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Manchester United have given new manager Louis van Gaal the liberty to break the world record transfer fee if he chooses to sign any player.
The current record stands at £86m, the fee paid by Real Madrid to Tottenham Hotspur to sign Gareth Bale, a record they broke themselves after signing Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m four years ago.
Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward said: “It’s difficult to deal in hypotheticals based on lots of different things,”
“The reality is that we’re not afraid of spending significant amounts of money in the transfer market.”
“Whether it’s a record or not doesn’t really resonate with us. What resonates is an elite player that the manager wants who is going to be a star for Manchester United.”
The Red Devils’ current transfer record is the £37.5m they paid to sign Juan Mata from Chelsea. This summer, the club has already spent £56m combined on Southampton left back Luke Shaw and Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera.
Woodward: Manchester United have enough money to sign players
Woodward also said that United will not be restricted by cost if Van Gaal decides to sign a star player.
“Of course it’s in our capabilities,” he said.
“You guys think about the money in a way that I don’t. I get pointed in the direction of a target that the manager wants and there is an assessment of what that might cost and I’ll negotiate hard to do the best I can on the trade.”
“I stand by what I said – there is no budget. We are in a very strong financial position. We can make big signings.”
But he also cautioned that they wouldn’t just throw it all away to sign any player. “Louis is the manager. We have a lot of scouting output through the last 12 months, flagging up various things to us. Louis is the one that makes the ultimate decision around who he wants in the squad. I’m not going to force feed him with a player that he hasn’t selected.”
United will come into a lot of money from next season after signing a lucrative kit deal with Adidas that will see the club get £750 million over 10 years.
“What the deal shows and what we’re seeing with everything we’re doing from a commercial perspective, talking to agents, talking from a player’s perspective about wanting to come to us, we are the biggest club in the world, there’s no question about that,
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