The Glazer family is ready to sell Manchester United and will seek buyers prepared to pay between £6 billion and £8 billion.
On the day that the club cancelled Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract, the Glazers released a statement saying that they were trying to find new investment, either to acquire a share of the club, or buy it outright, which would end the Glazers’ 17-year ownership.
They have appointed the Raine Group, an American bank that found a buyer for Chelsea this year, to be United’s advisers and another bank, Rothschild and Co, will advise the Glazer family.
Unlike with the sale of Chelsea by Roman Abramovich, the Glazers are in no rush to sell the club but are seeking a record price for a sports franchise.
Sources have indicated they want an unprecedented sum because of the digital potential of a club boasting more than one billion supporters globally.
Joe Ravitch, the co-founder of the Raine Group, said: “United is not just a football club when it has such a huge global fanbase.”
The Glazers said the process would also examine how best to improve Old Trafford. In a joint statement, Avram and Joel Glazer said: “We will evaluate all options to ensure that we best serve our fans and that the club maximises the significant growth opportunities available to it today and in the future.”
The move follows a similar recent one by Fenway Sports Group, the American owner of Liverpool, to announce it was inviting investment.
The news came hours after United revealed that they had released Ronaldo, who is at the World Cup with Portugal, without paying him the £15.5 million owing on his contract, which had been due to expire next summer.
The Glazers’ declaration will be welcomed by United supporters who have become increasingly vocal in their protests against the Americans, who have taken hundreds of millions of pounds out of the club in dividends, while United has remained a commercial success. The chant “Love United, hate Glazers” has been sung regularly at Old Trafford.
The Glazers bought United in 2005 in a £790 million deal that was extensively funded by debt, and the club was valued at £3.7 billion by Forbes in the summer. A sale at that price would outstrip the £2.5 billion deal that Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital struck to buy Chelsea in June. There was a guarantee of a further £1.75 billion investment in the club.
Those numbers are likely to have captured the Glazers’ attention, while the collapse of the European Super League and the rise of clubs owned by Gulf states are two more reasons why there is now an appetite to explore what interested parties are out there.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a boyhood United supporter and the billionaire behind Ineos, will be linked with a takeover, having registered an interest in the summer. The Times subsequently reported last month that two of the Glazer brothers, Joel and Avram, had told him the club was not for sale.
