Bharath Rammr
Manchester United stand to lose a whopping £85 million if they fail to qualify for the Champions League next season – as per the reports from The Sun. The club are struggling to make it to the top four despite teams like Arsenal and Liverpool dropping a significant number of points in recent weeks. United may have managed a 3-0 win over Leicester City during the weekend, but it has only helped them move within a point of Liverpool. The club still remains sixth in the table, a position which will provide them with only Europa league football for next season.
The club signed a huge £750 million contract with Adidas for shirt sponsorship. This deal runs for a decade and is the biggest in the world. However, it is understood that a clause in the contract allows Adidas to cut the fee by up to 30% if United failed to qualify for the Champions League in two successive campaigns. It would mean that the club would end up losing £22.5 million of the shirt sponsorship money. This will be followed by the lost revenue of actually missing out on the competition’s TV and prize money. This reportedly works out to £60 million.
In terms of transfer fees, United have been spending more than £100 million in each season on an average since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. The total spending is close to £500 million since the retirement of the Scot in 2013. Even though the club have incredible finances and were recently named as the richest club in the world by Deloitte money league, even a club of this stature will struggle to deal with the absence of £82.5 million in income. As a result, manager Jose Mourinho will have to cut down his transfer significantly.
The news comes at a time when the club have been keeping tabs on Benfica defender Victor Lindelof, Roma defender Kostas Manolas, and Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann. A combined move for these three players could reportedly set United back by around £200 million with Griezmann alone contributing £90 million of this figure. United will not be able to make such extravagant signings if they failed to qualify for the Champions League, even though players are unlikely to be worried about the lack of this premier European competition given that they are joining a club with huge pedigree.
United’s board will also have to lose a substantial amount of income through ticket sales and season tickets if the club failed to qualify for the Premier European football competition. Jose Mourinho is under a significant amount of pressure even after the comfortable win over Leicester City.
