Sheikh Jassim’s Qatar takeover bid for Manchester United is now set to enter talks at Old Trafford next week.
That is according to the Daily Mail, who have reported on the plans for the next stage of the discussions to buy the club.
They say that interested parties, with Qatar and Sir Jim Ratcliffe the only two publicly declared bidders, will be invited to Old Trafford.
They will get presentations on various areas of the club such as scouting, transfer strategy, commercial, finance and day to day running of the first team.
Sheikh Jassim first in line for Manchester United takeover talks at Old Trafford
They say that talks are due to take place over the next fortnight, but Sheikh Jassim’s representatives are set to be first ahead of the INEOS bid.
The report is definitive about when Qatar will be invited to United – next week – while it is thought that Sir Jim will be next, it seemed less certain in terms of timeframe.
John Murtough will apparently be key to the process, given his knowledge of the inner workings of the club in recent seasons.
Interested parties will also get estimates on the potential cost of improvements to Old Trafford and the Carrington training ground.
On the back of these talks, bidders will be told to come back with a second bid having now had access to more information about United.
Then, the third round of talks should see the Raine Group and the Glazers choose just one bid to go forward with exclusively.
Further negotiations could take place at that stage, and the report says a final decision could be made by the end of March if all goes to plan.
Meanwhile, on the pitch, United need to get back to winning ways after Sunday’s result, and have the chance to be in the Europa League quarter-finals and the FA Cup semi-finals by the time March’s international break rolls around.