British protectorate between 1916 and 1971, there was a time, during more than half of the last century and after the fall of the Ottoman empire, in which Qatar was a poor country with fishing as its main resource, feared being overwhelmed by more powerful neighbors ( Iran and Saudi Arabia) and accepted the protection of the Royal Navy in exchange for Britain controlling its foreign policy and using it to defend its strategic interests in the Gulf region. Now it is different. Now the emirate has plenty of money, it owns (through its sovereign wealth fund) Harrods department stores, Sainsbury's supermarkets, Barclays, part of Heathrow airport, the Ferris wheel, hotels like Claridge's and the Ritz, the Canary Wharf, the tallest skyscraper in London and numerous institutions in the country. Oil stuff.
On his shopping list he has entered Manchester United, a cultural icon, a club with a pedigree where they exist, with almost 500 million followers throughout the world and a tool par excellence of soft power (because there is little left of the other) from the United Kingdom, a corporate giant with a football team as an annex. What the Qataris would acquire is not just a club worth six billion euros (to start talking), but a history that goes back to its founding in 1878 as Newton Heath, the epic of the Busby Boys, the tragedy of Munich, the exploits of George Best and Bobby Charlton, the triumphs of Alex Ferguson, the League-Cup-Champions triplet of 99...
The American Glazer family, hugely unpopular with fans, has milked the cow as much as it can for nearly two decades (the late tycoon's six children have been paying themselves handsome salaries and dividends for years). She leaves him with a debt of 800 million and considers that the time has come to sell to the highest bidder. Which in this case is Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad, educated at the Sandhurst military academy, president of one of the main Qatari banks (QIB) and son of a former prime minister.
His main rival is the 27th richest Briton, billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, with interests in Nice and the All Blacks, but his total fortune is roughly what Man U would cost him, over to which another two or three billion euros would have to be added for the redevelopment of Old Trafford (or the construction of a completely new stadium that would be the envy of the world and would almost certainly not be carried out by a Turkish company at the price of discount). In other words, he would need financing from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or the like, with rising interest rates.
This is not the case of the Qataris, with 400,000 million euros in their sovereign wealth fund, to acquire the same hotels as soccer teams (Paris Saint-Germain case), or pay the commissions that were necessary to organize the World Cup. It is what in English is called sportswashing, washing with money and through sports the face of a country with questionable human rights practices, which exploits foreign workers and discriminates against women and gays.
The Abu Dhabi sheikhs own Manchester City; the Saudis, from Newcastle; a consortium led by the American Todd Boehly, from Chelsea, and his compatriots from the Fenway group, from Liverpool. The Premier League is giving lessons in morality, but it is increasingly a conglomerate of nation states that control the main clubs to make money or wash the face of countries.
In 1939 oil was discovered in Qatar. And it changed the history of football.
