Finnish businessman submits bid to buy Manchester United

Finnish businessman Thomas Zilliacus on Wednesday submitted a bid to buy English Premier League club Manchester United, said a press release issued by Zilliacus´s business organization on Thursday.

Zilliacus submitted the bid to buy the football club through XXI Century Capital, an investment firm owned by his holding company.

” Any sport club ultimately should belong to its fans” said Zilliacus, who has been chairman of Finland’s 32-times football champions HJK (Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi) and an owner of Finland’s 6-times ice hockey champions Jokerit.

Zilliacus is building his bid in a completely novel way, where the fans of Manchester United will have ownership and an equal say in all issues that relate to the football decisions at the club.

“The current market value of the club is just under 3.9 billion USD. That means that if every one of the fans of the club would join in buying the club, the total sum per fan would amount to less than 6 dollars. My bid is built on equality with the fans,” he said.

“My group will finance half of the sum needed to take over the club, and will ask the fans, through a new company that is being set up for this specific purpose, to participate for the other half. If every fan joins it means less than 3 dollars per fan. Each fan who joins will have access to an app which the fan, from anywhere in the world, can use to participate and cast his vote when deciding on footballing matters relating to the club. No decisions will be taken that are not supported by a majority of the fan base,” Zilliacus added.