Man Utd will receive 50 per cent of Mason Greenwood’s transfer fee from Marseille to Paris Saint-Germain if a transfer goes through, according to reports.
Greenwood spent last season on loan at Spanish side Getafe and signed a five-year contract with Marseille in the summer after Man Utd agreed to sell him for £26.6m.
He has started very well in France with Marseille second in the Ligue 1 table and the former Man Utd striker contributing 14 goals and three assists in 22 matches.
The 23-year-old was suspended by the Red Devils on January 30, 2022 over allegations relating to a young woman after images and videos were posted online.
He faced charges including attempted rape and assault, but the Crown Prosecution Service announced in February last year that the case had been discontinued.
Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe had said in February last year that the club would take a decision on Greenwood’s future in the summer, and “justify it one way or the other”.
A short statement from the Red Devils confirmed the transfer, which delivers on the club’s prior commitment that the one-cap England international would continue his career away from Old Trafford.
Man Utd did negotiate a huge sell-on fee in the deal with Marseille and now Spanish publication Fichajes indicate that the Red Devils could be set for a huge €37.5m (£31m) windfall.
French giants PSG ‘have made a formal offer’ for Greenwood for €75m (£62m) with the Parisiens ‘keen to sign one of European football’s emerging stars’.
The report adds that Man Utd ‘reserved a 50% stake in any future sale of Greenwood, which means that if Marseille accepts PSG’s offer, United would receive 37.5 (£31m) million of the 75 million (£62m) agreed upon’.
That kind of fee would be very helpful for Man Utd as they battle to stay on top of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) with the Red Devils reportedly close to their limit.
The PSR regulation is set to remain in place into the 2025/26 Premier League season after Man City won their legal challenge against the ATP rules.
It had been thought a squad cost ratio (SCR) system of financial control, which is being trialled, would come into play for next season but that now won’t be the case.
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And former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson thinks the SCR rules would have been “very good” news for Man Utd as they would have been more favourable to them than the current PSR controls.
Borson told Football Insider: “First of all, it’s quite hard to compare because we never had details of what the squad cost control system would look like in the Premier League.
“We know what it looks like in the Uefa system and you would think it would be quite similar, but it doesn’t need to be exactly the same.
“Then there are some wrinkles around it, where we were told that the standard cap would be 85 per cent. You would have at the top of the equation your costs, and that would be first-team costs and amortisation.
“Then at the bottom, you would have revenue, profits on player sales and your ratio could be 85 per cent. It was then to drop to 70 per cent if you were in the European competitions because that’s what the limit is in the Uefa competitions.
“The problem with that is that might be fine if you’re in the Champions League because you know that in terms of your revenue, you’re going to get another £60-100million broadly by the time you’ve had your group games and everything else.
“That’s not the case if you are in the Europa Conference. If you win the Europa Conference, you’re probably doing £10million total and you’ve got a load of costs because you’ve got to fly the squad all around Europe for about 15 games, which is not cheap. People forget about how expensive this sort of stuff is.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do with that part of the rules, and that could have had a material difference to a team like Man United.
“It could have cut United’s cap from 85 per cent to 70 per cent just if they were in the Conference League, and that would have made a very big difference to them.
“The flip side is that the squad cost control likely excludes their interest cost, so that would be very good for United. They won’t have that next season because they will have the old PSR system, so it’s not clear as to who it benefits and who it doesn’t.”
