Manchester United have been told it will cost them £81.5million to sign Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund.
United’s 12-month waiting game for the 21-year-old England winger is set to save the Reds £26.5million after the Bundesliga club agreed to reduce last year’s £108million valuation in a bid to get the deal done.
It will still be a club-record deal at Old Trafford, beating the £80million that United paid Leicester for Harry Maguire two years ago.
Terms have been agreed with the player. But Dortmund wants a big slice of the fee paid up front, while United would prefer to split it into instalments.
The German club are prepared to sacrifice Sancho to keep 20-year-old striking sensation Erling Haaland at the club.
Despite qualifying for the Champions League again thanks to an end-of-season surge, Dortmund still have to cash in on one of their most prized assets to offset the huge financial losses they have suffered during the Coronavirus crisis.
They are refusing to budge on their £140million asking price for Haaland – but that has opened the door for Sancho to depart.
United’s Mancunian rivals City will bank an £11million bonus should the Reds meet Dortmund’s latest demands.
Sancho began his career at the Etihad, but turned down a £30,000-a-week contract to move to Germany when he was 17 over fears he would not get game-time under Pep Guardiola.
City did not demand a buy-back option in the deal.
But they did include a sell-on clause that will see them bank a 15 percent cut of any future fee above the £8million that Dortmund paid.
Sancho is in England’s squad for the Euros. He suffered a dip in form after seeing last summer’s proposed return to the Premier League collapse.
And when a thigh injury sustained in early March sidelined him for seven weeks, Dortmund lost ground in their bid to finish in the top four and were knocked out of the Champions League by City.
He returned to help his club win their last seven games of the season – scoring twice in a man-of-the-match performance in the German Cup final win over RB Leipzig and helping them qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Born in Camberwell, South London, Sancho joined Watford’s academy at the age of seven and moved into club accommodation four years later to solve the problem of travelling across London.
He was snapped up by City at the age of 14 for an initial fee of just £66,000, but the Hornets eventually banked £500,000 in add-ons.
Guardiola is a huge fan of the winger but had no interest in bringing Sancho back to the Etihad after failing to turn up for training in a bid to force his departure from the club.