Manchester United are facing the possibility of not playing in the European Cup next season due to Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
The British billionaire is about to complete a £1.3 billion deal with the Glazers, so that his company - INEOS - can buy a 25% stake in Man United. This is expected to be the first step in the process of taking over by stage.
However, this could also cause problems for the Old Trafford team. Accordingly, Ratcliffe's petrochemical group has owned French club Nice, raising the issue of the "Red Devils" hoping to be present in the Champions League.
According to UEFA's current regulations on "ownership of many clubs", the only way for both Man United and Nice to compete in the European Cup next season is for one team to participate in the Champions League group stage and the other team to directly participate in the Conference League.
A UEFA source told The Sun that the situation is very clear, as teams of the same owner are not allowed to compete in the same tournament, as stated in Article 5.02 of UEFA regulations.
If these two clubs finish as Champions League ticket holders through the Premier League and Ligue 1, the higher-ranked team will be given a place to participate, while the remaining team will be banned from playing in Europe.
However, if they finish in the same position, United will receive a nod because England are at the top of UEFA's "conditional list".
However, there is still some hope for both Man United and Nice. Earlier this year, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin hinted at a change in his conversation with former Man United captain Gary Neville, that the regulations on owning multiple clubs would soon be relaxed.
We are not just thinking about Manchester United, Ceferin revealed to Overlap in March. We have five or six club owners who want to buy another club. We need to see what to do. The options are to keep it the same or we allow them to play in the same tournament.
I'm still not sure. We have to talk about these regulations and see what to do with them. More and more people are interested in owning many of these clubs. We should not just say no to investments in ownership of many clubs. But we must consider which rule to set in that case because the rules must be strict.
Suppose you are the owner of two clubs and they play in the same tournament, you can say to a team that you have to lose because you want the other team to win.
But that's for you personally, but as a player, do you do that? Do you think it will be easy to tell the coach to lose the match because the other team wants to win? ".
