Manchester United sale: Revised bids for club due on Wednesday evening

Potential Manchester United owners have been told they have until 21:00 GMT on Wednesday to submit second, revised offers for the club as the takeover saga accelerates.

How strict this deadline is and whether other bidders will appear remains unclear.

But it could mean that Raine – the investment bank conducting the sale – would very soon declare a “preferred bidder” who would then be granted exclusivity to the more thorough due diligence process that would take place.

It means the only two publicly declared bids – Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim and Ineos owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe – have had just days to scrutinize the data and information they provided during visits to Old Trafford and the Carrington last week -Discovered the club’s training complex.

Both parties are understood to have had positive talks with United officials and both are believed to be committed to a takeover and are expected to make improved, more detailed offers.

But while the amount both have offered so far hasn’t been disclosed (both are reportedly in the £4.5bn range), they’re well below the £5bn-6bn valuation that the American owners of the Clubs – the Glazers – have set .

Whether they — or other potential bidders — will be able to make an offer that will persuade the Glazers to sell is the next key question. If not, and with United’s fortunes improving significantly in recent months under manager Erik ten Hag, the Americans could still opt to keep the club and instead perhaps seek a minority stake in US hedge fund Elliott Investment Management for sale.

Interestingly, in a newly released Wall Street Journal interview conducted ahead of last week’s visit to Old Trafford, Ratcliffe said: “What you don’t want to do is pay stupid prices for things because you’ll regret it later”. a clear sign he is determined not to overpay for the club he says supported growing up in Manchester.

He also said his interest in the club was “purely in winning things” and called the club “a community value,” not a financial one.

Ratcliffe and his agents will hope for those feelings, and his presence in person on a visit to United on Friday – unlike his rival Sheikh Jassim – will reassure fans of his intention to be a visible, committed presence who represents the best interests of the United Nations Clubs care about. Ratcliffe was also joined by his team of sporting experts, including Ineos’ sporting director – former Team Sky cycling chief – Sir Dave Brailsford.

But as the process reaches a critical stage, the scrutiny of these two potential owners will intensify as well. The environmental campaign group Greenpeace has described the bidding war as a “dirty derby of ‘sports washing’ between fossil fuel linked companies”. It points out that Ineos is a major plastics producer and supports fracking, and that Qatar’s bid was funded in part by oil and gas in one of the world’s largest fossil-fuel economies.

Both bidders deny references to “sports laundry” and emphasize that behind their takeover attempts is a deep affection for the club. The Qataris have also tried to stress that their bid will be debt-free and come from an individual separate from the government. But critics also say that Sheikh Yassim’s bid, as a member of the country’s ruling family and son of the former prime minister, is effectively an attempt at state takeover. The risk, they say, is that United will then be used to distract from the country’s human rights record and discriminatory laws that get tangled in geo- and foreign policy.

Both deals must also address concerns about ties to other European football clubs, with a subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund owning French club Paris St Germain and Ineos already owning both Nice and Lausanne.

However, many United fans will simply want to see the end of Glazer’s highly controversial 18-year reign.