is to complete a deal for a 25 per cent stake in after Sheikh Jassim .
Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim have been locked in a bidding war .
However, neither party were able to convince the Glazers to sell .
It’s understood that the Qatari bid of £5bn for a full takeover was rejected and Sheikh Jassim has now opted to pull out of the running to buy United.
That has allowed Ratcliffe to move in and the petrochemicals billionaire is now set to buy 25% of United for a figure between £1.4bn and £1.5bn.
Crucially, Ratcliffe’s bid means that the Glazers still keep a stake in United but the bid is expected to be the start of a full takeover.
According to , a source close to negotiations have called the Glazers’ valuation of United ‘fanciful and outlandish’ as the current market value is less than £3bn.
United supporters have continued to protest against the Glazer ownership this season
Speaking earlier this week, .
‘At the moment there’s been no discussion of that, but everybody knows that I’m a Manchester United fan and I’ve been very vocal about the situation at United and that’s been happening for a number of years,’ Beckham told CNBC.
‘I grew up at Manchester United from a very young age and there was a lot of stability – same manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, and same owners.
‘Man United will always be Man United, they will always be one of the biggest clubs in the world. Now we need to get back to that for the fans, the players, the coaching staff and the manager because at the moment there’s not stability. We need to get the talk back on the field, rather than off it.
‘I want to see an ownership group that will take it back to what it should be. I’m not saying the past owners have done a bad job because we’ve still been very successful on the field and off the field, but for me it’s the right time for somebody else to take over.’
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