Berba Has "Effectively" Two Years On Current Deal

David Gill has today played down any suggestion that Manchester United are prepared to sell Dimitar Berbatov. Despite both Berbatov and his agent repeatedly claiming he has no interest in leaving United, he has been linked with moves to Italy.

With just one year remaining on his current deal, there was the belief that Berba had to agree a new contract this summer, or leave on a free next year. Gill has today talked about a clause in Berba’s contract which means this isn’t necessarily the case.

“There is an option to extend Dimitar’s contract by another year, on the club’s side,” said Gill. “We can do it whenever we want to do it and there are no conditions around it. Everyone has been talking about Berbatov from the outside, saying he wants to leave or that we want want him to leave, but we don’t want him to go. We want him to stay. He scored over 20 goals last season, so there is no desire on our behalf to see him go. From our perspective he has, effectively, two years to go. We have until the end of the season [to extend his contract], so we can assess how it goes, talk to him, see how he performs and see what happens. I’ve not had one conversation with Dimitar [about his future]. There has been no correspondence in that respect. The decision Alex took [leaving Berbatov out of the Champions League final] was a decision he took for that particular game. It wasn’t a decision taken with a view that we want Dimitar to go, because we don’t.”