Super agent Jorge Mendes set up a €150m move to Manchester United for Ansu Fati this summer, but Barcelona were not interested in the deal.
That’s according to Sport, who say that the Spanish giants simply weren’t interested in selling their highly-rated youngster despite the ‘dizzying’ proposal.
Fati was regularly linked with a move to Old Trafford throughout the summer transfer window, with claims United were willing to pay a huge amount to secure his signature.
They have continued as Barcelona are trying to sign him up to a new deal, with Mundo Deportivo reporting last month that Mendes had presented a deal worth €150m.
Sport have now backed that up, stating that the super-agent ‘had already sold’ Fati, for the aforementioned €150m, to Manchester United in the summer.
Barcelona, though ‘refused to assess the proposal’ despite the fact that it was ‘dizzying’ for the club.
However, it’s claimed that were Mendes to bring those figures to the club again ‘in times of crisis’ the pressure he would be able to put on them would be ‘brutal’ given the financial situation at the Nou Camp.
Barcelona, for their part, are confident that Fati will remain at the club as he has two years remaining on his deal and that includes an option of a further two years.
Similarly, he has a €400m release clause in his contract so is difficult for a club to sign but Mendes ‘smells money in the short term’.
Thus ‘the great challenge’ of the next board is to satisfy Fati and his environment to ‘avoid temptations’ to leave the club.
That, though, will require the ‘permission’ of Mendes, who is clear his client is worth more and seemingly willing to broker a deal elsewhere if Barcelona cannot offer it.
That means we’re likely to see Manchester United and that €150m deal mentioned again and again until the Catalans, and their new board next year, stump up the cash.
