{"id":47004,"date":"2025-10-19T18:31:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T18:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=47004"},"modified":"2025-10-19T18:31:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T18:31:22","slug":"eric-cantona-tipped-to-lead-uae-bid-for-manchester-united-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2025\/10\/19\/eric-cantona-tipped-to-lead-uae-bid-for-manchester-united-takeover\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Cantona Tipped to Lead UAE Bid for Manchester United Takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eric Cantona has been approached by a consortium of investors based in the United Arab Emirates to act as an ambassador for a potential bid to buy\u00a0Manchester United. Wayne Rooney and David Beckham are also on the group\u2019s radar for similar roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consortium is still being put together as it seeks the finance to firm up their interest in buying the club before it can approach the six Glazer siblings, who collectively are \u00adUnited\u2019s majority owners. The UAE\u2011based group are intent on \u00adhaving prominent former United players as ambassadors as part of this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bruno<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cantona, who played for United between 1992 and 1997, scoring 82 goals in 185 appearances, is \u00adconsidered one of the club\u2019s finest ever footballers and is understood to have been approached for a \u00adprominent ambassadorial role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rooney, who played for United between 2004 and 2017 making 559 appearances, is also of interest as the club\u2019s record \u00adgoalscorer \u2013 with 253 \u2013 and former captain. Beckham, who joined United as a schoolboy and was a key member of Alex Ferguson\u2019s 1999 treble-winning team, is the third distinguished former player on the consortium\u2019s wishlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Glazers served notice that part or all of the club was potentially for sale in November 2022. This attracted interest from Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, a Qatari banker, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain\u2019s richest people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven months later, Sheikh \u00adJassim\u00a0withdrew from the process\u00a0due to the Glazers\u2019 valuation of United being at more than \u00a36bn. Whether Sheikh Jassim would consider reviving his interest is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 2024 Ratcliffe became the club\u2019s single largest minority \u00adshareholder, and took control of the club\u2019s football operations, when \u00adpurchasing 27.7% of United. He has since increased that to 28.94%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Cantona has been approached by a consortium of investors based in the United Arab Emirates to act as an ambassador for a potential bid to buy\u00a0Manchester United. Wayne Rooney and David Beckham are also on the group\u2019s radar for similar roles. The consortium is still being put together as it seeks the finance to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[5873,5569,5307,5782,6732,12203,9127,5009,12354,5247,7985,9410,3874,11743,11252,115,13256,12917,1559,8547,7733,12204,10169,347,5235,594],"class_list":["post-47004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-alex-ferguson","tag-arab","tag-britain","tag-david-beckham","tag-emirates","tag-eric-cantona","tag-february","tag-ferguson","tag-finance","tag-football","tag-glazers","tag-jim-ratcliffe","tag-lead","tag-majority","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-united","tag-players","tag-ratcliffe","tag-rooney","tag-sheikh","tag-sir-jim-ratcliffe","tag-take-over-bid","tag-treble","tag-uae","tag-wayne-rooney","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47006,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47004\/revisions\/47006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}