It’s not only automatic qualification into the group stages of next season’s Champions League that will be up for grabs when Manchester United take on Ajax in next week’s Europa League Final in Stockholm. A report in The Times suggests that Jose Mourinho’s men are set to lose £38M in salary payments if they fail to make it into Europe’s premier club competition.
 

Under the current pay structure at Old Trafford, all players who earn £20,000-a-week or more are docked 25 per cent of their salary if they fail to make it into the Champions League; such is the expectation by the power brokers that they should be at Europe’s top table every season.
 

The journal goes on to explain that this rule applies to the 22 first-team players who finished last season under the tutelage of Dutch coach Louis van Gaal which would total £28M. The Red Devils’ new summer signings; Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Bailly and Henrikh Mkhitaryan will lose £9M under the same pay structure.
 

Add to this the fact that defeat in Stockholm would also result in United players losing out on a £1M performance related bonus scheme and it becomes clear that there is more than a trophy at stake in Scandinavia.