Inside the 48 hours that clinched Manchester United takeover deal for Sir Jim Ratcliffe

Revealing documents filed in the United States have described how Sir Jim Ratcliffe was ready to walk away from the Manchester United deal just days before it was agreed.

British billionaire Ratcliffe, the founder of petrochemicals firm INEOS, secured 25 per cent of the club and oversight over its football operations for a sum of around £1.2bn on Christmas Eve, ushering in a new era, of sorts, at Old Trafford.

While the deeply unpopular regime of the Glazer family retains overall control of the football club, the arrival of Ratcliffe and the minds that spearhead his sporting assets with INEOS has been welcomed in bringing about the hope of some strategic change to go about rebuilding the club on the pitch and returning it to a position of title challengers on a regular basis.

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But while the deal arrived on Christmas Eve, Ratcliffe had, as revealed in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings in New York made public on Wednesday, been ready to walk away by Christmas Day if an agreement wasn’t reached by shareholders.

After Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, Ratcliffe’s main bidding rival, withdrew from the process in October, the 71-year-old was effectively the only show in town for United if they wanted to get a deal done, having gone back and forth over an agreement for a year. Sheikh Jassim was revealed in the filings to have failed to produce the requested commitment of funds at any stage.

In a critical 48 hours for the deal, SEC filings showed that United held an informal board meeting on December 22 where