The Qataris are going to make a bid for Manchester United. But how easy will it be to get past UEFA ownership rules? The answer may be… very easy indeed.
That the Emir of Qatar should be showing his hand in the race to buy Manchester United is no great surprise. Qatari interest in European club football has been restricted to Paris Saint-Germain, and despite the vast amount of money thrown into that club over the years and the eight Ligue Un titles delivered since they bought the club in 2011, they’ve still failed to deliver the trophy that all billionaires about town fancy more than any other – the Champions League.
At least with Manchester United, there’s a history of success in this competition, even if it isn’t particularly recent.
But there’s one obvious hurdle to any takeover of an English club by the Qataris. UEFA has rules on this sort of thing, and they do not – in theory, at least – allow clubs with the same owners to face each other in their competitions, meaning that a Qatar-owned Manchester United and Qatar-owned PSG would not be allowed to compete in a Champions League match against each other should such a fixture arise.
For the record, United and PSG have met twice before in European competition, in the 2018/19 round of 16 – United won on away goals – and in the group stage two seasons later, when both teams won their respective away ties. (Indeed, it is a small quirk of European football history that all four of the matches between these two teams have been won by the away side.)
The Qataris seem very relaxed about this, with reporting suggesting that they are considering ‘trying to persuade Uefa to consider the possibility of adjusting or changing its regulations’. It’s tempting to think that such ideas are futile, that running head-first into a bureaucracy like UEFA would be a bit of a waste of energy, but it is also worth remembering that PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the chairman of Qatar Sports Investments, is also the head of the European Club Association, which means that he has a seat on the executive committee of, well, UEFA.
And if that isn’t enough, he’s also on the organising committee for the Club World Cup and is also the chairman of Bein Sports, who hold Champions League TV rights for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) area. He’s also described as a ‘childhood friend’ of the Emir of Qatar, and is on the board of the Qatar Investment Authority, the umbrella body under…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Football365…