Jose Mourinho doesn’t care if you care about the world record transfer fee for Paul Pogba.
Manchester United have agreed a deal with Juventus of around $116 million for star midfielder Pogba, 23, to arrive at Old Trafford.
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Pogba has flown into Manchester for his medical and Mourinho revealed that everything should be complete by Tuesday but didn’t confirm whether or not it was a world record transfer fee for Pogba.
The current record is the $112.2 million Real Madrid paid Tottenham Hotspur for Gareth Bale back in 2013.
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Even if Pogba’s deal does set a new record, Mourinho isn’t bothered. In fact, he’s “proud” that United can pay that much.
“No, I don’t think Real Madrid was upset when they broke the record with Gareth Bale or when they broke the record with Cristiano [Ronaldo], I think that was a world record too. When other people break records, I don’t think it’s a reason to be sad,” Mourinho said. “I think it’s a reason to be proud with the dimension of the club that can do that and can attract players of this dimension.
“If you ask if I think it is a lot of money, I think football is crazy, the market has become crazy. What you think this season is crazy, you realise that three years later it’s not crazy any more. And I think there are players that cost ten million that are super expensive because there are players who are four hundred or five hundred thousand or one million. What is expensive and what is not expensive in football, I don’t know any more. I just know that he’s a big player that is going for sure to be important for a big club like Man United. And I’m sure that every Man United fan around the world will be proud to belong to such a big club.”
With transfer fees spiraling upwards — this summer PL clubs have already spent over $700 million on new players and we still have over three weeks of the window remaining — Mourinho is right. This is only going one way.
Next summer we surely see transfer fees pushing towards $140 million for the top players on the planet, if they become available.
I’m just curious. If Pogba, who is a fine player but by no means the finished article, costs over $116 million then how much would Neymar, Lionel Messi, Gareth Bale or Cristiano Ronaldo be worth given the output of goals and assists they could deliver? Probably in excess of $200 million.
Now Jose, if you could land one of those guys then that would be “crazy.”
