Man Utd takeover: What Qatar ownership would mean for the Red Devils | The Promised Land
As reported by 90min earlier in the week, a Qatari consortium are preparing a bid to buy Manchester United.
The state-funded consortium potentially going head-to-head with Sir Jim Ratcliffe in the race to purchase the club has, as expected, spark quite a lot of debate among United fans.
90min's Man Utd podcast 'The Promised Land' have discussed the potential sale at length in their latest episode.
On this edition of TPL, Scott Saunders & Rob Blanchette discuss the Qatari interest in Manchester United, both fixtures versus Leeds United in the Premier League, Man City, Jadon Sancho & more! If you can't see this embed, click here to listen to the podcast!
The Promised Land on Qatari bid
Rob Blanchette: "Do Manchester United need Qatar? Or does Qatar need Manchester United? I think it's the latter, I think Qatar need Manchester United more than the football club needs an owner from Qatar."
Scott Saunders: "The argument is, really, do United need an excess wealth such as the one they'd get from Qatar to compete? I think if you plunged in that amount of money, United would go so far ahead of everybody else. You look at what [state-ownership] has done to [Manchester] City but you think United are naturally at the top with revenues anyways and one of the biggest clubs in the world, if not the biggest. Do they really need it?"
Rob Blanchette: "I think football is a machine that is obsessed with more, more, more. You have more money, you buy better players, you win more trophies. That equation has been in place for many years, it's not new and it's not come about with middle eastern ownership.
"I do think that if Man Utd had Qatari owners and access to that wealth then, of course, they're going to be better than they have been in the last 10 years.
"The question should be 'should you have it [this investment]?' I think that's the better question. Should we be encouraging this amount of capital into football, and then still believe that football still has values and a soul and is owned by the people. Football's always been sold as the game of the people in this country, but you know what, in a wider aspect, that's not really true. We know it's just a commercial machine for a lot of people.
"I think the whole thing with this bid and about Qatar potentially buying the football club is sportswashing.
"We need to talk about Man City because Man City are what Man Utd would be. If Man Utd accepted this bid, the Glazers get out of town, Manchester United are going to become Manchester City 2.0.
"That's exactly the model they [Qatari owners] will use to become a successful team again. The question to United fans is 'do you want to be Man City 2.0? Or do you want to be Man Utd?'
"Manchester City fans will always know that they would have won none of those trophies if not for that investment and without that ideology [sportswashing] being pumped into their club, and now they might get punished for it. They might lose all their titles, they might get relegated, and we know why. It's been the biggest open secret in football for years, about how Man City have been conducting their business.
"Do we want to be answering those questions at Man Utd in seven years time? Do we want titles taken off us?"