I accidentally leaked my own Man Utd transfer after sending a snap to my village WhatsApp
NEMANJA MATIC has admitted to accidentally leaking his own Manchester United transfer in 2017.
The midfielder joined the Red Devils from Chelsea in a £40million deal.
Fans knew of the transfer before it was formally announced, after a picture of Matic wearing his new United training shirt circulated on social media.
Appearing on the Red Devils’ UTD podcast, Matic revealed how the snap came to light.
He said: “It wasn’t ‘someone’… I took the picture!
“I took it, obviously not to put it on social media, but because I have a [WhatsApp] group with 50 people, more or less, from my village [in Serbia].
“In that group are the guys I grew up with.
“To be honest, they were texting every two minutes [to ask me] ‘Is the deal done? Did you sign?’
“For two days, I didn’t reply to anything. But that day, I woke up and saw 70 messages.
“They sent me reports from newspapers saying the deal was done. So I sent them a selfie.
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“I was doing the medical test then and of course, they probably sent it [the selfie] to some friends. The power of social media did the job.”
The deal was announced by Man United the day after his photo leaked.
Matic, now 34, went on to play 189 times for the Red Devils.
He scored four times, including their goal of the season in 2017-18 for an effort against Crystal Palace.
The Serbian departed last summer to reunite with his former boss Jose Mourinho at Roma.
Matic has been a regular in the Italian capital, so far appearing 37 times for the Serie A club.