Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has revealed he was offered a salary that dwarfed his wages at Old Trafford, to leave his boyhood club in the summer of 2000.
Scholes was one of the best goalscoring midfielders in the world at the time, before eventually dropping into a deep-lying play-maker role later in his career.
He had just collected his fourth Premier League title in six seasons as a first-teamer, was a Champions League winner as part of the treble in 1998–99, and was a key player for England.
There was interest in several United players from Serie A at the time, with Italy’s top flight keen to hold onto its tag as the best in the world. Ryan Giggs was the subject of attention from Juventus, while Roy Keane also considered joining the Turin giants. For Scholes, the offer came from Inter.
“I got a phone call from an agent—Ryan Giggs’s agent, Harry Swales,” Scholes explained on the latest episode of the Stick to Football podcast. “It was at Euro 2000, after [England] had just beaten Germany. He said, ‘Inter Milan want to give you £4 million ($5.3 million) per year, tax free.’”
It’s relative small fry by 2025’s standards, but that was enormous money in English football in those days. For reference, Roy Keane’s new contract signed in December 1999 paid him £50,000 per week, assumed to be pre-tax, and was the most lucrative deal in Britain at the time. Scholes stood to pocket the equivalent of £77,000 net each and every week in Italy.
“It was bigger than I was getting then… probably more than double,” he recalled.
“I remember seeing [the story] on the back of a [news]paper—‘£30 million to Inter Milan’, or something. But I never heard anything about it ever again after that. I obviously said no to Harry.”
Hosting the podcast, Gary Neville chimed in at that moment: “The reason that I think you won’t have heard anything about it again—I don’t know this for a fact—I suspect [Inter] contacted [Manchester United] and [Alex Ferguson] just completely shut it down.”
But while Scholes had no intention of leaving United, he admitted it did prompt something which he now looks back on as being the single biggest regret of his career.
“I’ll tell you something funny. We got to preseason and I was told, ‘Paul, go and see the manager to tell him you want more money.’ It’s the worst thing I ever did in my life, honestly. I felt so bad. I think I said something like, ‘I think I deserve more money.’ What am I doing?!” he added.
“[Ferguson] pulled a little black book out and was flicking through the pages for like five minutes [and said], ‘No I think you’re level with everyone, it’s fine.’ That’s my biggest regret in football, doing that. My heart is beating thinking about it now, because I felt so bad about doing it.”
This week’s Stick to Football podcast with Paul Scholes is available now on YouTube and all leading podcast platforms.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Paul Scholes Reveals Which Club Offered to Double Man Utd Salary, Biggest Career Regret.