He doesn't speak much, which means that when he does, he's listened to all the more closely. Sir Jim Ratcliffe spoke live online to the Financial Times over 90 minutes on Tuesday.

The global economy, the petro-chemicals industry and energy policy…the overview of the group's global activites started with a question on OGC Nice. The club owner was very clear when detailing his past, present and future commitment:  "We were fairly hands-off with Nice for the first two or three years, and we've got much more involved as of this summer. I'm sure you're going to ask me the obvious questions about these bigger clubs, but we've got quite a focus on what we can actually do with Nice in a more serious way."

As the INEOS founder suggested, the question of acquiring a "very big club" and Manchester United in particular came up later, and again his response was unambiguous: "I'm a lifelong Manchester United fan. I was there in '99, the most remarkable match in '99 in Barcelona. That's deeply etched in my mind, but Manchester United is owned by the Glazer family. I've met Joel and Avram, and they are the nicest people, I have to say. They're proper gentlemen, really nice people, and they don't want to sell it. It's owned by the children of the father, and they don't want to sell. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes, we would probably have had a go following on from the Chelsea thing."

Detailing the group's investments in top-level sport (F1, cycling, sailing, running…) and its quest for performance, Sir Jim acknowledged that INEOS could not yet congratulate themselves on having a representative of the same ilk in football, "the most popular sport in the world". An absence that relaunches the idea of acquiring "a Premiership club"? "Not a Premiership club, a premier club. Nice has got a very interesting history. It's an old club. It's in a very nice place. It's an attractive place for footballers because it's a Californian climate down there. And if I look at what Abu Dhabi did with Manchester City, what the Qataris did with PSG… PSG was just a Lyon or a Marseille 10 years ago. We'll probably have a look at what we might be able to do with Nice."

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