The Glazer family will consider selling a minority stake in Manchester United football club – according to reports.
According to Bloomberg, the United owners have held preliminary discussions about the possibility of bringing in a new investor.
Pressure is mounting on Joel and Malcolm Glazer following United’s atrocious start to the 2022-2023 Premier League season, with former defender Gary Neville calling for them to ‘explain their plan’ amid the club’s struggles.
Erik ten Hag’s side were beaten 2-1 at home by Brighton in their opening game of the season, before suffering a humiliating 4-0 defeat away at Brentford last weekend.
Red Devils fans and ex-players are desperate for radical changes to be made at Old Trafford, and Bloomberg’s report states that the Glazers are entertaining the idea of a significant change at board level.
While they are not yet ready to cede control entirely, it is believed the unpopular tycoons are now open to selling a minority stake in the club.
A full sale could cost potential suitors a staggering $6billion (£5billion), but the Glazers have no intention of walking away from United completely.
Discussions are believed to be ongoing over the matter, although there is no guarantee they will decide to offload any of their shares in the club.
Shares increased as much as 7.6 per cent in New York yesterday, with reports claiming the stock up was 4 per cent at 9:38am – giving the company an equity market value of $2.2billion (£1.8billion).
Given they remain one of the biggest clubs on the planet, the Red Devils would likely attract a number of high-profile investors in similar fashion to Chelsea, who were recently bought out by US tycoon Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital for £4.25billion.
They have such an appeal, in fact, that on Wednesday the world’s richest man Elon Musk tweeted that he is ‘buying Manchester United’ – only to later clarify that his post was a long-running joke.