UNITED FACE HUGE BILL TO DITCH STAR THIS SUMMER £15 Pog off
MANCHESTER UNITED could be faced with handing Paul Pogba a £15million pay-off if they sell the Frenchman this summer.
Pogba, 28, would be due to receive the final 12 months of his £290,000-a-week wages if the Reds attempt to cash in on the midfielder in a bid to prevent him becoming a free agent next year.
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer still hasn’t given up hope of persuading the club’s record signing to accept a new deal despite claims he has already rejected the chance to become the Premier League’s highest earner on £400,000 a week.
United have splashed the cash to recruit Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane to strengthen the club’s challenge for the title and Champions League.
Solskjaer believes Pogba can still be a key part of his long-term vision.
But the United manager also accepts that it would be financial madness to allow the player to leave the club for free for a second time.
And he would also prefer Pogba’s future to be settled quickly, so that he can recruit a top-class replacement.
Paris Saint-Germain would like to take Pogba back to France to bolster their hopes of becoming European champions for the first time.
United want £60m for a player who cost them £89m when he returned from Juventus four years ago.
But PSG feel that with the clock now ticking on Pogba’s Old Trafford deal, they can land him for even less.
And United will also have to sweeten any deal by paying off his wages after triggering a 12-month extension clause last October.
Pogba’s agent Mino Raiola refused to comment on the star’s future when contacted by Sunday Mirror Sport.
Raiola insists he is keeping his counsel until the transfer window closes on August 31. But the 53-year-old is a shrewd and ruthless operator who makes more money per deal than any other agent in the world.
Raiola knows that Pogba would have his pick of top clubs if he became a free agent next summer – and that the midfielder would command a huge signing-on fee and wage deal.
According to a study conducted by OLGB, based on financial data supplied by Forbes Magazine, Raiola (below) has on average taken £796,345 from each deal he has brokered.
Fellow super-agents Jonathan Barnett and Jorge Mendes both have much bigger client bases than the Dutch-Italian.
But Raiola’s 77-player stable includes Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Erling Haaland, Marco Verratti and Gianluigi Donnarumma. And it’s been estimated that Raiola generates more bang for his buck than any other adviser.
It was Raiola’s tough bargaining style that prompted Sir Alex Ferguson to brand him a ‘s***bag’ when Pogba left United in 2012 to join Juventus.
And Raiola’s feud with Pep Guardiola over the Catalan’s treatment of Ibrahimovic when the pair worked together at Barcelona has lasted for more than a decade.
In 2018, Guardiola claimed the war of words didn’t prevent Raiola offering him the chance to sign Pogba from United when the France star had fallen out with Jose Mourinho.
Raiola has since made it clear that he will never let personal feelings get in the way of business.
OLGB’s statistics on super-agents can be found at www.olbg.com/blogs/ super-agents