When Henrikh Mkhitaryan left Borussia Dortmund for Manchester United, it wasn’t exactly a transfer conducted on the best of terms.
Back in July 2016, Sport Witness covered claims from Germany of things getting rather heated. Mkhitaryan only had a year left on his Dortmund contract, but that didn’t mean the German club were simply prepared to accept any fee.
As we explained at the time: ‘Manchester United are said to have made an approach for Dortmund’s star (a move described by Raiola as a ‘dream’ for his client), and things have escalated rather quickly in the Dortmund offices.
SportBILD claim discussions between the Dutch agent and Dortmund officials grew into a full-blown argument, with Raiola allegedly even overturning a chair in frustration.
Speaking to the German magazine, the agent said: “Henrikh is not the type to have conflicts, he leaves that to me. We will not give up!”’
SportBILD claimed a €23m offer had been made by Manchester United and rejected by Dortmund, and of course we all know the Premier League club ended up paying a lot more.
Now, Bild report that Mkhitaryan wants to return, and they’ve had two stories on it in two days. Firstly, the German newspaper claimed the Armenian is keen on a winter return but the finances would be difficult and Mkhitaryan would have to say ‘sorry’ for how he left.
Today they add to it all by further explaining how desperate Mkhitaryan is, and then asking if Dortmund even need him… and the answer is he’d probably be a good addition.
That’s all there is to this right now. For Dortmund it’s good coverage, which could be the motivation behind the claims.
But if it’s real then Raiola may have to throw around some furniture again, although he could be reluctant to upset Ed Woodward too much, given his good relationship with Manchester United.
