalued.
Billionaires from around the world will be linked to bids, as will sovereign investors seeking to emulate the kinds of takeovers seen at Newcastle United – now owned by Saudi state-backed investors – and Paris St Germain, which is Qatari-owned.
There will also be speculation that the Red Knights, a consortium led by former United director and leading economist Lord O’Neill, could revive an attempt initiated in 2010 to take control of the club.
Significantly, the prospective auction of Manchester United comes as Fenway Sports Group, the owner of Liverpool, also weighs selling all or part of the Anfield club.
Simultaneous sale processes for two of English football’s so-called ‘big six’ – the others being Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur – would be unprecedented.
One analyst said the timing suggested that some investors believed the value of top clubs could be approaching its peak, especially against a backdrop of tough global economic forecasts for the coming years.
United’s announcement is also likely to be made during a World Cup fuelled by Gulf petrodollars, underlining the shifting financing of the global football industry.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:16
Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
More from UK
“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
Major developers will only deal with one regulator under planning reforms which ministers say will “rewire the system” to get Britain building – all while protecting the environment.
A review by former Labour adviser Dan Corry into Britain’s sluggish system of green regulation has concluded that existing environmental regulators should remain in place, while rejecting a “bonfire of regulations”.
But Mr Corry suggested there might be circumstances in which the government look at changing the wildlife and habit rules inherited from the EU, which protect individual species.
The government has now explicitly ruled out any such change in this parliament.
More from Politics
Campaigners have questioned whether the changes go far enough and will make a major difference to the rate and scale of building in the UK.
Speaking to Sky News, Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that accepting nine of the recommendations from the Corry review would amount to wholesale reform.
The minister said: “We can get a win-win for economic growth and for nature. And that is why we are moving ahead with proposals such as appointing a lead regulator for major developments so that the developers don’t have to navigate the architecture of multiple regulators.
“They just work for a single regulator who manages all the others on their behalf. Simplifying the online planning portal.
“These are huge changes that will save developers billions of pounds and speed up decisions doing damage to the environment.”
Mr Reed insisted that there would be “no more bat tunnels” built, even though the Corry review suggests that more work needs to be done to look again at the relevant guidance.
It says: “Rapidly reviewing the existing catalogue of compliance guidance, including on protecting bats, will identify opportunities to remove duplication, ambiguity or inconsistency.
“Natural England has already agreed to review and update their advice to Local Planning Authorities on bats to ensure there is clear, proportionate and accessible advice available.”
The review will mean:
• Appointing one lead regulator for every major infrastructure project, like Heathrow expansion
• A review on how nature rules are implemented – but not the rules themselves
• Insisting regulators focus more on government priorities, particularly growth
Economist and former charity leader Mr Corry, who led the review, said it shows that “simply scrapping regulations isn’t the answer”.
“Instead we need modern, streamlined regulation that is easier for everyone to use. While short-term trade-offs may be needed, these reforms will ultimately deliver a win-win for both nature and economic growth in the longer run.”
However, Sam Richards from Britain Remade, a thinktank trying to get Britain growing, said that while the steps are welcome, the number of regulators that report to the environment department would remain the same before and after the review. He questioned whether this would have the impact ministers claimed.