Manchester United are reportedly willing to listen to offers of around £45m for England international Mainoo
Dave Powell is the Chief Business of Football Writer for Reach Plc, covering matters of football finance and governance. A former news and court reporter and ex-sports editor of the Chester Chronicle, Dave's work includes exclusives with the likes of Liverpool owner John W. Henry.
Kobbie Mainoo
Manchester United academy graduate Kobbie Mainoo continues to be linked with a move away from Old Trafford.
While Manchester United’s summer spending spree may have hinted that the open chequebook policy has returned to Old Trafford, the reality is that it hasn’t, and some painful decisions will need to be made to balance the books.
United, when considering the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), are within the limits, and they actually have some room to spend, but that comes with still being a huge cash generating business with global appeal.
United remains one of the world’s biggest sporting teams, not just football teams, sporting teams. They rank alongside the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, Real Madrid and the Los Angeles Lakers when it comes to size and scale, dwarfing some of those in terms of actual revenue.
The club is still very much big business. They are a global brand that has fans that run deep into the hundreds of millions. That means that there is always cash coming into the business and, even with some fallow years in terms of competitive success, as long as they remain PSR compliant, which they have been, with accounts submitted being for Red Football Limited as opposed to Manchester United Plc, then they can spend. The Red Football Limited accounts strip out some of the costs associated with the Plc, and that has allowed for a little more freedom.
But they are now looking at what happens in January, or next summer, or the summer after. They have stockpiled talent and they cannot afford to do that indefinitely. Players such as Alejandro Garnacho, Marcus Rashford, Rasmus Hojlund and Kobbie Mainoo face permanent exits at some stage, with Rashford out on loan at Barcelona to save on wages, [Garnacho, a Chelsea target](http://Garnacho a Chelsea target), expected to seal a Stamford Bridge move imminently, and Hojlund linked with a loan move to Napoli with a mandatory purchase clause.
Three academy graduates, one player aged 22 who arrived with huge potential and expectation. Garnacho is set to exit for a £50m sum, Rashford, when he does leave, will be closer to £20m, and the club will do well to break even on Hojlund. In the case of Mainoo, a cut-price £45m deal to let him leave has been widely reported as the transfer window approaches its closure. A sum of £115m for three academy graduates who all had extremely high ceilings is not good business.
United may look at it as being £115m in pure profit, which it would be, as academy graduates hold no book value. But when considering they spent £74m on Benjamin Sesko, a player who has huge talent but no Premier League experience, to let three players, two of them just 20 and 21 in Mainoo and Garnacho, with both having international honours, it is the club failing on strategy. These players looked to have been the future of the club for years to come and now cut-priced deals are being mooted.
That is what comes with tumult and a lack of strategy. For all the talk, all the plans to bring about sweeping change, little has arrived, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, arguably the most vocal and visible minority shareholder in all of European football, has already had to take a few public losses, such as the hiring and firing of Dan Ashworth, the mass redundancies and the lack of success in the market and on the field thus far.
The Mainoo arc is a sad one for United if it comes to pass. When fees of £45m are talked about in the modern day Premier League there is barely an eyebrow raised. We’re well beyond that now. It is the same territory as Jacob Ramsey, Noni Madueke and Anthony Elanga, a former Manchester United prodigy who Nottingham Forest flipped for a big profit. Somebody will do it for Mainoo, too.
What 20-year-old midfielders who have started a European Championship final in the past 18 months and who have amassed 50 appearances in the world’s most elite domestic football league and who have potentially another 15 years or more of road ahead at the top level, with demonstrable quality at the top level, are on the market for £45m? It is a failure of the club that they have not been able to aid Mainoo’s journey and development through a period where poor strategy and decisions have led to a lack of competitive success.
It might look good in the short to medium term to make a nice accounting profit on Mainoo, but players of his calibre aren’t the norm through academies. They are leaving tens of millions on the table by moving him on, especially when you consider they spent big on players in that position. The Casemiro signing was always the wrong one to make and a hangover from a previous transfer approach, while Manuel Ugarte’s arrival, while he has a good age profile, has played a part in stymying the development of their own.
Look at Scott McTominay now with Napoli in Serie A. On the Ballon d’Or list, and in a year he has doubled his market value from the £25m he was sold for.
Mainoo was priced at around £70m in January. That still seemed fair market value for the player that he is and the ceiling he has. It is hard to imagine that, if sold for £45m or less, then he won’t follow the same path as McTominay and find his worth increased.
The need to bring back in cash after heavy spending is understandable, but the exits of academy graduates who have shown they can belong should be alarming. The Mainoo stance seems a flawed one, time will see whether or not it will be a failure of the football club.
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