Romelu Lukaku spent four years at Everton before leaving them for Manchester United in 2017.
The striker initially joined Everton on loan from Chelsea in 2013 and the Toffees made his stay permanent a year later. Lukaku scored 87 goals and registered 27 assists from 166 games for Everton and his performances convinced Manchester United to bet on him.
The Red Devils reportedly paid £75m plus bonuses to their Premier League rivals. Lukaku is now 32-years-of-age and has been at Napoli since last summer. Following the end of his season, and winning Serie A, he’s had a chat with Koolcast Sport, with Het Nieuwsblad relaying his comments.
When discussing his career so far, he talked about his spells at Everton and Manchester United, who sold him to Inter Milan in 2019. The Belgium international has previously been represented by Christophe Henrotay, the late Mino Raiola and Federico Pastorello. Het Nieuwsblad pointed out he’s now been without an agent for a while.
In response, the frontman said he could have joined Juventus, Atlético Madrid or VfL Wolfsburg before joining Everton, and then explained why he built a distrust of agents.
“It actually started in 2014. I signed with Everton at the time, but I could also go to Juventus, Wolfsburg and Atlético. That didn’t happen,” he said.
“I ended up at Everton, no problem, but when I saw certain figures in my contract, I thought: something’s not right here. I started digging and then everything came out. A year later, De Bruyne moved to Manchester City and also started discovering everything. And then everything came out in the media.”
Henrotay would have been his representative when he moved to Goodison Park. He was later investigated for financial irregularities, and this came as part of Belgium’s Operation Clean Hands initivate to tidy up such business.
Lukaku then indicated Raiola influenced his move to Manchester United as he was determined to instead join Chelsea in 2017.
“I had already told everyone: I’m going to Chelsea. But suddenly Mourinho called me to say that Manchester United had made an offer. I came back from vacation and suddenly there was an agreement with Everton,” Lukaku explained.
“I said to Mino: ‘I don’t want this’, and then I decided now I’m doing everything myself.”
