'Lucknow United': Netizens react as Manchester United owners bid for new IPL team

Amid rumours that Manchester United owner Avram Glazer could be the owner of one of the two new IPL teams, memes and jokes surrounding the potential buy have flooded the internet. Netizens are going as far as to mock Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who has been facing a lot of criticism over his team's performance in the ongoing Champions League. Ever since reports of United buying an IPL team emerged, people started mocking the Norwegian manager, suggesting that the Man Utd legend could be sent to India to manage "Lucknow United". Here's a compilation of tweets where Twitterati can be seen having a laugh riot over United's potential IPL buy. 

IPL teams auction

The bidding process for the two new IPL teams is currently underway in the United Arab Emirates. According to the BCCI, the bid submission is completed and the verification is underway. According to reports, more than 22 entities have bought the bid documents but not all were present during the bidding of the two new teams in the UAE. The biggest prospects amongst the potential bidders are Jindal Steel, Torrent Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma, Avram Glazer (Manchester United owner), Adani Group, Sanjeev Goenka-owned business conglomerate RPSG. To keep smaller bidders out of the race, the BCCI made it mandatory for potential owners or their companies to have a turnover of more than Rs. 3,000 crore or more. In the case of a consortium, the BCCI has asked each investor to show a turnover of more than Rs. 2,500 crore. The new team is likely to go for around Rs 8000 crore. 

Earlier, media reports suggested that the tenders gave the potential bidders options to choose from around 8 to 10 cities from across India.  Apart from Ahmedabad, Pune, and Kochi, the other cities in the running for the two slots were Lucknow, Kanpur, Guwahati, Indore, Raipur, and Trivandrum.

Image: ManUtd/Twitter/PTI