Revealed: Qatari sheikh, 40, who launched a £4billion bid to return Manchester United to ‘its former glories’ is the son of ex-Prime Minister who gave King Charles Fortnum & Mason bags stuffed with cash
- Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani evealed his takeover plans on Friday
- The 40-year-old promised to ‘return the club to its former glories’
The Qatari sheikh who has launched a £4 billion bid to buy Manchester United is the son of a controversial former prime minister who gave King Charles bags stuffed with millions of euros.
Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, 40, chairman of Qatar Islamic Bank, revealed his takeover plans on Friday, promising to ‘return the club to its former glories’.
His father, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, was embroiled in a Royal scandal last year after it emerged he had donated €3 million to Charles in cash between 2011 and 2015.
The 63-year-old sheikh, known as HBJ, reportedly gave Charles €1 million placed in Fortnum & Mason carrier bags. The then Prince of Wales also accepted a holdall from the sheik containing a further €1 million during a meeting at Clarence House in 2015. A suitcase with €1 million in was handed to Charles on another occasion.
Sources said the total donations, amounting to more than £2.5 million, were paid into the bank account for the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund. But the episode raised fresh questions over Charles’s judgment, as the charitable fund had also previously received a £1 million gift from Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers Bakr and Shafiq.
SHAME: Charles and Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani in 2013
Qatar has lodged its bid for Man United, promising to restore ‘glories on and off the pitch’
The manager said the players and the club are following it but are focusing on football
The King’s former aide Michael Fawcett was also forced to quit as chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation in 2021 after The Mail on Sunday revealed a letter in which he promised to help a Saudi donor obtain a knighthood and British citizenship.
He wrote that the charity would be ‘happy and willing’ to use its influence to help tycoon Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, who donated thousands of pounds to help restore Dumfries House, the King’s 18th Century mansion in East Ayrshire, Scotland.
An independent investigation ordered by the charity found that Mr Fawcett had co-ordinated with ‘so-called fixers’ in a bid to land an honour for a donor. It was a spectacular fall from grace for the former valet, who was Charles’s closest confidant for 40 years. A friend of the King said he was ‘outraged’.
