Chelsea winger Jadon Sancho has been all over the news cycle this month as reports of his potential return to Manchester United began making the rounds. There was discussion of a penalty Chelsea would have to pay if they were to turn down the obligation to buy option but the fee wasn’t revealed.
Earlier this week however, football insider Fabrizio Romano reported that the fee would be a relatively paltry sum of £5 million. Chelsea happily spend double that on a teenager from Kazakhstan so it is pennies compared to the £25m they would have to spend to keep him.
It seems like an easy decision to send Sancho back to Manchester United and pay that penalty and we will go into some of the reasons why that is the case.
His wage demands are too high
One of the reasons that Manchester United wanted to send Sancho on loan, aside from him being part of then-manager Erik Ten Hag’s plans, is that he was making far too much money for his output. Sancho was on £250k a week with United and they needed to offset that cost for a player not pulling his weight.
On loan at Chelsea, Sancho is reportedly being paid £100k by the Blues and the rest of his salary is being paid by Manchester United. If he becomes a Chelsea player full-time then the Blues would take on his full salary at least until he finishes out his contract at the end of the 2025-26 season.
There would be no reason to pay a player £250k a week unless he is one of the first names on your team sheet and Sancho has not done anything to solidify that at the moment. You can get his current level of production from someone like Tyrique George or another young winger for a fraction of the cost.