Fabrizio Romano confirms Man Utd have lost ‘best defender in the world’

Carlo Garganese

• 29 Jun 2023 09:15 BST
• 3 min read

Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that Manchester United have missed out on their top defensive summer target, giving the ‘Here we go’ approval to a title="Kim Min-Jae" href="https://www.footballtransfers.com/en/players/minjae-kim" target="_blank">Kim Min-Jae’s transfer to Bayern Munich.

Romano reports that Kim has agreed personal terms with Bayern, with a five year contract until 2028 all settled.

To complete the transfer, all Bayern have to do now is pay the release clause in Kim’s Napoli contract, which they intend to do in the first two weeks of July.

Who is Kim Min-Jae? The €50m Napoli ‘monster’ wanted by Bayern and Man Utd

This comes as a big blow for Man Utd, who had been the hot favourites to sign Kim this summer until a few weeks ago.

The South Korean had long since agreed personal terms with United but the Red Devils never moved forward to complete the deal.

This allowed Bayern to step in - and they will now pay the release clause to sign Kim.

What is Kim Min-Jae’s release clause?

Kim has a minimum fee release clause in his contract of around €50 million, valid for the first two weeks in July, which makes Napoli powerless to let him go.

READ MORE: Premier League 2023/24 summer transfers: All the Done Deals

Attempts by Napoli to give Kim a new contract and remove the clause have proved fruitless. They are now resigned to losing him.

Min-Jae has been brilliant since joining Napoli from Fenerbahce for €18m last summer, helping them to their first Scudetto in 33 years.

He was signed as a replacement for Kalidou Koulibaly, who left after eight years to join Chelsea, but the Senegalese wasn’t missed at all.

This led to interest from Europe’s biggest clubs, with Man Utd seeming destined to sign the 26-year-old before Bayern moved in.

According to Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti, Kim is now the best in the world in his role.

“Kim does at least 20 incredible things per game, for me he truly is the best centre-back in the world,” Spalletti said after Napoli’s 2-0 win over Atalanta in March.