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A report from Italy has revealed the cut-price wage packet Manchester United were able to agree with Joshua Zirkzee as part of the Dutchman’s blockbuster transfer to Old Trafford – and it’s which demonstrates the INEOS effect in full flight.
A deal between United and Serie A side Bologna was officially announced yesterday which will see Zirkzee swap Milan for Manchester for a fee of £35.6 million.
And while this price was slightly above the 23-year-old forward’s £33.6 million release clause, it included a much more favourable payment for United to spread the cost of the deal over three years, rather than up front.
This, in turn, will enable the Red Devils to spend far more on other deals this summer, as part of the Premier League’s Profits and Sustainability Rules (PSR) which governs clubs’ spending.
So, while United have committed to spending a slight amount more, it is realistically a much more economically astute move. One which demonstrates why there is growing optimism amongst the club’s fanbase that INEOS – who gained full control over the sporting operation at Old Trafford in February – are a marked improvement on the previous incumbents.
And the details of Zirkzee’s wages at his new club will only strengthen this idea.
Corriere di Bologna, a news outlet in Bologna, reports Zirkzee will earn €3.5 million a year at Old Trafford, after tax. When converted into English currency, this amounts to £2.9 million annually – or around £56,000 a week.
However, footballer’s wages are most commonly referred to pre-tax, meaning the Dutchman’s actual wage packet will be in the region of £100,000 a week, allowing for the 45% income tax bracket every Premier League footballer will fall into.
Yet, for a striker who was being directly courted by AC Milan and admired by Arsenal, who played a key role in helping his club into the Champions League for the first time in sixty years, a wage around the £100,000 mark feels a good deal.
This feeling is only increased when you consider the wage of the player Zirkzee is being brought in to replace – Anthony Martial.
For the past five years, United have been paying Martial around £240,000 a week, as per the five-year deal the Frenchman signed in 2019. This translates to a total outlay of £62.4 million. Zirkzee’s wage packet, by comparison, will cost the Red Devils around £26 million over the next five years. Which, when including his transfer fee, amounts to a total cost in the region of £61.6 million.
A saving of just under £1 million but a drastic upgrade in every conceivable manner. And it’s this type of savvy economics that United have been desperately short of during the Glazer’s reign of incompetent terror.
INEOS look set to reverse this tide, one prudent deal at a time.
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