What’s causing the delay on Ivan Perisic’s widely anticipated exit?

Believe it or not, it’s been three weeks since Inter’s season ended. The club certainly haven’t been quiet in that time, appointing a new manager and all, but the lack of noise surrounding Inter’s Mercato has been interesting to say the least.

While the Serie A transfer window isn’t officially open until July 3^rd, Nerazzurri fans don’t have to look far to see a flurry of early activity. City rivals AC Milan have been busy spending nearly €99m to sign the likes Mateo Musacchio, Ricardo Rodriguez, Franck Kessie and Andre Silva; while most of the rumors involving Inter Milan are around potential departures.

One of the most prevalent rumors has been the widely anticipated exit of Ivan Perisic, who has been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United.

At this point, Perisic to United is old news. We’ve been hearing about this rumor since before the final match of the season.

Jose Mourinho and the leadership at Manchester United have money to spend, and have already done so snatching up center back Victor Lindelof from Benfica.

Inter also seem to be willing to sell the Croatian winger. So what’s the hold up?

Leverage.

As Will outlined when we first reported on the Perisic to United links, Inter are in a tricky situation due to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations. As he explained:

Inter need to recoup €30m before 30 June 2017 so that they can break even in accordance with agreements they've made with UEFA, and only so much of that can come from sponsorship avenues.

To avoid receiving a corporate slap on the wrist, we need to sell one of our better players for a profit before the end of the month, and it seems that Ivan Perisic has been identified as that very player.

Inter could keep Perisic, and sell some combination of Marcelo Brozovic, Jeison Murillo, Andrea Ranocchia, Gary Medel, Ever Banega, and Stevan Jovetic to cross that €30m threshold, but time is running out, and it seems no real progress has been made in that regard.

Spending €105m on a single player aside, Manchester United are not dumb. They certainly recognize the precarious position Inter are in. Failing to meet the FFP requirements this year would likely only result in a fine for Inter, but violating FFP too often can certainly have consequences — as we’ve seen with major clubs receiving transfer bans in recent seasons.

The latest reports on Perisic suggest that Manchester United and Inter are around €10m apart, with the Nerazzurri holding firm at their €50-55m asking price.

However, each day that goes by without a sale elsewhere in the squad, Inter will feel increased pressure to let Perisic go for less than €50m. It’s in the best interest of Manchester United to drag this transfer saga out as deep into late June they can.

For Inter, the club desperately needs this situation to be resolved quickly so they can move on and reinforce the squad. Unfortunately, it’s looking like that won’t be the case.

It’s very rare to see a selling club lack leverage in a transfer negotiation, but that’s the reality Inter are about to find themselves in. Fun times we live in!