Man Utd and Liverpool handed takeover blow over ‘better value’ factor

Britain’s richest man has put rumours of buying Liverpool or Manchester United to bed. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has often been linked with taking over United amid unrest over the Glazer Family ownership at Old Trafford. In fact, Ratcliffe, who is a United fan despite being a Chelsea season ticket holder, has already made an unsuccessful run at buying the Red Devils.

Speaking in October, Ratcliffe said: “Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family. I have met Joel and Avram. They are the nicest people, I have to say, proper gentlemen. They don’t want to sell it [the club]. It’s owned by the six children of the father. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes we would probably have had a go following on from the Chelsea thing. But we can’t sit around hoping one day Manchester United will become available.

“So what will happen now? We have a sports franchise. We own a third of Mercedes’ Formula 1 team. Robbed last year. The one thing we don’t have… football is the most popular sport in the world. We should have a premier club. Nice has got a very interesting history. We’ll have a look at what we might be able to do with Nice.”

Ratcliffe bought Ligue 1 side Nice in 2019, but he now finds himself being linked with another Premier League club in Liverpool after the Merseyside club’s current owners FSG reportedly decided to put the club up for sale this week.

But in the wake of those rumours, Ratcliffe has all but ended rumours of buying Liverpool or United, with this spokesperson telling The Telegraph: “Our position has developed since the summer and we are now focusing our efforts in Nice and raising our ambitions for the club to make them into a top-tier club in France to compete with PSG. This would represent much better value for our investment than buying one of the top-tier Premier League clubs.”