Sources: Talks update as Man United chiefs meet with Saudi VIPs, £235m deal key
Reports that Man United were on the verge of signing a shirt sponsorship deal with the Saudi Arabia tourist board only for talks to collapse at the 11th hour are wide of the mark, sources have told Football Insider.
United are actively searching for a new front-of-shirt partner after buying back their rights from TeamViewer, who have been troubled by the meek results of the £235million alliance, in December.
A recent report erroneously claimed that United CEO Richard Arnold met with representatives of Visit Saudi shortly before the end of 2022 with a view to announcing a deal within days.
But a sponsorship broker has now told Football Insider that, although the summit did take place, the talks were only preliminary in substance and were in fact held in early November, several weeks before the date stated by the report.
It is worth noting that the timeline indicates that the Red Devils were courting new sponsors well before they announced that they had bought back their front-of-shirt rights from TeamViewer.
Also of significance is the fact that the discussions are likely to have taken place before the Glazer family revealed their intentions to sell United, with the official statement having been made on 23 November.
It is not known whether Visit Saudi remain in the running to sponsor United, although matters could be complicated by the reported interest of Saudi-based consortiums in the acquisition of the club.
Groups from Saudi Arabia as well as fellow gulf states Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have all been linked with a full takeover deal.
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