Manchester United join race to sign Matthijs de Ligt

Premier League side Manchester United are interested in signing Juventus defender Matthijs de Ligt and have contacted representatives of the Dutchman, according to Christian Falk.

However, given Manchester United’s pursuit of Ajax’s Lisandro Martínez, it’s likely that this is nothing more than putting out feelers. At the moment, De Ligt only has a desire to join Bayern Munich and his entourage has halted negotiations with other interested parties at this moment due to his preference to move to Germany.

Bayern Munich are preparing their first offer to Juventus for De Ligt (22), and this comes after sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić met his Juventus counterpart Federico Cherubini in Milan on Wednesday to discuss the transfer in a meeting that lasted around three hours.

According to Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg, talks between the pair were positive and respectful whilst Bayern’s first offer for De Ligt could be presented in the next few days.

The Netherlands international has a reported release clause of €120m with two years remaining on his current deal but it’s highly unlikely that neither Bayern Munich nor Chelsea, who also have concrete interest in De Ligt, would offer such an amount. Juventus would reportedly be willing to listen to negotiations around their valuation of €80m.

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