Manchester United forward Mason Greenwood is close to agreeing a £27 million deal to move to Ligue 1 club Marseille as he no longer has a future at the Old Trafford club, according to The Times.
The 22-year-old returned to the Carrington training base on Monday for the first since his arrest in January 2022 for attempted rape, assault and coercive control, and technical director Jason Wilcox and sporting director Dan Ashworth made it clear to him that there was no way back at the club.
A move to Marseille is edging closer despite interests from several clubs, and his sale would count as 100 per cent profit in Man United’s accounting with the Premier League given that he is a home-grown talent.
Making a £27m profit by selling Greenwood is a great business for the Red Devils as they need to comply with the Sustainability and Profitability rules and also generate funds before they can recruit quality players.
The Man United academy graduate put in an impressive performance while on loan at Getafe last term, weighing in with ten goals and nine assists in 36 games to emerge as their player of the year.
Greenwood has alerted clubs as a result, but Getafe inserted a 20% sell-on clause in the deal that brought him to Spain despite not paying a loan fee for the player’s services, meaning they are set to bag around £5.4m if he were to join Marseille for £27m.
Greenwood last played for the Red Devils in January 2022 before returning to first-team action with Getafe in September 2023, and he will be leaving his boyhood club with 35 goals in 129 appearances.
Despite their efforts to reintegrate him into the team after the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges against him due to a withdrawal of key witnesses in February 2023, the backlash Man United received forced them to loan him out.
Greenwood maintains his innocence but the damage has already been done and he will have to move elsewhere to continue his promising career.
