Are the Glazers losing interest in declining Man Utd?

Manchester United's majority owners, the Glazers, are reportedly interested in acquiring another club.

The six siblings have been calling the shots at Old Trafford since the head of the family, Malcom Glazer, completed his controversial takeover in 2005. Glazer, who passed away in 2014, acquired Man Utd via a leveraged buyout, which saw him saddle the club with exorbitant debt.

The Glazers have been among the most unpopular owners in football over the past two decades. Although the Man Utd brand has become one of the biggest in sports under the American family, sporting success has been found wanting since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

The Athletic recently reported that Avram Glazer, one of the more involved and hands-on siblings when it comes to the day-to-day running of Man Utd, has insisted that the club's sporting decline does not affect the business side.

He supposedly told a crowd of financiers in September that the club's value is protected from sporting variance, similar to the strong Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees brands.

Glazer's comments were an attempt to promote Man Utd to potential sponsors and investors, but the reality is that the club's lack of sporting success does influence commercial matters.

This year, Man Utd dropped from second to third in Forbes' list of most valuable soccer clubs, while The Athletic notes that income has "plateaued" over the past decade, which has allowed other elite European clubs to catch up and surpass the Red Devils.

Despite handing over sporting control to Sir Jim Ratcliffe when he acquired a minority stake in Man Utd in late 2023/early 2024, the Glazers have "remained intimately involved in setting budgets."

However, could it be possible that they are losing interest in Man Utd? We don't know, but we do know that not all of the six siblings are as passionate about owning the club as Avram and his brother Joel.

In the context of Man Utd's decline, it is interesting that the Glazers are reportedly keeping an eye on other investment opportunities. According to Saudi outlet Al-Riyadiyah, they are involved in the bidding process to acquire Al-Ittihad.

Up until earlier this year, the big four clubs in the Saudi Pro League - Al-Ahli, Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad and Al-Nassr - were owned by the country's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

The Saudi government has realised that it can't keep losing billions on sports and is looking to sell off its PIF clubs to private investors. 70% of Al-Hilal has already been sold to Kingdom Holding.

Currently, discussions are ongoing between a consortium led by AC Milan and Toulouse owner RedBird Capital Partners, which involves Cristiano Ronaldo, and the PIF over the purchase of a 70% stake in Al-Nassr.

As for Al-Ittihad, it is understood that three different consortiums are vying for control of the Jeddah giants. The Glazers have linked up with businessman Wael Jamjoom, who has been the chairman of SACO Hardware since July.

The second consortium involves Prince Saad bin Abdullah and American businessman Joshua Harris, who is one of the co-owners of Crystal Palace, among other investments. Former Al-Ittihad president Hamad Al-Sani could be installed as the group's CEO.

However, the coalition currently believed to be frontrunners to acquire the club comprises Sidra Financial Company and BlueFive Capital and is led by the sons of former honorary Al-Ittihad member Khalid bin Mahfouz.

This consortium has made the highest bid and has the strongest investment portfolio. It is therefore unlikely that the Glazers will win the race to purchase Al-Ittihad, but the fact that they are involved in the first place is eyebrow-raising, even if it is unclear what this means for Man Utd.

The Red Devils are already part of a multi-club set-up via the INEOS network, though this is unlikely to exist for much longer, with both Lausanne-Sport and OGC Nice for sale so that Ratcliffe can focus solely on his struggling boyhood club.

It has been suggested that Ratcliffe could look to buy out the Glazers in 2029, but this seems to be purely hypothetical at this point. Man Utd will have to put up with their unpopular owners for the foreseeable future.