Barca wait in the wings but Pogba’s cost may be step too far
THERE are serious doubts whether Barcelona could afford the £100 million-plus fee that would be required to sign Paul Pogba, the Manchester United midfielder who wants to leave, even if such a move was sanctioned in January.
The fallout from Pogba’s training ground confrontation with Jose Mourinho will be addressed by the United manager at his press conference today.
Pogba had asked Ed Woodward (right), the club’s executive vice-chairman, to be allowed to leave before he captained United in the first game of the season against Leicester City.
United have so far said that Pogba, a club record £89m signing who agreed a five-year contract in 2016, will not be sold at any price, although the market for those who could afford him is close to non-existent.
The likelihood of Barcelona being able to pay the one-off fee that it would cost to sign Pogba is remote.
The only hope they would have of signing him on the basis of their most recent financial results would be if United were prepared to spread the cost of the player over the course of his contract — effectively a finance package for one of their chief European competitors.
When Barcelona sold Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain, the Brazilian’s £198m buy-out clause was paid up front and United would be within their rights to ask for the same deal for Pogba.
Barcelona are likely to release their financial results for 2017-’18 next month although they did disclose key figures in July.
Without the sale of Neymar in the summer of last year, the Catalan club would have made an operating loss of around €100m.
As with Real Madrid, whose finances were published this week, Barcelona have had to sell players to stay in the black over the past 12 months.
Paulinho went back to the Chinese league this summer after just one season at the club and they sold Yerry Mina and Lucas Digne to Everton for around €50m, while moved Andre Gomes there on loan.
The club’s capacity to make a big-name signing was laid bare in the summer when they failed to come up with a package that would persuade Antoine Griezmann to leave Atletico Madrid, who offered their player more. Griezmann signed a new deal at Atletico this summer thought to be worth around €20m less than Pogba would expect to command given the level he is on at United.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Jose Mourinho’s training ground confrontation with Pogba was centred on a social media post.
The matter has now been amicably resolved. Mourinho and Pogba were caught by Sky Sports television cameras sharing a tense exchange on Wednesday morning.
Pogba watched United’s League Cup defeat by Derby on Tuesday from the Old Trafford stands, having been stripped of the vice-captaincy by Mourinho hours earlier.
While watching the game, the midfielder recorded an Instagram video which showed him laughing and joking with teammates Luke Shaw and Andreas Pereira.
However, due to an intermittent Wi-Fi network at the ground, the post was not published until an hour after United’s loss.
Mourinho is understood to be satisfied with this explanation of events.