Solskjaer confirms Man Utd rift with agent Mino Raiola after pulling out of Haaland race because of his demands
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MANCHESTER UNITED boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed that they pulled out of the race to sign Erling Haaland due to his agent Mino Raiola's demands.
One of Europe's hottest prospects, Haaland ended up signing for Borussia Dortmund for just £18million.
But it wasn't the transfer fee that United had any issue with, but the demands coming from Raiola and the player's father, Alf-Inge.
reports that the pair "wanted a significant share of the player's future sales value".
And now, in a press conference ahead of United's home game against Burnley, Solskjaer has shed more light on why the deal for the 19-year-old never got over the line.
He said: "It's important that we use common sense.
"There are other things too when you sign players, that you have to keep in control. You can't give agents the control by giving buyout clauses and stuff.
"That has been touted around, that is for me, we have to be in control."
SunSport reported before Christmas how Raiola vowed "never to send any more players to United" over the breakdown of Haaland's move there.
Haaland ended up scoring a hat-trick on his debut for Dortmund in just 23 minutes in a 5-3 win against FC Augsburg.
And that was after he came off the bench to replace Lukasz Piszczek in the 56th minute.
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Meanwhile over at Old Trafford, Romelu Lukaku was not replaced in the summer, Alexis Sanchez is out on loan at Inter Milan and Marcus Rashford is out injured for the next eight weeks.
It has left many United fans pleading with Solskjaer and the board to make a number of additions this month.
But the Norwegian seemingly will not want to deal with Raiola if he brings in some new talent.
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Paul Pogba's representative has criticised the Old Trafford club as his star client continues to be linked with an exit.
Pogba is currently out with an ankle injury.
And now current United star Jesse Lingard has teamed up with Raiola - and is now linked with a move away.
The super-agent also worked on previous deals to bring in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lukaku to United.