Manchester United’s takeover process is set to take another step, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani expected to submit better offers.

A value of around £5billion has been cited for the offers – down from the £6billion valuation set by the current owners, the Glazer family, but a potential world record for the purchase of a sports team.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the world’s most expensive sports acquisitions.

Denver Broncos

NFL team the Denver Broncos was bought by the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group last summer for US$4.65bn (about £3.8bn). The new team of owners was led by Rob Walton, heir to the fortune of Walmart, the American retail giant. Lewis Hamilton and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are also part of the group.

chelsea

The current Premier League record is held by the Todd Boehly-led consortium, which took control of Chelsea last year after former owner Roman Abramovich’s assets were frozen over his links to Vladimir Putin. The total investment of £4.25 billion, including the purchase and money invested in the club, is a world record. American billionaire Boehly also owns stakes in the Los Angeles Dodgers and LA Lakers.

brooklyn nets

Taiwanese-Canadian billionaire Joseph Tsai, co-founder of tech company Alibaba, bought a majority stake in NBA franchise Brooklyn Nets and their Barclays Center home in 2019. Financial details were kept under wraps , but Bloomberg reported that the investment was 3.5 billion. US dollars (about £2.85 billion).

Carolina Panthers

US hedge fund manager David Tepper bought the NFL franchise, the Carolina Panthers, in May 2018 for nearly $2.3bn (around £1.85bn). Tepper was once a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Houston Rockets

Houston restaurant billionaire Tilman Fertitta bought NBA team the Rockets in 2017 for $2.2bn (about £1.8bn), a record high for an American sports team.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Boehly was heavily involved in another of the sport’s biggest acquisitions – the 2012 purchase of the LA Dodgers baseball team by Guggenheim Baseball Management. The group, including Boehly and former basketball player Magic Johnson, paid $2.15bn (about £1.75bn) and oversaw a transformation that saw the Dodgers win the World Series in 2020.