When Manchester United’s executive leadership team played host to parties bidding to prise control away from the Glazer family earlier this year, one bold number stood out.
Buried within the decks of presentations for investors, United stated that they would pass £1billion ($1.2bn) in revenue by the end of the financial year for 2027. The club’s revenue came in at £583.2m in 2022 and £494.1m in 2021. On Thursday, the club, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, posted projected revenues of between £650m and £680m for the fiscal year to June 2024, after reporting £648.4million in 2022-23.
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According to sources familiar with the bids, who spoke anonymously because they do not have permission to divulge commercially sensitive information, United’s £1bn forecast excluded any potential benefits from developing the club’s Old Trafford stadium. Instead, the £1bn would be earned through increased commercial and broadcast revenue and matchday income.
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Sources familiar with the bids for United claimed the club’s billion-pound revenue forecast was deemed highly ambitious, even withstanding an enhanced broadcast rights package in the new format of the UEFA Champions League from next season, as well as the introduction of the FIFA Club World Cup. The bidders felt such numbers would also require vastly improved on-field performances.
It is not unusual for companies to be ambitious when pitching to investors, or buyers, but considering the Glazer family has resisted a full sale of United, it would suggest they really do see untapped financial growth at United. This, ultimately, proved to be the breaking point for the Qatari offer fronted by Sheikh Jassim.
Jassim’s public relations team claimed he is a Manchester United fan and the bid was launched in February via a not-for-profit entity called the Nine Two Foundation, apparently because he started following the club in 1992, as well as nodding to the “Class of ’92” generation of young players such as David Beckham and Paul Scholes.
Jassim, born in 1982, became chair of Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) in his early twenties, shortly after graduating as an officer cadet from the UK’s Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He made clear from the very start that he wished to acquire 100 per cent of the club, as well as pledging to clear its debt, which stands at £725m in gross terms, as well as setting aside future funds for the stadium and other infrastructure.
But he appears to have been outmanoeuvred by his rival, the British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who offered £1.3bn for a 25 per cent stake in the club. Subject to a final agreement and approval by the United board, that will yield control of the club’s football operations and perhaps a pathway towards future majority control.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe seemed to outmanoeuvre Sheikh Jassim (Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
Earlier this month, Sheikh Jassim formally communicated his withdrawal from the process. By then, he had made more than five bids, with the final offer, according to his representatives, worth more than £5bn — still significantly short of the Glazer family’s valuation, which was closer to £6.5bn.
At the start of the process, Jassim had delegated much of the nuts and bolts of the process to his team and he was also conspicuous by his absence when United hosted a Qatari delegation at Old Trafford in March. Ratcliffe, however, was in attendance and had no qualms in telling United executives his view on the club’s on-field underperformance in recent years, including their record in the transfer market, with the businessman pinpointing the £70m signing of a 30-year-old Casemiro from Real Madrid on a five-year contract in 2022 as an example of largesse.
By the final meetings with the Glazer family, however, Sheikh Jassim had become directly involved, along with Shahzad Shahbaz, a long-term associate of Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Sheikh Jassim’s father and the former prime minister of Qatar.
Jassim’s father, known as HBJ in diplomatic circles, was a former Qatari foreign minister. He previously served as deputy head of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), during a period in which billions were invested into companies such as Barclays and Credit Suisse, as well as British trophy assets such as Harrods, the shopping store, and parts of London’s Olympic village. He is known for driving a hard bargain and told Bloomberg earlier this year of his scepticism that investments in major football clubs yield returns.
Sheikh Jassim was largely unknown outside Qatar (Karim Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)
Representatives of Sheikh Jassim have always denied that he was a front for a Qatari state bid, but multiple sources with experience working in Doha — speaking anonymously due to their continued work in Qatar — said it was highly improbable that such a high-profile bid could have materialised without at least the approval of the Qatari political establishment.
The Athletic has previously reported how, following the perceived success of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the state’s leadership instructed the Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi to expand the country’s footprint within European football.
The state’s portfolio has not extended far beyond Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) buyout of PSG in 2012 and taking a 22 per cent stake in Portuguese club Braga for £80m a year ago. Al-Khelaifi held conversations earlier this year with Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy over a potential minority stake, which have not advanced, while QSI also held internal exploratory conversations over investment in Manchester United. That, however, was seen as overly complicated considering PSG and United could regularly compete against one another in UEFA competitions, which would bring regulatory complexities.
It was not overly surprising, therefore, when Sheikh Jassim, a figure barely known outside of Qatar and not one of the key movers and shakers in Doha, emerged to front a bid for United. QSI is a separate legal entity from QIA, the state sovereign wealth fund, but Al-Khelaifi also sits on the board of QIA and would likely be at the heart of its future sporting investments. Al-Khelaifi took on an advisory role for Sheikh Jassim’s bid for United, including offering advice on the valuation of the club and even being present in some meetings with the Glazers and the U.S. merchant bank Raine that marketed the club during the strategic review.
In February, the human rights organisation FairSquare wrote to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and the Premier League chairman Richard Masters, arguing that “a basic study of Qatar’s political and economic system amply demonstrates the impossibility of any Qatari consortium proving itself independent of state influence”.
Such conversations are now rendered increasingly moot with regards to United but plenty will remain curious as to the scope of Qatar’s ambitions in the sporting space. In June, QIA took its first step into U.S. sport when it acquired a five per cent stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which is the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals and WNBA’s Washington Mystics.
Qatar has invested in the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards (Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
Dr Yoav Dubinsky, instructor of sports business in the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon, argued in an interview with the Associated Press that diplomatic concerns may have motivated the deal. “From a political standpoint,” he said, “it means further legitimising Qatar as a business partner in the West, including in the heart of American politics.”
The Athletic has been told that Hassan Al-Thawadi, the general secretary of the Qatari Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy of the World Cup, has been spending time in Los Angeles exploring investment opportunities in the sport and entertainment space, but sources close to him insisted nothing has advanced.
The motivation for Qatari investment will always be a source of speculation. The state’s vociferous critics, such as Amnesty International, argue it is an extension of “sportswashing”. The organisation’s UK economic affairs director Peter Frankental said in January that Qatar “is intensely involved in the use of sport to refashion its image on the international stage”, essentially arguing that the spending is a means of diverting attention from a criticised record on human rights.
Others in Doha argue that such investments rest more heavily on the reality that Qatar is hugely dependent on gas and that the economy must be diversified because gas will eventually run out. As such, QIA seeks stakes in financial institutions, technology, real estate, healthcare and retail to ensure the state has a thriving economy for the long term.
Qatari national security also remains a guiding principle, particularly after the state was alarmed by the American response to an almost four-year blockade of Qatar by a Saudi-led coalition from 2017, with the support of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, when borders were sealed, airspace was denied to planes and diplomatic ties were cut.
The former U.S. president Donald Trump tweeted in support of the blockade of Qatar, which considers itself an ally of the U.S. and is home to a U.S. airbase and 10,000 US troops, and it left some Qatari politicians wondering whether wider investments into sporting enterprises globally may give Qatar a more powerful voice at diplomatic tables. More straightforward forms of defence are also used, with Qatar’s spending on arms spiralling from $1.9bn in 2010 to £15.4bn in 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Nevertheless, sporting ambitions remain. Al-Khelaifi’s QSI is seeking to sell a small stake in PSG to American investors, but QSI representatives insist the Qataris do not have plans to exit or cede majority control. QSI is also seeking strategic investments in other markets and it has considered stakes in Spanish club Malaga, Italian club Sampdoria and Brazilian club Santos.
Al-Khelaifi pictured with Kylian Mbappe (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Sheikh Jassim’s refusal to meet the demands of the Glazer family also echoes a growing emphasis on cost efficiency in Qatar expenditure, despite the state posting a budget surplus of $24.34bn for 2022, according to the state’s finance ministry, largely due to rising gas and oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Such cost-cutting has impacted workers from Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy for the World Cup.
In recent months, Qatari nationals who worked for the Supreme Committee (SC) received bonus payments for their work on the World Cup project, yet The Athletic has learned that expatriate workers, who accounted for 75 per cent of the workforce, have not been paid bonuses.
In September, a joint letter was sent by the expatriate workforce to Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who is the brother of the Emir of Qatar, and a different person from the Sheikh Jassim who led the bid for Manchester United.
The letter read: “The SC’s workforce has, over the last 12 years, been made up of experienced, talented and dedicated professionals from more than 50 countries. Expatriate employees accounting for approximately 75 per cent of the workforce — including direct hires, SC consultants and secondees — were ambassadors for the entire country, supporting Qatar’s right to host the tournament as if it were our own country.
“It is, therefore, devastating to learn that the SC’s expatriate workforce has been excluded from receiving an end-of-tournament bonus — an industry practice worldwide for events of this nature.
“It is noteworthy that despite severe financial cuts in 2020, the expatriate staff remained committed to this project, making significant personal sacrifice, but carried forward in part due to assurance from the SC that solutions would be found imminently. Many of our Qatari colleagues do not agree with this decision, having spent years working together to achieve the same goal. Such a decision goes against the values of the SC, of Qatar and dilutes the legacy of the tournament. We respectfully urge you to reconsider the decision to exclude expatriate employees from receiving a project bonus, ensuring a fair and equitable outcome for all those who delivered the tournament.”
The Supreme Committee and Qatari government did not respond when asked by The Athletic why the bonuses were not paid to expatriates, or whether the decision is considered discriminatory, as has been argued to The Athletic by disgruntled employees. The Athletic has also been told that FIFA, which does not control or operate the Supreme Committee, has received complaints about the bonus exclusions to their grievance system.
FIFA, whose president Gianni Infantino repeatedly declared Qatar hosted the “best” World Cup ever and who received a €1.6m bonus from his employer for 2022, declined to comment when approached by The Athletic.
Infantino presents Lionel Messi with the World Cup, watched by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
The perceived mistreatment of expatriates has increased an exodus of employees across the border to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which is overseeing its own ambitious and controversial expansion within the sporting world, most notably through the Saudi Premier League in football and a shake-up of the golf industry.
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Qatar appeared to be responding in kind, by clawing a rare and prestigious asset in Manchester United into Qatari hands, only to come up short. It has left some strategists wondering what exactly the strategy is for Qatar and sport in the long term.
Representatives of Sheikh Jassim insist he does not intend to buy a different football club, but it remains to be seen whether the state — or a proxy for the state — may seek to return elsewhere to the Premier League. Qatar still retains key sporting assets: hosting the Asian Cup in football early in 2024 and the Asian Games for 2030, while also holding a Grand Prix slot in the Formula 1 calendar, as well as boasting a major sport broadcaster in beIN Sport. Qatar will also host the World Aquatics Championships in 2024 and the World Table Tennis Championships in 2025.
As for luxury and prestige, there may be one more trick up the Qatari sleeve, as decision-makers are now seeking to claim the Olympic Games in 2036. Qatar has failed in three previous bids but the state is optimistic that it has demonstrated its ability to host a major event in the form of the World Cup, although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) may be wary of the manner in which Qatar upset major FIFA sponsor Budweiser on the eve of the World Cup.
Additional complications can be found in the scorching summer temperatures, but there are precedents for later starts to the Olympic Games at Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988 and Sydney 2000. The Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, has been a member of the IOC since 2002.
Some strategists believe that Qatari officials could be persuaded to join forces with their Saudi neighbours for what may become a regional Olympics. It would be the first Games to be hosted in Muslim and Arab countries. The Qatari Olympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
(Top photos: Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Alex Livesey, Catherine Ivill/Getty Images; design: Samuel Richardson)
