Axel Witsel turned down Manchester United to join Dortmund | OneFootball

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OneFootball

Lewis Ambrose·8 August 2018

Axel Witsel turned down Manchester United to join Dortmund

Article image:Axel Witsel turned down Manchester United to join Dortmund

Axel Witsel’s agent has revealed he rejected Manchester United to join Borussia Dortmund this week.

Dortmund activated Witsel’s €20m release clause to sign the midfielder from Chinese Super League Tianjin Quanjian but they weren’t the only side interested after Witsel expressed his desire to return to Europe.


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“We chatted for a moment,” agent Paul Stefani told Het Laatste Nieuws

“Axel says: ‘Maybe I want to leave China'” I say to him laughing: ‘Axel, I promise that I will come up with something really great!'”

Stefani did exactly that, alerting Dortmund to Witsel’s availability.

“I remembered that a few months earlier I had been to Dortmund, where I met someone from the club. I call that man and he brings me into contact with the management.

“Sports director Michael Zorc and CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke invited me to come and talk at a time when Axel was at the World Cup in Russia. There I heard that Dortmund were looking for a player like Witsel.

“I explained to them that the Portuguese lawyer of Witsel has negotiated a buy-out clause of €20m with Tianjin. That sounded like music to them, because they thought that Tianjin would ask for an amount of around €60m for Axel.

“There were other candidates. Manchester United wanted him, Napoli too. But I told Axel: ‘At Dortmund you are the number one, at Manchester you are one of the many… and at Napoli too’.”