SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Mercedes Formula One boss Toto Wolff has suggested his support of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola would make it hard to join team co-owner Jim Ratcliffe in buying into rivals Manchester United.
Ineos’s Manchester-born billionaire chairman Ratcliffe is poised to take a 25% stake in the Premier League side.
Asked whether he might be tempted to join the Briton, Austrian Wolff — also a co-owner of the Mercedes team — distanced himself from any immediate involvement.
“Here we go,” he told Sky Sports television when the question was put to him.
Wolff said Ratcliffe was “such a clever person” that he would be willing to have a chat if there was anything he could contribute “but no, that’s very far away.
“I’m a Premier League fan. I think it’s the toughest environment. I’m a Pep Guardiola fan, so I guess that’s not compatible.”
Guardiola was a guest of Mercedes at this year’s British Grand Prix and also at last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“We didn’t know each other but when I heard him talking, it was like my sentences, the same approach — and he said the same about me,” Wolff told Formula One’s ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast last year.
“Fundamentally, it’s down to human management, and (he is) someone that is certainly going to be part of my journey going forward because he was just on the same wavelength.”
Wolff was also photographed with Guardiola at Yas Marina holding a Manchester City shirt with Toto on the back.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Toby Davis)
