Glazers VETOED Man Utd Van Dijk transfer

Tom Weber

• 23 Mar 2023 16:10 GMT
• 3 min read

It has been revealed that Manchester United's much-maligned owners vetoed Jose Mourinho's request to bring Virgil van Dijk to Old Trafford.

The Dutchman signed for Liverpool for what was then a record-breaking €78.8 million deal in January of 2018. Despite the hefty fee attached, it proved to be an inspired piece of business as Van Dijk turned out to be one of the world's best defenders.

Had former Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho got his way, however, the Dutchman would have been marshalling Manchester United's defence in recent years.

Indeed, the trajectory of football history would have been entirely different. Liverpool may have never claimed the Champions League and ended their 30-year Premier League drought, while Manchester United's "banter era" could have ended a lot sooner.

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"These lot won't give me the money for him"

According to pundit Chris Kamara, Mourinho wanted to bring Van Dijk to Old Trafford in the summer before he went to Liverpool only to have his transfer request vetoed by the Glazers.

"I can exclusively reveal," Kamara announced on BBC's Proper Football Podcast, "that I told Jose to take him [van Dijk] to Manchester United and Jose said 'these lot won’t give me the money for him.' And he went to Liverpool."

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Last year, Van Dijk's former teammate Charlie Austin made a similar statement. On talkSPORT, the Swindon Town man recounted: "I remember the back end of his Southampton career, we were on the bench together at Chelsea away."

"I sat there," he continued, "I said, 'come on Virgil, what’s going on, surely Man Utd must’ve been in for you? Massive club in England, etc' He said, 'you know what Chaz, in the summer it was like between me or Lindelöf and they signed Lindelöf.' I was like, 'you are joking!'"

Virgil van Dijk ended up at Liverpool and the rest is history.