Former CEO Ed Woodward shared with ESPN the reason why Manchester United failed to buy both Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland.
Ed Woodward oversaw Man United’s purchases during his nine-year tenure at Old Trafford. That’s when this person was criticized a lot during his working time.
Man United is used to spending a lot of money on unsuitable players, as well as bringing in overpriced contracts.
The Red Devils’ recruitment department has improved under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. At that time, Man Utd was said to be about to sign Haaland from RB Salzburg because the Norwegian player was Solskjaer’s favorite player at Molde.
However, despite having a release clause of only 20 million pounds in the contract, Man United still lost to Dortmund. Three years later, Haaland joined Man City for £60 million and scored 71 goals in 77 appearances at the Etihad.
Woodward told ESPN that Haaland was always destined to play for Man City, due to the player’s father’s relationship with the blue half of Manchester.
At the end of that season, Man United also saw Jude Bellingham reject them to move to Dortmund. The Real Madrid star, then just 16 years old, was welcomed to the training ground by Solskjaer and was accompanied by Sir Alex Ferguson and Bryan Robson.
But Woodward said that Man United’s failure to ‘guarantee minutes’ for Bellingham made him choose Dortmund. Like Haaland, within three years Bellingham became a Real Madrid player for a huge fee of 100 million pounds