Kieran Maguire swipes at Premier League after £917m Man United reveal – ‘not good for football’
The Premier League’s cap on leveraged buyouts could cause a ‘worst-case scenario’ for Man United and other top-flight clubs.
That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who exclusively told Football Insider that the Premier League’s new takeover policy is problematic.
As reported by The Telegraph, Premier League clubs have voted to cap leveraged buyouts at around 65 per cent of a club’s value.
The ban has been introduced to stop new owners from building up huge sums of debt at football clubs similar to the Glazers’ Man United takeover in 2005.
The Red Devils are now on the verge of another takeover, with Sheikh Jassim going head-to-head with Sir Jim Ratcliffe to purchase the Manchester club this summer.
Maguire believes the cap is simply ‘smoke and mirrors’ from the Premier League as the ban on fully-leveraged buyouts is only in place for a year.
“The news from the Premier League is a lot of smoke and mirrors,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.
“Once you start to look at the small print, by all accounts, you’re not allowed to borrow more than two-thirds of the purchase price at the initial acquisition date.
“But that only lasts for 12 months.
“So therefore after a year what we could have is, in fact, a worst-case scenario where a bidder effectively borrows from a third party or non-traditional sources for the first year and then revamps to a 100 per cent owned LBO after a year.
“And I just don’t think that that’s good for football.
“Manchester United have paid £917million in interest under the Glazers.“
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