YOU might think the world-record £112million Manchester United are ready to pay for Juventus superstar Paul Pogba is the most mind-blowing, money-based statistic to come out of Old Trafford this week.
You could be wrong.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was not only Jose Mourinho’s first signing as United boss. He was also the man to send shirt sales into the stratosphere, with £76million reportedly made in ONE WEEK.
That surely means fans buying the Swedish striker’s top will pay for Pogba’s transfer fee within a fortnight – four years after the France midfielder left United on a free.
And the fact Leicester‘s title-winning squad cost just £54m rams home what a money-making marvel Old Trafford is.
Accountancy giant KPMG valued United this year at around £2.1billion, topping Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Arsenal are United’s closest wealth rivals in the Premier League on about £1.2bn.
Yet Chelsea sold more shirts than United last season – more, in fact, than any football club apart from Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
United came in fourth, ahead of Real, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal and first-time top-tenners Atletico Madrid, plus Juventus and AC Milan.
Spanish champions Barca offloaded 3,637,000 tops, 400,000 more than German kings Bayern.
Chelsea’s total of 3,102,000 compared to United’s 2,977,000, while Arsenal just beat the two-million mark.
We reported last week, though, how United’s French flier Anthony Martial came third in global replica shirt sales last term.
In the past it has been claimed that David Beckham paid for his £32m transfer fee to Los Blancos with shirt sales alone – and the same has been claimed of Cristiano Ronaldo’s whopping £80m fee!
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Only Barcelona genius Lionel Messi and Real raider Ronaldo, nearly everyone’s top two in a list of best players, topped Martial in this department.
Six other Prem stars were in the top ten: under-achieving United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, Chelsea’s erratic wideman Eden Hazard, Old Trafford and England skipper Wayne Rooney, Manchester City forward Sergio Aguero, Arsenal’s Chile frontman Alexis Sanchez and Liverpool’s Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho.
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