UEFA Urged to Block Qatari Bidders for Manchester United to Protect Integrity of Competitions
UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, was pleaded to by FairSquare, a human rights advocacy group to block and hault any sort of Qatar-based bid to buy Manchester United.
The Glazers had announced previously in 2022 November that they were hunting for potential purchasers. According to latest reports, it is being rumoured that Qatari investors are quite confident about being able to acquire the Premier League giants from the American family.
UEFA blocks Quatari bid for Man United takeover
However, the biggest potential issue in between Qatar’s bid for the takeover is that they are also the owners of the French giants, Paris Saint-Germain through Qatar Sports Investments.
According to the rules of UEFA, two different clubs which are being owned and controlled by the sam entity, cannot qualify at the same time for competitions like the Champions League.
The regulation states that no individual or legal entity may have any control or influence of any form over more than one single club which are participating in a UEFA club competition.
FairSquare, the human rights research and advocacy group has taken the burden of writing to the UEFA president, general secretary, and Premier League chief executive to urge them to block the United takeover while the QSI was still owning the Parisian club.
The letter has stated that basic study of Qatari political and economic system shows that any Qatari consortium is not free and independent of state influence and thus, cannot be considered separate from the ownership of the French club, PSG.
It went ahead to state that Qatar was considered “not free” because Qatar’s hereditary emir held all sort of executive and legislative authority and power, he was the one ultimately controlling the judiciary.
The letter went ahead to bring to light about the UEFA’s regulations of being clear that no single party could exercise superior control and influence over more than one club, and this becomes even more problematic when the owners are States.
“State ownership of European football clubs jeopardizes the integrity of the game, its proclaimed values and its sustainability,” it stated.
United will be wishing that UEFA treats them with leniency after RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig proved to be separate players despite both being related closely with Red Bull, and having competed in the same competitions under UEFA.
