Burnley To Pay Manchester Utd £500,000 For Eckerlsey

A Football Association tribunal has agreed a sum of £500,000 to be paid by Burnley to Manchester United for defender Richard Eckersley.

Eckersley joined the Clarets last year on a four-year contract after he turned down an opportunity to stay with the Premier League champions.

The 20-year-old, who has yet to appear in the Burnley first team, was claimed to be worth more than £1m by United.

But the tribunal ordered the club to pay half that amount plus add-ons.

Burnley chief executive Paul Fletcher told the club website: "We thank the tribunal for taking a common sense approach to this.

"When the smallest club in the league tries to take on the biggest club in the league you always wonder how it's going to end up.

"We have always valued the player around the £300,000 mark until he starts establishing himself in the first-team.

"When Manchester United were asking a million-plus we thought we had to stand up and be counted and that's what we did."