Manure probably made a tongue in cheek enquiry as to how much ,and were quoted that figure .Its based on the Gareth Bale figure being near 100 mill plus new tv money being available which Barcelona will know Manure are cash rich .
Manure are ripe for ripping off large sums by players agents and other clubs, They are finding it difficult to be more attractive than other (london) clubs on many levels eg managerial, location, current form and current title wins and even standard of current squad. The only attraction really is money and that exposes you to all the worst elements that will be there solely for the cash.
They are in danger of becoming another Liverpool and having many years in that relative wilderness unless they can build on their reasonable (if lucky) start this season. If it was't for that the wailing and moaning would be much higher, the average start by the others bar Citeh has helped them too.
As has been said already in this thread, I would bet good money that Neymar decided he wanted an extra 50k a week and got his agent to stir up some bullshit. United seem the go-to club for players to do this to this summer.
"Well that escalated quickly. But then these things often do. Take Manchester United’s pursuit of jinking Brazilian hair model Neymar. Just when you think that a £140m bid is enough to trigger the Barcelona man’s buyout, it turns out that the whole thing is going to cost you £240m! Today’s tabloid tittle-tattle puts the total price for the 23-year-old at a staggering £240m … and United are apparently willing to pay it.
Brazil’s GloboEsporte reckons United have already offered the £140m required to spring Neymar from the Camp Nou and you can stick another £100m on that in tax, wages and add-ons."
they arent going to start pying that sort of money as it instantly inflates the prices for a couple of dozen other players. same for the wages suggested, it would mean all their other top players (or at least their agents) would be on the phone for a similar deal.
now, if you start with a headline number of 140m, include wages over the life of the deal, you might be closer to reality (would be Bale level deal i think?)
Man Utd have been feeding this story to the media to distract from their epic failures in regard to Di Maria (15 million quid loss), Falcao (paid 15 million for one crap season) and Pedro (chased all summer to no avail).
How many times have we seen the back of one of the redtops splash an absurdly high figure in red text and claim that Utd are about to be involved in the biggest transfer in history? And how many times has it actually happened? Once, when they sold Ronaldo to Madrid.