Manchester United Should End Sao Paulo's Runaround Game

Sao Paulo’s board of directors, owners, club president and anyone else involved with the club must be laughing their backsides off at Manchester United.

Here they sit with the world’s largest club in their hands, bandying them about as a cat would do with a piece of string.

And it's high time that, unless Sao Paulo stick to their next concrete number, United drop Sao Paulo a peg or two and wait for them to crumble later.

The circumstances in question relate to United’s pursuit of Lucas Moura, a prodigious midfield talent that has captured the attention of many of Europe’s top clubs.

Inter Milan had been laughed off by Sao Paulo for a bid that was around €25 million. United, seeing Inter’s lack of real push, stepped in themselves.

Then, of course, the games began.

United had shown an early interest and started off with a bid of €32 million, but Sao Paulo asked for €38.5 million.

Initially, it appeared as though United had hit Sao Paulo’s desired fee for Lucas. With fellow Brazilian Oscar on the out to Chelsea for around €32 million, it seemed great for Sao Paulo that their asking price was met.

Sao Paulo then rejected the notion, saying the €35 million United had offered was short.

The Daily Mail speculated that an additional €5 million was needed for Lucas’ cut of the transfer.

It was thought that, according to his contract, Lucas was to take on 20 percent of any fee before August 1 and 30 percent thereafter.

United stalled the bid there, but then got whitewashed when Sao Paulo released a statement through director Marco Aurelio Cunha:

From ESPNSoccernet (via TMW)

"

Manchester United made a very important offer of €35 million, but they would need to produce a little more.

For us, only Neymar [in Brazil] is worth more. After him is Lucas, and we would not want to sell for less than this sort of value.

We do not need the money. The Brazilian economy is good, television pays us and we cannot complain. For us, it is still better to have a good player than lots of money in the bank.

"

Now, should that number be around or under €40 million and no more, United should still make the play for Lucas.

But, if it's some astronomical number, then the game will simply carry on.

The Daily Mail think that “producing a little more” equates to about €64 million.

That’s a ridiculous sum even if Neymar was the player in question. That would mean that Lucas is worth 62.5 percent of what Cristiano Ronaldo was sold for.

Even then, there’s no guarantee that would work.

On the ESPNSoccernet bio for Lucas, their last little tidbit is one that should pretty well eliminate any doubt as to where Sao Paulo will sell at, should they continue their stick and run game.

That number? €80 million.

And given the way that Sao Paulo is playing this out, there’s no reason to think they would not eventually point to that and want United to match it.

It appears than the Brazilian outfit are having fun with this little dance they are subjugating United to at the moment.

Moving the goalposts at each turn has probably infuriated several within the United hierarchy by this point.

What should happen from hear, though, is pretty simple.

Sir Alex Ferguson is not one to take kindly to having the wool pulled over his eyes like this, and one would expect that contract talks likely will break down if the numbers above prove true.

Not only that, Ferguson is likely to give Sao Paulo a piece of his mind.

The easiest jab, of course, would be to point out that Lucas is not even starting in front of Oscar at the Olympics.

You could just see Ferguson at a press conference, playing along nicely until he slides in a line such as, “If Lucas is not preferred to Oscar, why should United be paying more for him?”

In all honesty, he’s right.

With the kind of money that Sao Paulo is asking, he might as well go down to London and pick up Luka Modric from wherever the Croatian is not training with Tottenham at.

Sao Paulo has enjoyed this game for far too long.

It’s time for United to end it and make sure that everyone else knows they don’t intend to be trifled with like this again.