Qataris receive Man Utd takeover boost as UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin makes rule change hint

Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani's bid to buy Manchester United has been given a potential boost by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.

United's owners, the Glazers, stunned the football and financial world in November by announcing they were exploring strategic alternatives for the club, that could result in an outright sale.

Thus far, British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim are the only individuals to publicly bid for a majority stake in the club, with the final deadline for offers on Friday.

While Sheikh Jassim is the current favourite ahead of Ineos founder Ratcliffe, it is by no means certain the Glazers are committed to a full sale.

Furthermore, much has been said of the feasibility of Sheikh Jassim's bid and whether his takeover attempt could be blocked due to his close links with the Qatari state and the potential for a conflict of interest.

Qatar Sports Investment (QSI) already owns a controlling share of Paris Saint-Germain.

Despite both being ultimately owned by the state, QSI and QIA (Qatar Investment Authority) are different funds altogether. This means that they have different people running the different funds and are completely different organisations in their own right.

Sheikh Jassim is adamant that his bid for United is privately funded through his Nine Two Foundation and completely separate from the Qatari state.

Ceferin on multi-club ownership

Speaking on the Men In Blazers podcast, Ceferin was asked about multi-club ownership – the ownership of more than one club competing in UEFA competitions by one entity, which is prohibited.

Ceferin admitted that European football's governing body already "pretend" that at least one club currently playing in UEFA competition do not share the same owners as another, while also hinting the rules around ownership could change in the future.

"For now we are just discussing it. There are clubs – or at least one – where we still pretend it’s not the same owner [as another] but it's the same owner, and I will not tell you which. You can guess," said Ceferin.

"One or two of those potential bidders for another club said to me, 'Look we have, like, 250 companies. We can do it [the takeover] from another company but we don't want to do that. Because it’s us. We can circumvent the rules'.

"They don't want to do it. So we have to discuss things."

Ceferin added that the question of multi-ownership went deeper than just its potential effect on UEFA competitions.

He added: "This is my dilemma, to be honest, I am not sure what will happen but for example, you can be an owner of two, three, four, five clubs. That is not a problem for Uefa. The problem is you cannot play in the same competition.

"You can think that if two clubs owned by [one person] competing in the same competition can agree who wins and who loses – although it’s not easy to do that [fix matches].

"But if I cannot play in the same competition as the other club of mine then I can lose in my national league because it doesn’t matter if I am a champion [or not]. It’s quite a complicated topic but I don’t have a solution yet."

UEFA declined the Telegraph's request for comment on Ceferin's remarks.