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Today's exclusive column, featuring Man Utd, Barcelona, and more.

Manchester United takeover latest as Sheikh Jassim withdraws offer

We start today with an important update on the Manchester United takeover - Sheikh Jassim is prepared to withdraw his bid for the club. We have to wait for the official steps, but that’s the feeling now.

So, what happened? In recent days, Sheikh Jassim and his group had new discussions and negotiations with the Glazer family advisors. They presented a new proposal to buy Manchester United, but their answer was a very clear ‘no’. The current official market value of Manchester United is $3.2bn - what Sheikh Jassim bid was almost double that.

Still, the Glazers are the Manchester United owners and so it’s up to them, they can ask for whatever price they want. In the end they were not happy with the Sheikh Jassim proposal. From what I understand, Sheikh Jassim was also ready to invest an extra $1.5bn into financing new stadium plans, improving the training centre and academy, new players, and money for the community.

Now, my understanding is that Sheikh Jassim will leave the process to buy Manchester United. At the moment, it’s off, but we’ll have to wait for official steps because they are not officially commenting on this story right now. We have to wait for the next steps, but that’s the feeling at the moment.