Manchester United face further disappointment with Ivan Perisic deal on the rocks James Ducker
29 JUNE 2017 • 6:09PM
Manchester United are facing disappointment in their efforts to sign Ivan Perisic for a knockdown fee with Inter Milan confident of narrowly avoiding Uefa financial sanctions without having to sell the Croatia forward.
Inter have until the end of Friday to break even for the financial year ending June 30 by raising a total of ?30 million (£26.4 million) through player sales or face a ?7 million fine for breaching Uefa’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.United had hoped to take advantage of Inter’s financial predicament by signing Perisic for around half the Italian club’s initial ?60 million valuation, with an opening bid of ?30 million followed by a second offer of ?32 million (£28.1 million) about a fortnight ago.
Inter are understood to have been irked by the size of those bids and informed United that they would not accept less than ?50 million (£44 million) - a price the Manchester club have steadfastly refused to meet - and that Perisic would be off the market by the weekend.But while Inter would prefer to incur a fine than sell Perisic for a fee drastically below their asking price, they are optimistic about raising enough money through other eleventh hour sales to pacify Uefa.
They have already agreed the sale of midfielder Ever Banega to Sevilla for ?9 million but reports in Italy have indicated that Inter hope to raise a further ?13 million by offloading forward Gianluca Caprari to Sampdoria as part of a deal that would see the ?25 million rated defender Milan Skriniar move in the opposite direction. Inter’s plan, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, would be include Caprari as a sale for the 2016/17 season and register Skriniar as a 2017/18 season purchase.
Inter would then hope to raise the outstanding ?8 million that will enable them to break even by selling one or more of Jonathan Biabiany, George Puscas or Andrea Ranocchia to Genoa.With new Inter coach Luciano Spalletti determined to keep Perisic, United may be forced to pursue alternative forward targets unless events work in their favour over the next 24 hours, or they opt to drastically increase their bid for the 28-year-old, which seems unlikely.
United, who have already signed Sweden centre-half Victor Lindelof from Benfica for £30.7 million, are also chasing Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata and Nemanja Matic, the Chelsea midfielder.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/06/29/manchester-united-face-disappointment-ivan-perisic-deal-rocks/
