PAUL Pogba complained Manchester United offered him ‘nothing’ despite two contract offers worth £300,000-a-week, a new documentary on the player has revealed.
The ‘Pogmentary’, to be released tomorrow, reveals that Old Trafford chiefs twice offered him new deals in excess of the existing £290,000-a-week terms which saw him become one of the highest-paid players in the world.
But, as reported by the Athletic, as shown by a preview from the documentary, Pogba responded to his late agent Mino Raiola telling him about the second proposal last July by describing it as ‘nothing’ – from his Rolls-Royce.
A clearly upset Pogba said: “How can you tell a player you absolutely want him and offer him nothing?” he says, clearly affronted. “Never seen that.”
Then-United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, himself given a new three-year contract in July 2021, had promised to ‘build the team around’ the talented midfielder.
The club made multiple attempts to keep him at Old Trafford but long since resigned themselves to the idea of him leaving. Pogba will depart when his contract expires this summer and is set to rejoin his former club Juventus.
Much of the documentary centres on the huge turning point in his career, ending his career with the club where he broke through and leaving as a free agent.
Given Pogba’s obvious talent, it may be somewhat of a surprise that United are letting him go for nothing given they signed him for £89m, at that point a world-record fee.
But problems with injuries, inconsistency and big differences between performances at club and international level with France – with whom he won the 2018 World Cup after a series of excellent showings – means he will not be widely missed.
Many feel his arrival was based on commercial rather than footballing reasons – and the glitzy, glossy-looking documentary and the footage within does little to dispel that idea, with genuine surprise about his reaction to the club’s offer.
Pogba, driving down State Road 5 in Miami, Florida on the east coast of America while on holiday, is on the phone with Raiola, the Italian super-agent who died in April after a serious illness.
Speaking in both Pogba’s natural French and Raiola’s natural Italian, Raiola said: “Paul, you are in a situation which is very particular. You have no idea. You have no idea.”
The 29-year-old then asked: “Did Manchester (United) make a second offer?” Raiola responded: ‘Yes. They absolutely want you to stay. For me, the offer doesn’t reflect that. I told them, ‘If you want him to stay, don’t make that offer’.
“I will make them understand that if they really want you to stay and they want to build a project around you, this time they have to act differently and put the money on the table.”
‘They’re bluffing,’ Pogba replies. ‘How can you tell a player you absolutely want him and offer him nothing? Never seen that.’
In one of the last scenes in the documentary, Pogba vows to ‘show Manchester that they made a mistake in waiting to give me a contract. And show other clubs that Manchester made a mistake in not offering me a contract’.
Daily Mail
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