Tribalfootball.com's football finance expert Peter Taberner examines Sir Jim Ratcliffe's share purchase in Manchester United and speaks with Dr. Raffaele Poli about what is ahead for the Premier League giants...

Sir Jim Ratcliffe's deal; to buy 25% of Manchester United has now received approval from the FA and the Premier League after being initially agreed on Christmas Eve, in a move that could change the direction of the biggest club in Britain.

The agreement declared that Ratcliffe would acquire 25% of Class A and Class B shares from the club, with the latter being exclusively held by the Glazer family which carry greater voting rights power.

Its is estimated that the price of buying the shares has reached around $1.3 billion.

Ratcliffe's team will take over the football operations, in what is aimed to be a transforming move.

Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson United have struggled to replicate the successes achieved under the managerial great, with recruitment being a major issue. Uefa's European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report recently showed that the current squad is the most expensive ever assembled in history, costing £1.21 billion in transfer fees.

Ratcliffe and his new team will want to ensure there is a far more structured approach to transfers, with more value for money considering the price of Antony, Andre Onana, Mason Mount and an ageing Casemiro. It's been a constant theme for over a decade, factoring in the signings of players such as Angel Di Maria, Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba and Harry Maguire, which were totally overpriced compared to their talents.

Ratcliffe appears to be a man in a hurry to get his football operations crew put together.

He has already poached Omar Berrada from neighbours Manchester City as the new CEO, and Dan Ashworth currently at Newcastle has been approached over the director of football role.

As part of the deal a further £300 million has been allocated for future investment into Old Trafford, alongside investment into the team Ratcliffe will have to show that he has the personal wealth to match his visions for the club.

The shares in United have been bought by Trawlers Limited, a company named by Ratcliffe in reference to Eric Cantona's famous quote following his kung-fu kick at Selhurst Park in 1995. It's an almost mysterious new firm that was created on October '23 in the Isle of Man, and is registered with its government.

In United's filings to the United States' Security and Exchange Commission, as part of the club is registered on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the statement revealed that Ratcliffe has liquid assets that are in excess of $4 billion.Yet the filings also stated that due to Ratcliffe's ownership of INEOS, his net worth is considerably more than those assets.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index Ratcliffe's net worth is a staggering $18.2 billion, and INEOS has current revenues of around $65 billion operating in 30 countries.

There is no doubt that Ratcliffe would have the capacity to draw on huge resources to invest in the team, and should he wish to redevelop Old Trafford and the club's facilities.

Of course the focus will also be on how to drive up United's revenue even more from its powerful commercial base, and the increased £6.7 billion domestic broadcasting rights contract for the Premier League beginning in 2025/26 is a boost.

Ratcliffe's stake in United also bucks the now well established movement towards foreign ownership for Premier League clubs. Going into this season, 15 out of the 20 clubs owners in the league were from overseas, eight of them from the United States.

Dr. Raffaele Poli of the CIES Football Observatory based in Geneva reflected on the Ratcliffe stake in the Old Trafford club. He told Tribalfootball.com: “In some ways it is a surprise as there has been a clear trend of foreign investment buying into English football.

“The INEOS group is very active in other countries, in France and in Switzerland, but now he is raising the bar with the amount of the investment being made, of course you cannot compare United to much smaller clubs.

“For sure the money that is being generated is not just from England as a global group is behind it, and is a reflection of the picture or globalisation, but there is a UK owner who has UK citizenship.

“I think that Ratcliffe has the resources to invest in the team alongside the stadium and other infrastructure projects at the club.

“At the moment he has a minority stake, but in the future there is a rationale for him to take control of the club, and eventually he will increase his holdings and power at United.

“It is also true that to have 100% control is increasingly difficult as clubs are more expensive to buy, as we saw at Chelsea it was a consortium of investors who took over."

United will remain listed on the NYSE, which might have been different if the Qatari bid spearheaded by Sheikh Jassim was approved.

There are many pros and cons of being publicly listed, the advantages include access to increased capital through investment, with increased transparency attracting potential investors.

As in this deal shares can also be used for mergers and acquisitions. While headwinds can include responsibility to shareholders, increased government regulations and compliance, and there is always the possibility of market volatilities.

Poli continued: “What we have seen in the past and so far is that there are only a few clubs that are on the stock market, and typically there is more interest when things are going well to raise new funds.

“I see more and more investments into the game coming from private equity rather than more clubs turning to the stock market, and if that happened to United then the club would be taken off stock exchanges."

Many eyes will be on how this new INEOS project develops.