isport| Van Gaal can spend AGAIN in january

Louis van Gaal has been given the
green light to carry on spending as
Manchester United announce a
record turnover of £433 million and
a profit of £23.9m in their latest
accounts.
The accounts for the year ending June 2014 do not take into
account the British-record £59.7m signing of Angel Di Maria or
the late-August captures of Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind and
Radamel Falcao on loan.
But executive vice-chairman Ed
Woodward told investors in a
conference call that United's
finances are so healthy that even a
season without Champions League
football will not curb their transfer
spending.
United's commercial deals,
including a £53m-a-year shirt
sponsorship deal with Chevrolet
that started this summer and a 10-
year kit agreement with Adidas
worth £75m-a-year that kicks in
next year, mean that the 20-times
Premier League champions are
able to withstand the cost of a
season outside of Europe's elite -
despite Woodward explaining that they can expect a 10 per
cent drop in revenue as a result of their failure to qualify.
Real Madrid announced last week that their annual revenue
has soared to £480m, the highest mark for any club in the
world, but even the Spanish giants and fellow big-hitters
Barcelona cannot rival the fresh commercial deals in place at
Old Trafford.
United have spent in excess of £150m this summer on new
signings, including the British record signing of Di Maria.
Sources have told Goal that United could eve have afforded to
spend £200m on transfers and have the finances in place to
buy a player to the equivalent value of Di Maria every year for
the next decade.
Further spending is expected to take place in the January
market as Van Gaal is given further licence to continue his
radical overhaul of a squad that failed so dismally under David
Moyes last season and has begun the current campaign in
equally uncertain fashion.
Woodward confirmed that the club are open to more
purchases in the winter window if the manager wants deals
done.
"We don't intend to significantly increase cap-ex in January," he
explained. "We will continue to monitor, in association with
Louis, his view of the squad and which areas we want to
strength and which areas we want to sell. The usual three in,
three out is par for the course in the numbers in and out each
year, typically in the summer.
"I wouldn't have expectations for January but, if there is a
willingness from the manager, we will engage with him and if
there an opportunity, we will try and take that as we did last
year with Juan Mata."
It is believed that Moyes was given a £3.5m pay-off, equivalent
to a year's salary, with the annual results revealing that a total
of £5.2m was spent on removing him and his backroom team
of Phil Neville, Steve Round, Jimmy Lumsden and Chris Woods.
United’s surprise drop from champions in 2012-13 to seventh-
place last season saw the club suffer a reduction of £8.4m in
Premier League prize money last season – a campaign which
Woodward described as "very disappointing" when addressing
investors following the publication of quarterly accounts in
May.
The absence of Champions League football this season is worth
a minimum £25m, and probably at least £10m more, meaning
that the Moyes regime cost the club in the region of £50m
compared to the heights usually reached under Sir Alex
Ferguson.