Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS, Manchester United’s minority owner, is exploring the sale of French side Nice.
New York-based investment bank Lazard has been tasked with finding a buyer for the Ligue 1 club and is looking for a price of €250m ($283.2m, £213m at current exchange rates).
Any potential sale of Nice is complicated by the uncertainty surrounding the Ligue 1 broadcast deal. It was confirmed on Friday that the league’s deal with DAZN has collapsed, with the streaming platform ending the four-year contract after just one season.
As it stands, French football does not have a domestic TV deal for next season and Ligue 1 teams have been told by the French football’s financial regulator not to include media revenue in their budget projections.
INEOS agreed a deal to purchase 100 per cent of Nice for €100m from the club’s previous Chinese-American ownership group, led by Chien Lee and Paul Conway, in 2019. The petrochemical firm acquired a minority stake in Manchester United in February 2024, with the Glazers remaining majority owners of the club but INEOS controlling football operations.
INEOS has invested significantly in Nice, with accounting showing it has put in €216million ($245m) in shares, which does not include other loans they may have made. However, INEOS’ ownership has not always been hugely popular with the Nice fanbase, who have viewed themselves as an afterthought in the company’s multi-club model.
Speaking in March, Ratcliffe said he did not enjoy watching Nice due to the standard of football and conceded the club had been running successfully this season without the input of INEOS.
“I don’t particularly enjoy going to watch Nice because there are some good players, but the level of football is not high enough for me to get excited,” Ratcliffe told The Times.
“The best season that Nice has had is this one, where we’ve not been allowed to get involved because of multi-club ownership rules. They’ve been so much better without our interference!”
Nice are sixth in Ligue 1 and on Friday beat league champions Paris Saint-Germain to end their hopes of becoming the first Ligue 1 team to go an entire league season unbeaten.
When both United and Nice qualified for the 2024-25 Europa League, UEFA rules required a temporary arrangement which saw a “blind trust” operating Nice. As a result, Nice describes neither INEOS or Ratcliffe having “control or decisive influence” at the club. This was only a temporary solution to enable Nice to play in the same UEFA club competition as Manchester United this season.
Lazard declined to comment when approached by The Athletic and INEOS has not responded to a request for comment.
The potential sale of its stake in Nice follows INEOS Britannia, Ratcliffe’s company’s sailing team, withdrawing its challenge for the next America’s Cup, having split with former team principal and skipper Sir Ben Ainslie in January.
It was also announced in April that INEOS had settled a sponsorship dispute with New Zealand Rugby (NZR) over the pair’s performance partnership.
INEOS also owns Swiss club Lausanne and has further sporting ventures outside of football, owning one-third of the successful Mercedes F1 team and the INEOS Grenadiers Tour de France-winning cycling team.
(Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)