Al-Hilal have been knocking at the door of Manchester United star playmaker Bruno Fernandes for years, but with the Club World Cup coming, this will be their stiffest challenge for the Portuguese international. According to a report from GiveMeSport’s Ben Jacobs, the Saudi Pro League side are now offering Fernandes a three-year contract with wages exceeding 65 million pounds per season.
That contract offer has to be awfully tempting for Fernandes, who currently makes around 15 million pounds per season at Manchester United. Even though the Red Devils may not want to sell their captain and best overall player, especially with Ruben Amorim strongly favoring him and even saying in public he’s not for sale, the decision may not be theirs to make.
A raise of more than quadruple of a salary that is already one of the highest-paying in the Premier League is the kind of money most players who are the age of 30 don’t turn down.
Manchester United can sign Gyokeres after selling Bruno
Manchester United could still reach the Champions League next season by winning the Europa League despite being buried in the bottom half of the Premier League table, but with the club not doing much domestically, Fernandes may not have enough sporting reasons to stay at Old Trafford.
It’s a tough situation for Manchester United, but if they were to lose Fernandes to Al-Hilal this summer, they do have a tailor-made playmaking replacement in top prospect Alejandro Garnacho, who could mature into the role as a superstar with regular playing time and increased responsibility.
Meanwhile, Manchester United could use the funds from a Fernandes sale to sign a player at a bigger position of need, finally bringing in a goal-scoring striker like Viktor Gyokeres, who also has a close Sporting CP link with current coach Amorim.
The ball is in Bruno’s court
At this time, the feeling has been that Fernandes isn’t interested in abandoning the Manchester United project as its leader, but, predictably, Al-Hilal are throwing around the kind of money that you wouldn’t blame the 30-year-old attacking midfielder for making the switch to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Pro League powerhouses will continue to look for big names in the Premier League to sign with a mouth-watering one billion euro prize pot at stake starting on June 14 when the 2025 Club World Cup opens.
Now, the ball is in Fernandes’s court. Manchester United can try to switch things around financially to entice Fernandes to stay, but this is likely a take-it-or-leave-it situation in which Fernandes can make the ultimate call on what he wants to do with this much money at stake for him.
Joe Soriano covers Tottenham for FanSided’s Hotspur HQ and writes about Real Madrid for The Real Champs. He has extensive experience covering world football since 2014. Joe is an editor for The Trivela Effect, where he covers the biggest clubs in European football. He has watched professional sports regularly since 2002 and can be found playing the same sports he covers with his friends.