At the beginning of August, news broke that Manchester United had beaten Arsenal to the signing of Le Havre youngster, Paul Pogba. At the time, their chairman Jean-Pierre Louvel accused United of being “impolite” and claimed “in the best case scenario we will only get some €110,000 to €120,000.”

United said that everything had been completed within UEFA regulations with a spokesperson denying claims that we had broken any rules, saying “it is complete nonsense. Everything has been done within Uefa guidelines.”

Whilst I questioned the morals behind clubs, like ourselves, signing young talents from the continent, it seemed as though United were confident everything was above board legally.

The details of the apparent deal have been splashed across the tabloids today on the say so of Louvel. He claims we promised:
– £15,500-a-month when he turns 17 next year
– Payments of more than £85,000 each to the French teenager’s separated parents
– To buy Pogba a house

Clearly the case of the former Lens youngster Gael Kakuta has given Louvel the hope of getting United in trouble and earning some considerable compensation. Chelsea have been banned from the transfer market until 2011 following their dodgy deal and Le Havre will be hoping they can claim a similar result, as they have no w submitted their appeal to FIFA.

“They tempt the parents. In the case of Paul Pogba, it was fairly simple,” said Louvel. “France respects a certain number of rules, but English clubs do not respect anything.”

Football revolves around money now, so whilst it doesn’t sit right with me that our club is going around taking the talents of other clubs, you have to accept that if you don’t do it, someone else will. It’s not nice but if it’s within UEFA guidelines then I guess we can’t really complain. I hope the club haven’t fucked this one up because getting a ban from the transfer window, albeit probably in a couple of seasons time given how long it took FIFA to deal with the Chelsea case, would be very concerning.

I imagine we have done this ‘properly’ though and can’t expect such incompetence from our staff as you would expect from Peter Kenyon. Only time will tell though I suppose!