Jose Mourinho‘s desperation to gazump Pep Guardiola in the hot pursuit of Alexis Sanchez saw Manchester United commit to a £6.7million signing-on fee to the Chilean on top of £391,000-a-week pay, it can be revealed.
A cache of contract information, obtained by the German news magazine Der Spiegel and published in the book Football Leaks: Uncovering The Dirty Deals Behind The Beautiful Game and published by Sportsmail, reveals the extraordinary add-ons Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs have been willing to pay in their desperate pursuit of supremacy.
The figures, which Sir Alex Ferguson would certainly have blanched at if still in charge, reveal that Sanchez’s basic £20.35m a year in wages and marketing rights — dependent on Champions League qualification, which United have secured — is supplemented by £75,000 for every game he starts, as well as a £1.1m annual signing-on fee.
There will be another £2m if he reaches a combination of 40 goals and assists in a season, £1m if United win the Champions League and £500,000 if they win the Premier League. Potentially, Sanchez can earn £25m a year.
The ripple-down commercial effects of United’s willingness to dig so deep for Sanchez prompted a desperate Arsenal to make extraordinary payments of their own to bolster Arsene Wenger’s failing squad with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on deadline day in January.
In a desperately poor negotiating position, they agreed to pay the Gabon international a remarkable £18.2m on top of his £198,000-a-week salary when signing him from Borussia Dortmund.
Aubameyang’s list of extras included a £15.15m loyalty bonus, split into four instalments, to be paid before the end of his contract in 2021, £300,000 for 25 goals and assists in a season (he has 13 so far) and £50,000 for every Premier League match he starts which Arsenal win. They have managed five since his arrival, earning him an extra £250,000.
However, perhaps the most remarkable detail in Aubameyang’s Arsenal deal relates to his ‘Champions League bonus’ of £2.26m — which the striker will receive even though Arsenal failed to qualify for Europe’s elite club competition.
How the contracts of Alexis Sanchez, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Virgil van Dijk are loaded with lucrative bonuses, as revealed by Football Leaks
The add-ons in Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s Arsenal salary are equally extraordinary, considering his struggle to prove himself at Old Trafford before January’s swap deal with Sanchez.
His basic £144,000-a-week pay will rise to £240,000 per week if Arsenal trigger an option to extend his deal. There was also a £8.65m ‘loyalty bonus’ on signing for the London club.
It can also be revealed that Liverpool committed to a ‘clean-sheet bonus’ of at least £250,000 for Virgil van Dijk when he signed from Southampton — which the Dutch centre back has not secured because 15 shut-outs are necessary and there have been only eight so far.
The Van Dijk contract is complex but he seems to be entitled to £375,000 if there are 18 clean sheets next season, £500,000 for 20 and £750,000 for 22.
How Mkhitaryan at Arsenal and Mohamed Salah at Liverpool receive their bonuses
The cost to Liverpool of Mohammed Salah’s extraordinary season is £2.5m — the bonus figure agreed on top of his £123,000-a-week salary if he reached 35 goals and assists for the campaign.
And though Chelsea manager Antonio Conte complained that his club could not compete for Sanchez, Alvaro Morata’s £191,000-a-week salary will be supplemented by an £830,000 bonus for starting half of Chelsea’s competitive matches.
Chelsea also agreed to pay £5.3m to the Spaniard’s agent in addition to the £57.2m paid to Real Madrid.
The Football Leaks data reveals Swansea City would have earned another £2.5m for Gylfi Sigurdsson had buying club Everton qualified for this season’s Champions League.
How strikers Morata and Lukaku have bonuses inserted into their contracts
But Everton are on course for a £10m windfall if Romelu Lukaku scores 23 goals in each of his first four seasons at Manchester United. He is already three goals over that in this campaign.
Though Guardiola echoed Conte’s comments about Sanchez’s move, the Football Leaks authors raise the prospect of City possessing the first billion-pound squad, in transfer fees and wages.
Guardiola’s team committed more than £170m in transfer fees on four of their 2017 summer signings — Benjamin Mendy (£48.4m), Bernardo Silva (£44m), Kyle Walker (£44m) and Ederson (£35.2m).
Even Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who tore a cruciate ligament in his knee last April, stood to earn astronomical premiums at Manchester United before leaving for LA Galaxy — including around £175,000 per competitive start, rising to £218,000, after signing a one-year contract extension in which his weekly wage was reduced to £43,000.
The only evidence of a club trying to negotiate protection when signing a player is the clause in United’s contract with Sanchez relating to a tax controversy dating back to the Chilean’s time with Barcelona, where he played until 2014.
Sanchez was still under investigation by the Spanish tax authorities when he signed for United.
The contract requires him to cover United for any third-party claims against him.
Extracted from Football Leaks: Uncovering The Dirty Deals Behind The Beautiful Game by Der Spiegel reporters Rafael Buschmann and Michael Wulzinger, published by Guardian Faber on May 24 at £12.99.
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