UEFA may allow clubs with the same owner to play in the Champions League at the same time – a move that could have a big impact on the sale of Manchester United.
In an interview with Gary Neville’s The Overlap YouTube channel (via the Times), UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin dropped a major bombshell.
He said a rethink of the existing rules was needed to determine whether to keep the ban in place or allow clubs with the same owner to play in the same competition.
The two main bidders for Man United come from owners who have links with Ligue 1 clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Nice.
Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani is the chairman of one of Qatar’s biggest banks, raising potential issues about connections to PSG.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS group owns Nice, which could create a conflict if they were to feature in the same competition as United in the future.
Revising the rules would not only help Man United push through a sale but could also have ramifications across the rest of European football.
Ceferin said: “We are not thinking about Manchester United only. We’ve had five or six owners of clubs who want to buy another club. We have to see what to do.
“The options are that it stays like that or that we allow them to play in the same competition. I’m not sure yet.
“We have to speak about these regulations and see what to do about it. There is more and more interest in this multi-club ownership.
“We shouldn’t just say no for the investments for multi-club ownership, but we have to see what kind of rules we set in that case because the rules have to be strict.”
Ceferin insisted that two clubs under the same ownership could compete properly in the same competition without any issues.
He believes that coaches and players would prevent owners from manipulating the outcome of games due to their competitive nature.
“From one point of view it’s true if you are the owner of two clubs and they play in the same competition you can say to one club to lose because you want the other to win,” he added.
“But for you, as a football player, do you think it’s so easy to do that, to tell a coach, lose the match because the other wants to win?”
