United face cash claim

Ferguson: determined to bring top young talent to United

Manchester United may have to pay upwards of £1m to Wolves as compensation for signing of one of Molineux's most promising young players.

The Premiership champions have been ordered to pay Wanderers £200,000 immediately as compensation for signing Daniel Nardiello, by a Football League Appeals Committee.

But the true cost of recruiting the seventeen-year-old striker from Stourbridge could rise even further if he eventually makes it into United's first team.

Wolves will be entitled to further payments of £150,000-a-time if Nardiello goes on to play five, fifteen, 25 and 40 first-team matches.

A further £250,000 will be payable if the youngster plays in a Uefa or Fifa competitive international fixture.

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey said: "I am delighted with the verdict of the tribunal.

They cannot get away with cherry-picking outstanding young talent

  Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey

"I hope this sends out a message to predator clubs that they cannot get away with cherry-picking the outstanding young talent being developed at Wolves without significant financial consequences."

Wolves youth academy director Chris Evans also welcomed the ruling, but believes United may still have got a bargain.

He added: "Daniel Nardiello was the jewel in the crown of our schoolboy development programme, and was developed by our technical coaching staff to national levels of excellence."

Nardiello has represented England schoolboys at under-fifteen and under-sixteen level and has already made a big impression at Old Trafford.

Since joining last July, he has progressed from United's under-seventeen side and has acquitted himself well for the under-nineteens.

If he leaves Old Trafford in the future for a fee in excess of the amount paid to Wolves, Wanderers will be entitled to fifteen per cent of the excess.