It would be the biggest ‘buy-back’ in the history of football if Paul Pogba does indeed return to Old Trafford this summer, writes GARY LEMKE.
reports are gathering momentum that Paul Pogba is going to Manchester United after the Euro 2016 Championships.
Pogba joined United’s academy as a 16-year-old in October 2009 after catching the eye of then manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the club’s army of talent scouts. To say that Pogba’s tenure at Old Trafford was something of a car crash is an understatement. In 2012, aged 19 and only having made three appearances for the first team, the French midfielder was sold to Juventus and received some £800 000 for his signature.
At the time the player is said to have been marginalised by Ferguson – the most garlanded manager in the history of the English Premiership – although in his book Ferguson didn’t pull any punches as to who he thought was to blame.
‘There are one or two football agents I simply do not like, and Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba’s agent is one of them. I distrusted him from the moment I met him,’ wrote Ferguson.
‘He became Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s agent while he was playing for Ajax, and eventually he would end up representing Pogba, who was only 18-years-old at the time.
‘We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign. But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco.
‘He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus.’
Now, with Jose Mourinho at the helm and with Ibrahimovic already one of their new signings at Old Trafford, Pogba is said to be the big fish dangling on the end of the hook. Mourinho and Riaola have a good relationship and it is being used as the lure to bring Pogba back to England.
As we head into the last stages of Euro 2016 and with Pogba the driving force behind France’s march deep into the tournament, he has become the big transfer talking point of the tournament. United have been in talks with the player’s agent and a world record £100-million fee has been mooted to prise him away from Juventus.
In fact, Italian outlet Di Marzio is reporting that Mourinho has secured the services of Pogba for a world record fee of £103-million, which would include a weekly wage nearing £300 000. Such a fee would shatter the world transfer record, which currently sits at the £85m Real Madrid paid Tottenham Hotspur for Welsh star Gareth Bale in 2013.
If the deal comes to fruition – and that’s surely not a certainty just yet when you have the likes of Real Madrid also in the market for a big-name signing – then it would mean that by letting Pogba go in 2012 and buying him back in 2016, it would have cost them at least £100m.
That is an expensive ‘mistake’ on Ferguson’s behalf … although the pressure would be on Mourinho to ensure the sought-after midfielder lives up to the price tag of football’s first one hundred million pound man.
And, if Pogba were to United, Mourinho is going to have to start letting other players go. But, more importantly, if Pogba were to arrive at Old Trafford, then the results have to come immediately.
Winning the Premiership in his first season and winning the Champions League in his second season would be the expectations. Anything less must be considered a failure when one looks at the money Mourinho would have spent moulding his dream team.
