It could be the Battle of the Emirates in the city of Manchester if Qatar Holdings succeed in wresting control of Manchester United from the Glazers. Reports suggest that a negotiating team is about to fly to the United States.
What gives some credence to what are really rumours is that it is known that Qatar is interested in acquiring a Premier League team to legitimise winning the 2022 World Cup. And why not buy the best if you can afford it?
It could be the Battle of the Emirates in the city of Manchester if Qatar Holdings succeed in wresting control of Manchester United from the Glazers. Reports suggest that a negotiating team is about to fly to the United States.
What gives some credence to what are really rumours is that it is known that Qatar is interested in acquiring a Premier League team to legitimise winning the 2022 World Cup. And why not buy the best if you can afford it?
This news may not go down too well with the green-and-gold campaign as they may think it is a case of swopping one remote foreign owner for another. They would prefer some form of mutual ownership by fans and indeed that is the stated policy of the Coalition Government.
However, any government has to be very cautious about how it intervenes in foreign acquisitions. Competition policy is shared out between the EU and the member state government, although I think that the size of takeover involved would fall under domestic jurisdiction. However, there could also be some restraints under WTO TRIM rules and OECD rules, although Qatar is not an OECD member. Qatar is a WTO member, but my reading of the TRIM rules is that they would not apply to football clubs (although a trade lawyer might be able to argue the contrary).
The more general point is that the UK has been open to foreign investment since the 19th century. It might be good populist politics, though, for the Coalition Goverment to try and intervene in a football club takeover, but they might not want to upset a wealthy Gulf state. I am also not sure that they would have a basis in law to intervene (this would probably depend on whether provisions in the 1975 Industry Act have been repealed).