The front page of Saturday’s Corriere dello Sport reports a €103m Manchester United offer for Kalidou Koulibaly, and it makes clear the amount still isn’t enough to please Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis.
It’s also a big story inside the newspaper, with it being pointed out such a ‘monster’ offer would break the world record for a defender.
That’s currently held by Virgil van Dijk’s transfer from Southampton to Liverpool, and nothing has come close to it yet.
However, buried deep in their big story, Corriere dello Sport say the claim has come ‘from the tabloids’ (it’s astonishing they suggest they’re not one) and they explain further they’ve seen it on a ‘web channel of Clarin’.
Clarin is one of the biggest newspapers in Argentina, and Corriere dello Sport know this claim will have bounced through the world media.
So off we went to do some digging.
It’s actually TyC Sports, a division of Clarin, which carried the report, and they did so on November 19th.
That’s over a week ago.
They did make the €103m claim, but said Napoli want a minimum of €115m.
This all sounds like claims going back to the summer, when it was suggested the Italian club could ask for £115m.
Manchester United offers must sell Italian newspapers too.
