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Prospective Manchester United owner Sheikh Jassim had a brief period as president of a Qatari club in the early 2000s.
Sheikh Jassim is the frontrunner to take over the Old Trafford outfit and launched a fifth bid for the club last month, understood to be for 100 per cent ownership.
Failsworth-born Sir Jim Ratcliffe, owner of Ineos, remains in the running and has also submitted multiple bids, albeit it’s understood his latest offer is for a majority ownership, potentially allowing the Glazer Family to stay on in some capacity.
The general consensus is that Sheikh Jassim is in pole position with the protracted takeover seemingly edging closer to a conclusion. And it won’t be his first football experience. Sheikh Jassim was involved with Al-Sadd in his homeland at the turn of the century.
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It was a short-lived tenure and the role wasn’t hands on, but during his brief presidential reign the club returned to the top of the table while he also saw profits made on players.
One example was former Portsmouth strike John Utaka, who arrived at the club for a mammoth fee by the Qatari League of around $1.5 million dollars from Ismaily in Egypt. The Nigeria international was sold on for just over double that fee, joining French side Lens.
That approach of selling players for profit was a key part of the Al-Saad business plan under Sheikh Jassim, hinting that he would not spend for the sake of it should he arrive at United.
Martin Lowe, Asian Football Writer for the Asian Game, provided the Manchester Evening News with some more detail on Sheikh Jassim’s background in football in Qatar.
He said: “Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani, not to be confused with the brother of the current Emir Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is an instrumental figure in developing modern day Qatari football, both domestically and through the introduction of the Aspire Academy, is most notable for being the son of the country’s former prime minster Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani.
“Sheikh Jassim was briefly president of Al Sadd at the early part of the century. Clubs in Qatar aren’t owned per se, instead they are funded by the state. Presidents are nominal powerful roles, but the day-to-day running is left to the CEO.
“Sheikh Jassim’s role in this would have been more political and ceremonial than offering any tangible impact on the pitch, however he oversaw a time where the club returned to the top of the domestic league.
“Since he left later in the decade, he’s been largely out of football, switching his formalised roles to the finance sector with the Qatari Islamic Bank.”
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