Gary Lineker has taken to Twitter to poke fun at Zlatan Ibrahimovic after the Swedish football legend's Manchester United criticism from 2021 re-emerged online.
Ibrahimovic spent two seasons at Old Trafford and helped win the club a Carabao Cup but still harbours some ill feelings towards the Red Devils over one bizarre incident. The iconic, recently retired striker admitted he was surprised by United's “small, closed mentality” after he was deducted £1 from his wages for drinking juice from the hotel minibar on an away trip.
Lineker has sarcastically responded to Ibrahimovic's complaint by tweeting: "Let's get him a gofund.me page," a site dedicated to raising money for worthy causes.
The ex-United man does not see the funny side though, as shown when detailing the situation in his autobiography, Adrenaline.
"One thing surprised me: everyone thinks of United as a top club, one of the richest and most powerful in the world and seen from the outside it looked that way to me,” he writes. “But once I was there I found a small, closed mentality."
Ibrahimovic is never one to shy away from saying exactly what he thinks and has often gone public with his criticism of a club, player or manager.
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"One day I was in the hotel with the team before a game. I got thirsty so I opened the mini-bar and had a fruit juice,” he added.
"We played and then went home. Some time went by. My pay slip arrives. Normally I don’t look at it. I only do so at the end of the year to see what’s come in and what’s gone out. But that time, I don’t know why, I was curious and realised they’d taken a pound off my monthly wage.
"I called the team manager: ‘Excuse me, why have they taken a pound off my salary.’ The team manager had a look and told me: ‘It was the fruit juice from the mini-bar.’ ‘Are you kidding, seriously?’ ‘No, I’m not. Here, if you order something you have to pay for it.’ ‘Sure, but I didn’t go to the hotel on my own accord. I wasn’t on holiday. It was my workplace. I was there for Manchester. If I have to play and I'm thirsty, I have to drink. I can’t go on the pitch dehydrated.’
"Can you believe it? A quid? Something like that would never happen in Italy. These are the details that make a difference and earn the respect of the players."
It is unclear if this incident inspired Ibrahimovic to try and leave United before the end of his deal, but his contract was terminated by mutual consent in March 2018 - when he still had three months left to run on it.
He also goes on to state in his book how he was asked to show identification every time he entered the United training ground, something which infuriated him as he felt he was the best player in the world and should have been recognisable.
