Manchester United are reluctant to do business for Erling Braut Haaland in the summer because the player’s agent is the infamous Mino Raiola.
The latter, who Sir Alex Ferguson once described as a “total sh*tebag”, was highly influential in United’s summer of 2016, brokering deals for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Paul Pogba.
More recently, Raiola was part of a very public attempt to secure a transfer to Real Madrid for Pogba over the summer.
And according to the highly reliable David Ornstein, writing in The Athletic, one of the main stumbling blocks behind any deal for Haaland is Raiola, who will no doubt look to squeeze as much out of this deal for himself as he humanly can.
A striker is the recruitment priority for Man Utd and some within #MUFC are convinced Erling Haaland will end up at Old Trafford. But the involvement of Mino Raiola presents a potential problem for their hopes of signing the 19yo Salzburg/Norway goalscorer https://t.co/yPJf0fexYk
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) November 25, 2019
It is somewhat telling that United, since 2016, have done no business whatsoever with Raiola, aside from the swap deal involving Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alexis Sanchez in January 2018, which was turned into a protracted affair in negotiations and ultimately became, in hindsight, one of the worst deals ever done by United for a player.
Moreover, it seems more likely that Haaland will complete a move to RB Leipzig for a cut-price of just £25.7m, rather than the £85m quoted to United, in order to remain within the Red Bull franchise.