Former Man Utd star Nemanja Matic revealed he leaked transfer via WhatsApp with viral photo

Former Manchester United star Nemanja Matic revealed he accidentally leaked his move to Old Trafford in a throwback interview.

Matic made 189 appearances for United across a barren five-year spell in which the club failed to win a single trophy.

And the 34-year-old has reflected upon the day he first signed for the Premier League giants, confessing he leaked his transfer after sending a snap of himself in the club's shirt to his village in Serbia.

Matic was playing at Chelsea when a picture of him wearing a United top and sporting a wry grin appeared on social media.

The snap caused a clamour across the football world, with news subsequently breaking that the midfielder had undergone a medical at the Red Devils' Carrington training ground.

Three years after the 2017 move, Matic admitted that he was the culprit of the leak.

He stressed that though he took and sent the picture to a WhatsApp group comprised of 50 people from his village in Serbia, he had not anticipated that it would appear on social media.

Matic on transfer leak

Matic explained that his friends had been pestering him about a reported move to United, and he sent them a picture to quell the noise.

However, the snap eventually fell into the wrong hands.

Matic admitted to the UTD podcast in 2020: "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.

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"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.

"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 34-year-old ended his half-decade spell at Old Trafford last summer, upon the expiry of his contract.

Matic is now at Roma, back playing under the man who brought him to United, Jose Mourinho.