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Finnish billionaire, Thomas Zilliacus, who made a bid to buy Manchester United last spring, is currently wanted by police in Singapore.
As news broke this week about INEOS’ deal being officially confirmed by the football club, much worse reports have come out about one of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s early competitors.
According to The Daily Express, “Singapore police have issued an arrest warrant and an Interpol Red Notice against former Manchester United bidder Thomas Zilliacus”.
Elaborating further on the issue the English paper reports, “the 67-year-old now finds himself the subject of an arrest warrant in Singapore. Zilliacus is wanted over his alleged involvement in the release of misleading statements by YuuZoo, a company he previously headed in the city-state”.
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) have made the following statement.
“Upon investigation, several such financial reports released by YuuZoo between 2015 and 2016 were alleged to be materially misleading in that they overstated YuuZoo’s revenue by US$4.6 million (£3.6m) to US$18.8 million (£14.8m)”.
Such news suggests that United dodged a massive bullet not going further down the line with the businessman.
The Finn made headlines with his novel approach to buying the club, by suggesting that all three buyers, himself, INEOS and Sheikh Jassim, should merge their bids together to match the Glazers’ £6 billion asking price.
In an interview with The Mirror in March last year he claimed, “I don’t see any reason why I can’t work with Sir Jim and Sheikh Jassim. It makes perfect sense”.
Expanding on the issue he stated, “we could agree on a price the Glazers will accept and instead of one of us paying a huge sum to buy United, we split the cost into three. We then use the money we have saved to improve the club and pool our collective expertise to help rebuild the club we all love”.
Naturally, the other competitors were not so keen on this idea.
Zilliacus soon pulled out of the deal, labelling the process a “farce” and accused the Glazers of “giving no respect” to the club.
The billionaire was also recently in the news and it was relayed by The Peoples Person that he would love the opportunity to talk to Sir Jim Ratcliffe about his fan platform model that could generate Manchester United as much as $20 billion in revenue.
He claimed that his team was drafting an app that would give fans the opportunity to take part in big decisions affecting the club.
Through this mechanism, supporters would be able to give their input on matters such as transfers and dividend payments and the price they pay for this control could generate up to $20bn.
Even if INEOS were inclined to entertain his idea beforehand, which is unlikely, they will now definitely not think about entering into any sort of deal with the Finn any time soon.
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