Man Utd threaten to sue Le Havre over Pogba claims

Manchester United are the latest Premier League team to get caught up in the row about poaching young players from foreign clubs, as they threatened Ligue 2's Le Havre with legal action yesterday if the French side's president repeats allegations about the French teenager Paul Pogba (above, wearing No 6).

Jean-Pierre Louvel had invited Fifa to investigate the July transfer, claiming that the Old Trafford giants had illegally induced the player to sign for them by offering his estranged parents a financial settlement and buying the 16-year-old a home in Manchester.

Louvel said: "‘[English clubs] tempt the parents. In the case of Paul Pogba, it was fairly simple. One hundred thousands euros for the father, one hundred thousand euros for the mother, and a house. France respects a certain number of rules, but English clubs do not respect anything."

Manchester United have reacted furiously to the accusations, which they point out where only made in the wake of the Gael Kakuta affair last week. "In response to the wholly unfounded comments Jean-Pierre Louvel, we wish to categorically confirm that as a matter of club policy and in accordance with the applicable football regulations, we do not offer inducements to the parents of players who sign for the club such as monetary payments or the purchase of houses," said United.

"Manchester United have today written to Le Havre to put it on notice that action will be taken if such allegations are repeated in relation to the transfer of Paul Pogba."

Despite their bullish stance, there could be real fear at Manchester United about the repercussions of this affair, not least as the club are currently chasing Caen midfielder Regis Etari too, and caused anger in Italy with their pursuit and capture of Federico Macheda from Lazio, Fiorentina's Michele Fornasier, Alberto Massacci and Manuel Pucciarelli from Empoli, and Roma's Davide Petrucci.

The difficulty for European clubs is that the law in many countries prohibits clubs from signing up youngsters - in Italy clubs must wait until a player hits 18. Unfortunately for continental clubs there is no such bar in the UK, and the EU guarantee the free movement of workers from the age of 16.

All the Big Four clubs are guilty of raiding the feted youth academies of European clubs to some extent - Arsenal's captain Cesc Fabregas was cherry-picked from Barcelona six years ago when just 16, while Liverpool paid a mere £200,000 for Jordi Brower in 2007. Chelsea raised eyebrows when 11-year-old Jeremey Boga moved to London from Marseilles, but his father was living in London so the deal was not considered suspect.

Meanwhile the English clubs came under fire from one of the most respected names in the domestic game, Crewe's director of football Dario Gradi. Crewe has had a fine tradition under Gradi of spotting outstanding youngsters then seeing the big clubs snap them up, including Danny Murphy, Dean Ashton and David Platt. He is currently fending off interest in one of his 15-year-old players, believed to be Max Clayton.

"We have a situation where one of our 15-year-olds has been approached," said Gradi. "The big clubs are stealing other people's players and you worry financially for the clubs where the players are stolen from. What sort of compensation are we going to get for all the work that has gone into developing him?

"I'm delighted with what has happened with Chelsea. I would hope all the big clubs are frightened to death. There is no excuse for breaking the rules" ·