Gaddafi almost bought Manchester United in 2004

Manchester United fans would be like Oh really??? but they did think what could have become of United if Gaddafi had owned United considering the bucket loads of cash the Glazers have plundered from the club since they took over in 2005.
 

Former Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was within hours of buying Manchester United, said a Turkish Cypriot investment banker who helped brokered the deal for the Glazer’s to takeover the club.

Paphos-born Mehmet Dalman, who is now the chairman of Championship side Cardiff City, revealed that he had flown to Tripoli to meet Gaddifi and according to him, Gadaffi who died in 2011 - discussed buying England's most famous football club in 2004.

Dalman said he flew to Libya on a borrowed private jet to discuss the deal when Irish tycoons John Magnier and JP McManus were selling their 29.9 per cent shareholding.

People don’t realise how the [takeover] deal was a whisker away from going to Libya,” he told the Sunday Times.

Gaddafi almost bought the club. That’s how close it got — literally you’re talking about a few hours.

He said the Irish tycoons fell out with former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson over the ownership of racehorse Rock of Gibraltar and asked Dalman to help flog their shares.

Dalman, a former adviser to Malcom Glazer, the late American billionaire who led the controversial family takeover of the Old Trafford club in 2005, said he met first with Gadaffi’s advisers, “and then the old man himself”, adding: “I remember saying, ‘Listen, you are buying the Church of England . . . you do realise that? Manchester United is a religion’.”

Dalman said Gadaffi had pressed for a deal but that they “couldn’t agree on the price, but it got very close”.

Gaddafi who was overthrown and killed in 2011, went on to purchase Italian club Perugia after the two parties failed to agree on a price for the controlling stake in the Red Devils.

Speaking to the Financial Times in 2005, Saadi Gaddafi, son to the late Libyan dictator said that they were almost on their way to buy Manchester United but kept it a secret as they thought the deal would go through.

Seven or eight months ago we were about to buy shares in Manchester United. We kept it secret because I thought we were going to do it. But now it's impossible, the younger Gaddafi said.

I told my father it would be like buying the Church of England. It's very hard, maybe impossible because of the fans and the history, very difficult. It's a golden, golden, golden, golden club.

The stake was eventually bought by the Glazer family who completed a full takeover at Old Trafford and controversially loaded the club with hundreds of millions in debt.