Manchester United are set to receive two record takeover bids though there are concerns the Glazers will not sell amid confusion over the offer deadline.
Interested parties had until 9pm on Wednesday – a deadline set by US bank Raine Group, who are marketing the sale – to submit fresh offers after holding talks with the club and being given access to their books last week.
Only two bids have been made public so far, one from a Qatar-based group led by banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and the other .
According to , both were ready to submit new offers believed to be worth around £5billion shortly before Wednesday’s deadline.
However, it has now transpired that both groups asked for more time – likely the end of the week – to submit their proposals, with the extensions granted by Raine.
There were initially suggestions that as many as eight bids could be made this evening, though those two bids are believed to be the only ones offering to buy the whole club with other proposals offering minority stakes or potential financing.
An offer in the region of £5bn would make the takeover the most expensive in sports history, eclipsing the $4.65bn (£3.8bn) sale of NFL team the Denver Broncos last year.
However, that valuation is still shy of the £6bn that is being demanded by the Glazer family, while there are even some reports claiming they believe the club is worth closer to £8bn.
is reporting that Raine have now extended the deadline for all bids until Friday due to a lack of offers besides those from Sheikh Jassim and Ratcliffe, with the Glazers hoping that more offers will come out of the woodwork.
With fears over a lack of genuine competition to buy the club – certainly compared to the plethora of buyers that lined up to take Chelsea off Roman Abramovich’s hands – there are concerns the current bids will not be enough to convince the Glazers to sell.
The Mail’s report suggests neither Sheikh Jassim nor Ratcliffe are prepared to pay a figure that they believe is over the odds and are unlikely to increase their offers any further.
But, despite the world-record proposals on the table, there is still significant distance between what is being offered and what the Glazers were hoping to receive.
There has always been a divide in the family over whether or not to sell the club and latest round of bids might sway the Glazers more towards accepting offers of partial investment rather than a full sale.
That would provide the funds needed for upgrades to Old Trafford and Carrington as well as signings in the summer transfer market, though is likely to go down very badly with supporters – particularly with chants of ‘We want Glazers out’ now becoming commonplace on matchdays.
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