Manchester United’s reported pursuit of Mateo Mejía is causing a big fuss in Spain.
Earlier on Tuesday we covered claims from AS that there’s ‘outrage’ at Real Zaragoza with the Premier League club over the situation.
After claims in England that the Red Devils were set to pay €670k for the 16 year old, the Spanish newspaper reported Zaragoza wouldn’t even get that much, and that the youngster has already said goodbye to his teammates.
Real Zaragoza released a statement saying: ‘Given the information in the United Kingdom about the Real Zaragoza cadet footballer Mateo Mejía and the interest of Manchester United for his signing, Real Zaragoza wants to clarify the following:
Mateo Mejía is a footballer who belongs to the discipline of Real Zaragoza in the Cadet category, linked to the Club with a federative card until June 30, 2020.
Real Zaragoza has not reached any agreement for the transfer of this player to Manchester United.’
El Periodico de Aragon, local to the Spanish club, reports ‘everything indicates’ the move will happen ‘soon’, because United want him and the player wants a transfer.
They go on to say ‘the signing is a matter of time’, and it’s UEFA, not Zaragoza, who will determine how much is paid. The estimate is put at €120-150k.
Due to not having a professional contract he’s free to move to a club outside of Spain. For example, Real Madrid offered €500k and Zaragoza rejected it, yet they can’t do anything to stop Manchester United getting him for less.
Whilst there appears to be a lot of confidence in Spain that Mejía is moving to Old Trafford, if that’s all based on the original English reports (which got the numbers wrong) then there would be reason to doubt this.
