When you’re spending north of £5bn on a business deal the need to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s is obvious, though the Man United takeover talks are already taking on farcical proportions.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have expected anything different given that the selling party are the Glazer family. An owner that appears to have shown nothing but contempt for the club and its fans in the entire time they’ve owned this great football club.
Despite long since having passed the third and supposed final deadline for bids, with a preferred bidder than expected to be announced, senior journalist Ben Jacobs noted via his Twitter account that the Qatari delegation still believe that they’re in the race, even though it was thought the bid from Sir Jim Ratcliffe was more likely to be the one accepted.
With just a fortnight left until the end of the season, and the process for new ownership starting late last year, the situation any new owner is likely to find themselves in will surely impact heavily on first-team manager, Erik ten Hag.
The Dutchman needs to find out how much money he will have available in the summer transfer window as a matter of urgency, and he’s unable to do that if no new owners are in place.
Even if this does get decided in the next few days, there’s still a period of exclusivity that needs to be gone through and that too will likely affect any timescales.
It isn’t really a surprise that things have ended up like this, and the sooner the Glazers move on, the better for all concerned.