Red Knights abandon quest to buy United

The Red Knights' dreams of rescuing Manchester United from the grips of the Glazer family have come to a dead end.

It had been expected that the Red Knights group would launch a formal bid for the Old Trafford club at some point before the World Cup. However, the Glazer family last week stated it had no intention of selling the club and previous claims the American owners had already rejected a £1.5bn bid from a Far East consortium seem to have led to a belief among the Red Knights that there is little point making a substantially lower offer.

"The Red Knights remain committed to pursuing their efforts to try and help bring ownership of Manchester United to its supporters, and under a structure with materially less debt," said a statement yesterday. "As we have maintained since news of our ambitions first emerged, we will only attempt to purchase the club at a sensible price. Potential investors have strongly reinforced our views that we should not move forward at a price uneconomic for the future of the club."