Manchester United have at long last negotiated a deal with Juventus for French midfielder Paul Pogba to return to Old Trafford. He signs a five-year contract with an option to extend for a further year.
United posted this teaser clip on Twitter to get fans hyped for the return of Pogba:
Are you ready? #POGBACK https://t.co/Eihc6xTBsD
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) August 8, 2016
Pogba has taken to Twitter himself, posting a farewell video from his time at Juventus and thanking them for everything they’ve done for him:
— Paul Pogba (@paulpogba) August 8, 2016
Thanks @juventusfc and all Juventini. Goodbye means nothing, it is the time we spent together that matters 🙏🏾❤
— Paul Pogba (@paulpogba) August 8, 2016
His agent, Mino Raiola, then jumped in on the act:
THE MAN IS UNITED
— RAIOLA (@MinoRaiola) August 8, 2016
And then finally, at 12:35am, Manchester United make the announcement we had all been waiting for…
REUNITED: https://t.co/VFkDJ05zuf #POGBACK https://t.co/y68rpT0dob
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) August 8, 2016
The fee for this return to the Red Devils is thought to be around world-record £89 million, plus a large fee to his agent, Mino Raiola; the same man who engineered the transfers of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to United earlier this summer.
The move reportedly makes Pogba the most expensive player in football history, £3 million more expensive than Gareth Bale in his move from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid, and £9 million dearer than Cristiano Ronaldo when moving from United, also to the Santiago Bernabeu. Juventus’ latest signing, Gonzalo Higuain, is now the fourth most expensive player ever, at £76 million.
The French midfielder had this to say about his return to Old Trafford.
I am delighted to rejoin United. It has always been a club with a special place in my heart and I am really looking forward to working with José Mourinho. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Juventus and have some fantastic memories of a great club with players that I count as friends. But I feel the time is right to go back to Old Trafford. I always enjoyed playing in front of the fans and can’t wait to make my contribution to the team. This is the right club for me to achieve everything I hope to in the game.
Pogba, 23, left Manchester United in 2012, having run down his contract – many believe that Sir Alex Ferguson drove him out of the club, but the Scotsman has always maintained that he wanted to keep Pogba, and the Frenchman himself negotiated a way out of Manchester.
When interviewed by ESPN earlier this summer, Paul was shown a Juventus shirt, a Real Madrid shirt and a Manchester United shirt, and was asked what each of them means to him.
Of the Juventus shirt, he said “That’s my team, my family, it’s where I am playing.” – whilst he said “They won the Champions League this year. They are a great club”, speaking about Real Madrid.
However, his answer about the United shirt was the most important:
“It was my first family.”
It seems that, despite what happened a few years ago between the Frenchman and United, Pogba still has a love for the club – and this could have been what made him choose the Red Devils over Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid.
