On February 21, Sir Jim Ratcliffe held court with journalists for the first time since the British billionaire acquired a 27.7 per cent stake in Manchester United in a deal worth more than $1.3billion (£1.03bn at current rates).

It followed an arduous struggle for Ratcliffe, whose company INEOS saw off competition from Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani, the son of a former Qatari prime minister, to wrestle control of football operations at Old Trafford. The Qatari bid sought to acquire 100 per cent of Manchester United and did not bend on this insistence.

When one journalist invited to INEOS’ London HQ suggested the bid fronted by Jassim had been “very odd” and that the sheikh had been an unfamiliar name to many, Ratcliffe quipped: “Still nobody’s ever seen him, actually. The Glazers (the family that owns Manchester United) never met him… he never… I’m not sure he exists!”

Ratcliffe also appeared to confirm that the Qatari bid had failed to produce proof of funds. This had first been implied by Manchester United’s filings to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January 2024 following the completion of Ratcliffe’s deal. Ratcliffe also said, “Yes, that is correct,” when a journalist suggested the Qataris had exaggerated the size of their bid.

To many, the long-running saga of Manchester United’s strategic review — launched in November 2022 to consider options “including new investment into the club, a sale, or other transactions involving the company” — appeared to be over. And Ratcliffe seemed to be having the last laugh.

However, The Athletic can reveal that legal representatives of Sheikh Jassim and his Nine Two Foundation (the vehicle established to bid for United) have sent legal letters to United lawyers in New York City and London to complain about “a pattern of demonstrably false and defamatory” statements made by Ratcliffe about their attempt to buy the club, which they call “Project Ruby”. They also demand “immediate corrective action” be made to the club’s SEC filings and accuse Ratcliffe of making comments in his interview in February that represented a breach of the confidentiality agreement signed by all parties concerning the sales process.

The complaint symbolises the intense frustration that developed among Sheikh Jassim’s team as they struggled to establish clarity as to what exactly the Glazers were seeking to achieve via their strategic review, with uncertainty throughout as to whether the family were ever truly united on the prospect of letting go of the Premier League team.

The Qataris were first moved to complain after United submitted their schedule filing to the SEC on January 17, 2024, which essentially represented an account of the chain of events that led to Ratcliffe taking a stake in the club. United are obliged to do this because the club is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In this filing, United stated that the Sheikh Jassim bid repeatedly failed to produce “customary financing commitment letters”, which was almost universally interpreted in media reports to mean that the bid failed to demonstrate proof of funds.

A legal letter was sent to Manchester United’s lawyers on January 24, 2024, in which representatives of the Qataris insisted the filing had created a “misleading” impression and made a request for “immediate corrective action”. This demand has not been fulfilled.

The Qataris argue in their correspondence that the Nine Two Foundation provided “definitive” proof of funds via a demand guarantee from Qatar National Bank (QNB). The Athletic has seen evidence that a senior executive from QNB wrote to United to confirm the ability of the Nine Two Foundation to fund the purchase of the club and clear the club’s debts, which still stand at more than £650million despite Ratcliffe clearing £120million off the bill in March.

Jassim in Doha in 2001 (Karim Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)

QNB, established in 1964, describes itself as the biggest bank in Qatar and “the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region”, with total assets of more than $300billion. United, the Qatari bid and QNB exchanged mark-ups of the guarantee in the final days of June 2023 and during the first fortnight of July. The Qataris appear to believe United ought to have included these details in their recounting of the takeover process.

Qatar’s legal correspondence says that the Nine Two Foundation made its fifth formal offer for United on June 1, 2023. This represented a bid of $5.072bn to buy out the club’s shareholders and a further $731million to clear the debt, bringing together an enterprise of value of $5.8billion. They also say they pledged to invest a further $1.3billion into Manchester United, which they argue brought the overall transaction consideration beyond $7billion.

This is why they seem to have been irked by Ratcliffe appearing to concur with a journalist that their bid had not been as high as suggested. The June 1 bid followed previous bids on February 17, March 24, April 28 and May 16, but there was exasperation among the Qatari bid that, because of their extreme wealth, there was an unreasonable expectation they would hit numbers that no other bidder had approached for a full sale of United.

Sources familiar with the discussions, who wish to remain anonymous because they are not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, also say the Qataris made further increases in verbal discussions and that the bid received the impression — but never formally in writing — that they had achieved preferred bidder status.

Manchester United declined to comment on that suggestion, but the club’s SEC filings stated the refusal to provide the customary financing commitment letter to be a stumbling block. Additionally, the club’s board wanted Sheikh Jassim’s bid to provide the same “per-share consideration” for the club’s Class A shareholders as that of Class B shareholders. The Class B shares hold 10 times the voting rights of Class A shares, so are the key to making decisions at United, while only Class A shares are traded on the market. The SEC filings say Sheikh Jassim was not prepared to do this, while Ratcliffe’s eventual stake saw both sets of shareholders treated equally, although the British investor, too, had reservations about this earlier on.

As for the matter of the existence of Sheikh Jassim, which appeared to be a line delivered in jest by Ratcliffe, this matter was addressed by Joe Ravitch, the co-founder of Raine Group, the merchant bank that marketed and brokered United’s strategic review.

In an interview with The Times of London in March, Ravitch said: “We met Jassim. He was in New York. He’s a lovely guy; a very smart guy. The Qataris were very real. They were very smart guys, very thoughtful. I don’t know why they didn’t appreciate the value (of the club) but we were not their adviser.

“We tried as the seller to explain the value to them, and they put what they thought was a series of very serious bids on the table.”

The Qataris’ legal representatives say in their correspondence to United that Sheikh Jassim met in person with Joel and Avram Glazer on July 26, 2023 — which contradicts Ratcliffe’s claim that the sheikh never met the Glazers.

Ractliffe at Old Trafford during the bidding process (Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

Sheikh Jassim did remain incredibly private throughout the process. He has not spoken to any media and he was even reluctant to allow the public relations firm promoting his bid to use photographs of himself, or confirm even the simplest of details about his life.

Speaking to The Athletic in Doha last month, Nasser Al Khori, a director of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy of the World Cup, said: “There was positive news that the deal was going through and then it just collapsed. So everybody was a bit shocked and kind of disappointed. There is a huge (Manchester United) fanbase here — including me. People are sad it didn’t go through.

“The deal from our perspective, that was on the table, was the best for the club to continue and to expand and to grow. For the Glazers, it was just a business deal. They didn’t really care about the club, which is unfortunate as the club has so much history and then it just comes to numbers. They took a loan and they bought the club — so the whole thing was just a bit weird.”

The Qataris sign off their most recent correspondence to United by demanding the club and Ratcliffe stop this pattern of “demonstrably false” statements, while saying they are still exploring all legal remedies and they have instructed United and Ratcliffe to preserve all documents regarding their client in relation to the transaction and the matters raised in their complaint.

Representatives of Sheikh Jassim and Manchester United declined to comment. The SEC has been approached for comment.

Additional contributor: Adam Leventhal