SHARE

When Bruno Fernandes started having so many goals and assists in his first months at Manchester United, it became clear that the Red Devils spent little by paying €55m for his transfer from Sporting.

Even though the move would still have a few performance bonuses, the midfielder’s impact at the Premier League side soon made him a lot more valuable than that.

Newspaper Correio da Manhã features a story today showing that Sporting have been making some bad deals lately, as 55% of the money coming from their sales has been going somewhere else.

With big percentages owned to intermediaries and bank anticipations, the Lions are getting a lot less than the fees agreed for the transfers.

Embed from Getty Images

In Bruno Fernandes’ case, it has a lot to do with the performance bonuses. Knowing some of them would be easy to achieve, Sporting chose to anticipate them with a bank by promising a percentage of the money.

So when Manchester United first paid €3m, the Lions had to give away 25.7% of that. And with the latest €5m in bonuses, 40.7% went to the financial institution.

So added to the €55m paid up front by the Red Devils, from the €63m spent on the transfer, only €46.4m went to Sporting.

Even though Manchester United have nothing to do with it, it’s fair that fans of the Portuguese club are mad with the way some of their deals have been done.