Manchester United completed Jadon Sancho’s transfer for €85m in July, having been linked with the winger for over a year.
In the 2020 summer window, the Red Devils were keen on signing the 21-year-old, but were reluctant to meet the €120m price tag set by Borussia Dortmund.
Failure to sign the England international last year saw United look at other targets, and that reportedly included the Barcelona duo of Ansu Fati and Ousmane Dembélé. Neither of them arrived and United ended that summer by agreeing deals for Facundo Pellistri and Amad Diallo.
Back in 2020, various reports coming out of the Spanish press indicated the La Liga side rejected a €150m offer from Manchester United for Fati, when Josep Maria Bartomeu was the president at the Camp Nou. That supposed offer has been repeated in the Spanish media since, with the rejection seen as a sign of Barcelona’s commitment to the youngster.
Bartomeu resigned from his post last October and has now insisted his board rejected a big offer from an English club for Fati.
“Until March 2020 we could afford the amounts that had been agreed. They are very high contracts, important because we are the most valuable club in the world.”
Barcelona paid in excess of €100m to sign Dembélé and Bartomeu now suggests the red Devils were ready to pay more than that to secure the Frenchman’s services in 2020.
“We signed Dembélé and Coutinho providing Barca with other figures to alleviate the departure of a world star like Neymar. But they haven’t finished working out. Dembélé has been unlucky, he is a great player and I hope he will now show his quality,” he said.
“In 2020, after the ‘no’ to Ansu, that English club asked us to sign Dembélé for more than we paid for him. But we counted on him.”
The obvious club is clearly Manchester United, yet the claim they were willing to offer in excess of €100m each for both Fati and Dembélé in 2020 seems to be unconvincing, especially if you take into account they were reluctant to pay a similar figure to sign their then top target, Jadon Sancho.
In addition to this, it was widely reported United tried to sign Dembélé on loan, but he was not in favour of making a switch to Old Trafford.
