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.
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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”.
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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.
The family of a father-of-four who died on holiday in Benidorm say new evidence has further convinced them that foul play was involved in his death.
Nathan Osman, 30, from Pontypridd in South Wales, was on a long weekend break with friends in Benidorm in September 2024.
Less than 24 hours after he arrived, his body was found by an off-duty police officer at the bottom of a remote 650ft (200m) cliff on the outskirts of the resort.
He died from head and abdominal injuries after falling from height, a post-mortem found.
Local police said it was “a tragic accident” that occurred after Nathan left his friends in Benidorm to walk back to his hotel room alone.
But his family believe the investigation into his death has not been adequate, and that the local authorities have never considered the possibility of a homicide.
Their suspicions of foul play were first provoked by the fact that the remote location where Nathan was found was in the opposite direction to the hotel, and some distance away on foot.
They began doing their own investigating, building a timeline of events drawn from sources including CCTV, witness statements and Nathan’s bank records, which they say showed attempts were made to use his bank cards the day after he died.
Now, the family have told Sarah-Jane Mee on The UK Tonight that new phone data they have uncovered suggests he couldn’t have reached the spot he was found on foot.
Image: Nathan’s brother Lee, mother Elizabeth and father Jonathan speak to Sarah-Jane Mee
After getting the phone back a couple of months ago, they say they tracked Nathan’s last movements through a health app.
“There’s a breakdown inside the app of every 10 minutes – the distance, pace, measurement of pace… every detail you can think of,” Nathan’s brother, Lee Evans, tells Mee.
“His pace wasn’t consistent with a fast walk or even a sprint.”
He said it was a faster journey, despite being uphill for 40 minutes, which has convinced the family that he was in a vehicle.
Image: Pic: Family handout
The family also went to visit the area where Nathan was found.
“We were a bit upset, but we were very pleased we went up there”, his mother, Elizabeth, says. “We could see… there’s no way he would have looked at that area and thought, ‘I’m going up here.’
“You can see straight off, there’s no clubs, there’s no hotels up there, there’s just the odd house dotted around. It was just out in the wild, there was nothing up there.”
The family says the phone data has helped them determine that he died around half an hour after he was seen on CCTV walking towards his hotel in the early hours of the morning.
“It was really ridiculous to think that my son would’ve walked up there [the remote location where he died] at 4am in the pitch dark.”
After the family were interviewed by Mee in May, South Wales Police opened its own investigation into Nathan’s death.
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Nathan’s family speaking to Mee in May
Lee says the Welsh force has been “appalled” by the lack of evidence turned over from the local police’s investigation.
His and Nathan’s father, Jonathan, says: “No procedures were followed. Nothing was cordoned off, it wasn’t a crime scene. There’s loads of things that could’ve been taken. Tyre tracks, foot tracks, nothing. No DNA taken.”
Lee says: “All that we’ve done over the last year, this could’ve been squashed within the first week, two weeks [by local investigators].
“We’ve had to find out and keep delving into every possible outcome and overturn every stone possible. We started off with… a needle in a haystack, we had no direction or any support on which way to go.”
Image: Nathan Osman. Pic: Family handout
What does Nathan’s family hope for now?
Nathan’s family say they have located 27 CCTV cameras which could have picked Nathan up in the area, after local investigators didn’t find any.
Elizabeth says that after alerting Spanish police to the locations, they were told that the CCTV “wouldn’t be working” or that footage would’ve already been erased.
“They just surmised everything,” she adds.
But the family, who found the last known CCTV footage of Nathan earlier this year, are convinced there is still hope.
Lee says: “There’s a number of CCTV footage in that area. We know there’s a way of finding a vehicle of some sort.”
But the family admit they may never find whoever could be responsible for Nathan’s death because so much time has been lost.
Elizabeth concludes: “Nathan walks with us every day. We all believe that,” adding that “all we want” is to find the ones responsible for his death and for him to “have the respect of a decent investigation”.
Sky News contacted Spanish police, which declined to comment, adding the case is under judicial review and it doesn’t want to hinder the course of the investigation.
South Wales Police told Sky News: “South Wales Police is carrying out enquiries on behalf of HM Coroner and a family liaison officer has been appointed to provide support.”
Watch the full interview with Sarah-Jane Mee on The UK Tonight from 8pm this evening on Sky News.
A man accused of a mass stabbing on an LNER train in Huntingdon last month and separate attacks over the previous 48 hours, could face a trial next year.
Anthony Williams, 32, is charged with 10 counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a knife over the alleged attack on a LNER train from Doncaster to London on 1 November.
Williams, refused to attend Monday’s hearing at Cambridge Crown Court, and has yet to enter pleas. But the judge has set a provisional trial date in June.
He is charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an alleged attack on a male police officer in custody.
Williams also faces another count of attempted murder and one count of possession of a knife over a separate incident at Pontoon Dock Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station, in east London, earlier on 1 November.
Image: The aftermath of the mass stabbing. Pic: Reuters
At Monday’s hearing, held in Williams’ absence, the case was joined with seven further charges, bringing the total number of charges to 21.
Williams, who said at an earlier hearing that he is of no fixed abode, had also failed to attend a hearing at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on 19 November over the seven additional charges.
Image: A forensic officer taking pictures on the train. Pic: Reuters
The seven charges relate to the following incidents in the 24 hours leading up to the train stabbings:
• Attempted murders of a 14-year-old boy at Henry Penn Walk, Peterborough, on 31 October.
• Attempted murder of a 22-year-old man near Pleasure Fair Meadow Road, Peterborough, on 31 October.
• Attempted wounding of a 28-year-old man at Viersen Platz, Peterborough, on 31 October.
• Affray at a barbershop in Peterborough on 31 October.
• Possession of a knife in a public place at a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk, the Rail World car park and Queen’s Walk, all in Peterborough on 31 October.
• Theft of knives from Asda supermarket in Stevenage on 31 October.
• Assault of a 31-year-old man onboard a train travelling from King’s Cross to Peterborough on 1 November.
Agency workers hired to fill the void in the wake of the Birmingham bin strikes have voted for strike action and will be joining the picket.
The first day of the action kicks off today, with a rally organised by the Unite union at the Smithfield depot in Birmingham.
The union said the numbers joining the strike were “growing daily” – but Birmingham City Council said just “a small number” of agency staff were taking part.
The replacement workers recruited by the Job&Talent agency, said they had voted in favour of industrial action “over bullying and harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.
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From September: Birmingham bin strikes six months on
Image: General secretary of Unite Sharon Graham. Pic: PA
Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.
“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.”
She added: “Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.
“Strikes will not end until it does.”
Strikes from the bin workers in Birmingham have been ongoing since January, and are likely to continue beyond May next year.
Birmingham City Council said it was “disappointed the dispute has not been resolved as Unite has rejected all our offers”.
“We are continuing to make regular waste collections and our contingency plan is working,” it added.
It also said it found “no blacklisting has taken place” after an investigation and that it “strongly” refuted Unite’s claims of bullying, which it said were “unfounded”.