Lille ‘made threat’ to Leny Yoro if he didn’t accept Man Utd transfer offer
Yoro is set to join Manchester United in a deal worth €62 million.
Lille put pressure on Leny Yoro to accept an offer from Manchester United, according to a new report.
The 18-year-old is set to move to Manchester after United agreed a €50 million deal, plus €12 million in add-ons, to sign him from Lille.
Yoro was one of the star young players in Ligue 1 last season, and played in 32 of their matches.
He was due to play at the Olympics this summer with France after being selected in Thierry Henry’s provisional squad, but Lille withdrew him from selection due to his ongoing transfer negotiations.
It was claimed at the beginning of the summer window that Yoro preferred a move to Real Madrid over all others, and would consider running down his contract to its expiry next summer.
But the defender took to Twitter earlier this month to shut down a fake account which claimed that he did not want to join United.
Sky Sports claim that United have successfully been able to convince Yoro to join them, and he successfully completed a medical on Wednesday.
It had been reported that Lille were also attempting to convince Yoro to accept United’s offer, with the alternative being that he would wait to join Real Madrid as a free agent.
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And Spanish outlet Marca have gone as far to claim that Lille threatened to not play the 18-year-old for the entirety of his final season at the club if he did not move to Old Trafford.
Marca say that Real were ‘surprised and disappointed’ that Yoro decided not to join them, with the club believing that they would either be able to sign him on the cheap, knowing that he would reject United’s advances, or on a free transfer next summer.
The report adds that other reasons for the move include that United offered Yoro a higher salary than what would have been on offer at the Bernabeu, and that new chief executive Omar Berrada had continued to pursue the defender even when informed by the player’s agent earlier this year that he wanted to join Real Madrid.