The player has now spoken about his failed transfer to Old Trafford.
According to reports, Manchester United had an offer of £88 million rejected after the manager threatened to leave the club. Over the years, United have spent large sums of money to sign some of the world’s best players. Names like Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Angel di Maria and Paul Pogba are some examples of expensive signings.
Read: Erling Braut Haaland is in the running for a sensational transfer
Finally ended up at Chelsea!
However, Manchester United under Jose Mourinho’s leadership, back in 2018, failed to lure a player to the club after a huge bid was rejected.
At the time, the Red Devils were interested in Napoli stopper Kalidou Koulibaly and actually made a bid worth €100 million for the Senegalese international.
But despite Koulibaly expressing his desire to leave Napoli for Manchester, the manager’s power came to the fore in the end.
Looking back on the transfer saga, Koulibaly himself revealed that then-Napoli boss Carlo Ancelotti threatened to leave the club if he was sold to United.
Jose Mourinho went straight into the job as manager of Benfica in mid-September, days after he was fired from Fenerbache. While Carlo Ancelotti said goodbye to Real Madrid this summer to become national team manager of Brazil.
As reported by One Football, Koulibaly told Podcast Zack en Roue Libre (via TMW): “Napoli had received an offer worth €100 million from Manchester United, but they turned it down. Ancelotti came to me and said: ‘I came here to win the Scudetto. What do you want to do?'”
“I said, ‘I wanted to go, why?'”
He continued: “He [Ancelotti] said he knew about the offer, but that if I left, he would have quit his job the next day.”
Koulibaly went on to explain why he wanted to leave Napoli.
He said: “I thought my time in Naples was over; I had given everything I had. I had spent four seasons there and I could have had the best contract of my career.”
“In the evening, Ancelotti called me and said, ‘Come to my room.’ He opened the door and said, ‘Ah, mon ami Kalidou!’ He spoke French, we were both wearing pajamas; I was shocked.”
Koulibaly added, “I explained to him that I was not happy and that I thought the president had a lack of respect towards me for the way he spoke.”
Finally, Koulibaly left Napoli for Chelsea in 2022 in a deal with a reported value of €40 million.
In the summer of 2023, Koulibaly was one of several big names who left European football for Saudi Arabia when he signed for Al Hilal.
Read on English clubs: Manchester United star pushes for exit against Ruben Amorim’s wishes
