Real delight as United allow Van Nistelrooy to go for £10m

Jack Rashleigh
Tuesday 18 July 2006 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The Manchester United striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy is expected to complete his move to Real Madrid today after the clubs settled on a fee considerably lower than United's original £16m asking price.

The two clubs are believed to have agreed a final fee of about €15m (£10.3m) for the 30-year-old Dutchman and he is due sign a three-year deal today, subject to a medical.

The player will be presented to fans later in the week before joining up with his new team-mates at their pre-season training camp in Irdning, Austria, at the start of next week. Real's need to bring in a new striker became obvious on Friday when their Brazil centre-forward Ronaldo confirmed that he needed an operation that would almost certainly rule him out of the start of the season.

Ronaldo decided to have the operation on Saturday - under the supervision of Brazilian national team doctors instead of Real's club doctors, which did not go down well with his club.

Despite Real's desperation - they are now without a recognised No 9 - it appears to be United who caved in on their original valuation of the player, set at £16m. United also wanted the deal closed ahead of talks to keep Cristiano Ronaldo and sign the Atletico Madrid striker Fernando Torres.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in