The Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) has published a letter outlining the issues which it is to consider in the light of the BSkyB takeover bid for Manchester United Football Club. The bid was made in early September (see Newsline), and was referred to the MMC by Peter Mandelson at the end of October (see Newsline).
In a rare move, the MMC highlighted around 30 issues which it will be considering involving the bid. Amongst them was whether the merger would limit access to Manchester United matches, staff and players by media not owned by or allied to BSkyB, and whether the merger going ahead would encourage other media owners to acquire football clubs, and what effect this would have on competition.
The MMC has as yet made no decisions as regards the bid, but released the issues letter because ‘the Group believes that it would be beneficial to the enquiry to make public its thinking on what issues it has to address, to inform third parties interested in making submissions and to enable them to tell us if they think that important points have been missed.’
BSkyB seemed unperturbed by the issues raised in the letter, and released the following statement this morning: “The Commission outlines the issues that we would expect them to investigate and we believe that we have clear and convincing responses to all of them. We look forward to putting our case vigorously in due course.
“We remain convinced that the bid does not raise any competition or wider public interest concerns. We believe the bid is good for fans, good for football, and good for Manchester United.”
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