Man Utd's transfer debt reaches record high | OneFootball

Manchester United owe rival clubs more than £390m in unpaid transfer fees and roughly £200m of that debt is due over the next 12 months.

The release of United's accounts for the second quarter of the financial year have been greeted with grimaces and grim expressions. The club's total revenues have taken a considerable hit, broadcast returns have almost halved and their operating profit has been effectively wiped out.

The eye-watering cost of Erik ten Hag's departure and Ruben Amorim's subsequent arrival hasn't lifted the mood at a club which continues to lose millions of pounds each year to fund interest payments on the debt piled up by the unpopular Glazer family.

It has also been revealed that United need to somehow find £390.8m down the back of the sofa to pay off transfers which they have already made.

Noussair Mazraoui (left) and Matthijs de Ligt both joined Man Utd from Bayern Munich in the summer / Michael Regan/GettyImages

Modern day deals often include structured payments of fees, spreading out the total sum over multiple years - the exact nature of this spread can be the downfall of certain transfers if the selling club demands too much of the total fee up front.

Over the last three years, only two clubs in world football (Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain) have spent more on incoming players than Manchester United. The Red Devils have splashed in excess of £570m on transfers since 2022, and committed to deals worth £200m this season alone, with the likes of Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt and Manuel Ugarte arriving under Ten Hag's watch last summer.

The Dutchman may be gone, but the bill for his acquisitions isn't going anywhere. Of the £390m which United owe in fees, almost £200m is due in the coming year.

Despite being among the biggest spenders in world football, United's vast outlay has not been rewarded with on-pitch success. Current head coach Ruben Amorim has described his side as "the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United". That discrepancy may very well be a result of the club's muddled recruitment strategy.

Ten Hag seemed to have an unusually swollen influence on the identity of United's signings, leaning towards players he had direct experience of managing or facing. The club's influential co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe lamented the lack of statistical backing behind most of the club's moves. "Data analysis comes alongside recruitment. It doesn't really exist here," the British billionaire sighed in December. "We're still in the last century on data analysis here."

Ratcliffe didn't exactly help the club's recruitment operation or financial health by firing sporting director Dan Ashworth five months after his arrival, all of which cost the princely sum of £4.1m.