According to football finance expert Kieran Maguire, any delay to the sale of the Red Devils could lead to a transfer crisis within the club when the transfer window finally opens. He also adds that the high asking price put by the Glazers family who are the current owners is because United is seen as a "trophy asset". The deadline for bids for the club passed at 9 pm GMT on Wednesday, though reports have suggested both British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe and Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Al Thani requested an extension before submitting their respective offers. Maguire has now detailed why any potential owner of Manchester United would like to get a deal over the line quickly in preparation for the transfer window that will come at the end of the season. 

Maguire said “I think whoever does acquire Manchester United will want to do it as early as they can into the transfer window for the summer of 2023 because they'll be wanting to make a statement. Also, from the Glazers' point of view, they don't want to be committing themselves or committing the club to long-term contracts on players who might not be in favour with any potential new owners. So the danger is that if things are dragging on over the summer, there could be a vacuum with regard to player trading.” 
 

Several bids for either full ownership of the club or minority investment have already been made even though the most publicized bids are those of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Shekh Jassim who is a Qatari politician, This is because the two have been very open about their intentions to purchase the English powerhouse. Any winning bid is anticipated to need to be above the world-record amount paid for a sports team. The current record is held by the NFL franchise when the Denver Broncos were bought for a whopping $ 4.65 billion by the Walton-Penner family ownership group in the June of 2022. Kieran Maguire now explains that the funds involved in acquiring a sports team are more driven by billionaires “winning the room” among their peers rather than financial prudence. 

Maguire said "If you take a look at Chelsea, which was sold for around $ 3 billion last year, that was a distressed asset. Roman Abramovich had his assets frozen by the UK government at the time and I think that took a lot of people by surprise because Chelsea had lost well over £ 1 million a week for 19 years under Abramovich. You put that into any spreadsheet and the fundamentals say the business isn't worth it, but football is a trophy asset industry. There are many billionaires who want to make a statement and the way to do that is to buy a brand, to buy a franchise, which from a financial perspective the prices cannot be justified, but if you've got billions burning a hole in your pocket, what better way to win the room? If your social circle is fellow billionaires, everybody's got an apartment in Manhattan and Monaco, everybody owns a yacht, and everybody's got a few helicopters, but if you own a sports franchise that is as unique as the Broncos or in the world of football, Manchester United, then you win the room, and that's what the price is going to be linked to. On a cash flow basis, on a comparative basis to other football clubs, are Manchester United bigger than Newcastle United? Yes, it is, but is it worth 20 times the price of Newcastle? The answer, fundamentally, is no, but that's probably what it's going to take to persuade the Glazer family to sell."