Official: Mateo Mejia moves to Sevilla for free with only sell-on clause included | OneFootball

The youth exodus at Manchester United shows no signs of stopping as another youngster has moved from Old Trafford.

Mateo Mejia has joined Sevilla officially on a “free permanent deal” and United will have a 25% sell-on clause included, Fabrizio Romano reported.

Mejia joins Hannibal as the second academy graduate to move to Sevilla, with another youngster leaving La Liga this season in Alvaro Fernandez.

There has been a concerted effort from United this window to sell youngsters who would probably never make the grade here.

Consequently, even supposedly highly-rated players like Hannibal have buy options included in their loan moves, while Fernandez’s buy option at Benfica turns into an obligation after a set number of games.

For Mejia, however, this brings an end to a move that happened with much anticipation.

He was a menace in the youth circuits in Spain, known for scoring goals by the bucketloads.

United were widely lauded for being able to land the clinical Spanish youth striker, much like Charlie McNeil in England.

However, injury problems piled up during his time here and he could never get a consistently successful run in the team.

Furthermore, he couldn’t settle on one single position in the youth sides, playing all across the front line as the striker position was taken up by McNeil and Joe Hugill.

This is a pretty much no-risk move by Sevilla as they get a youngster with an undoubtedly high ceiling at his lowest point.

If this distressed asset rediscovers his mojo back in his home country then this deal will turn out to be a remarkable bargain.

If not, then they don’t lose anything as they didn’t pay any transfer fee for him.

For United, however, they will hope that Mejia is hugely successful at Sevilla so their sell-on clause nets them a sizeable fee in the long-term.