Erling Haaland shines on the field almost every weekend at Manchester City. Before moving to England, the striker played for RB Leipzig, Dortmund, Molde and Bryne.
Club Brugge will take on Molde, one of Haaland’s ex-clubs, this Thursday. And also the club where blue-black would have scouted him in 2018. “Discussions were progressing well at club level,” Club Brugge CEO Vincent Mannaert told Het Nieuwsblad.
“We would pay about five million euros to Molde, which was a lot of money at the time. We are talking about 2018, right? Especially because Haaland was barely eighteen years old and he was not even a permanent member of the team at Molde. He often played with the second team, where our scouts discovered him at the age of sixteen. We saw his potential. And the reference check with Rune Lange was also fine,” he continues.
“So we were prepared to push on. And we did everything we could to convince the player after Molde. Haaland’s father came to visit Bruges, together with the then agent. It went well, the next step was for Erling himself would come off. But then…”
Then Mino Raiola came along. The recently deceased broker made things a lot more difficult for Blue-Black.
“Mino said: ‘From now on, I am Erling Haaland’s supervisor.’ I checked that, it turned out to be correct. And then the trouble started. Because Mino made crazy financial demands – also in the name of the dad. He wanted thirty percent on all future transfer fees, otherwise the agreement would not go through,” says Mannaert.
“That was not negotiable for us,” Mannaert adds. “It was disproportionate and you set a standard that will certainly cause you problems afterwards with other transfers. This way it was not necessary.”
Ultimately, Haaland moved to RB Salzburg, which did include Raiola’s clause in his contract. That club eventually sold him to Dortmund for 20 million euros.
