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While we thoroughly enjoy what we do at Sport Witness, there are certain things we find incredibly frustrating, like release clause amounts that aren’t made public.

It’s completely out of our hands, and it leads to various figures being thrown around by the media.

This is exactly what’s happening with the Faouzi Ghoulam to Manchester United story, so we’ve tried to piece together all the recent reports to try and get a better idea of what’s going on.

The reason behind this is due to a Foot Mercato article published on Monday night claiming Jorge Mendes is ‘pushing hard’ to convince the Red Devils’ board to finalise the signing of the Algerian defender, who has already received the José Mourinho seal of approval.

According to the French website, the deal, should it take place, could near €55m, which they claim is the ‘amount of his release clause’.

This, as far as we know, is the most anyone has claimed Ghoulam’s release clause to be.

Il Mattino, Naples’ local newspaper, previously reported it would take €50m from a ‘top club’ to get him because of his ‘variable release clause’, which allegedly changes depending on who comes knocking and what Napoli’s situation as a club is.

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That was a bit more than what Corriere dello Sport were reporting, who claimed the ‘variation’ in the release clause was date based, meaning Ghoulam could be purchased for €38m before June 30th and €48m after.

If, like us, you now have a headache, that’s completely normal, but it’s not over.

On Monday, Il Mattino suggested Ghoulam could be available for around €35m, which we mused was due to the fact he’s had two serious knee injuries this season and makes sense.

That amount was still higher than what RMC Sport in France reported back in early April, stating Manchester United were ‘preparing a €30m offer (bonuses included)’ for the left-back.

Let’s recap.

From all this, it seems Manchester United are prepared to pay €30m (RMC Sport in April) for Ghoulam, who is available at around €35m these days (Il Mattino on Monday).

However, he has a variable release clause that either changes after June 30th (Corriere dello Sport, who claimed €38-48m) or due to Napoli’s situation, now a Champions League club, and the identity of the side interested (€50m for ‘top clubs’, Il Mattino until quite recently).

Then there’s Foot Mercato who suggest his release clause is actually €55m, but don’t mention its variability.

What do we take from all this? That most are probably taking shots in the dark regarding the amount, and we’ve still got no idea of what’s actually going on.

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