Manchester United have spent more money on transfers in 3 years than Ajax have since WWII

Manchester United will play Ajax at the Friends Arena in Stockholm on May 24 for the Europa League final, but when they meet few will realise the scale of difference between two sides once considered juggernauts of European football.
With Dutch football falling well behind the Premier League in what is now a global game, Ajax are financial minnows compared to moneybags Manchester United and nowhere is that summed up better than their respective transfer budgets.

As revealed by Sportsmail's Nick Harris, Manchester United have spent £455million on transfer fees in the last three years, which is significantly more than Ajax have spent since World War II

In comparison, the Dutch outfit have spent a total of £379m (adjusted for inflation) over the last 70 years with their record signing Miralem Sulejmani coming in at a modest £13.7m, a figure Manchester United have surpassed on 33 separate occasions.

More incredibly, tallying up Ajax's 10 biggest signings, which include household names like Luis Suarez and Zlatan Ibrahimovic before they were truly famous, comes in at £87.7m when adjusted for inflation.

As Manchester United fans will instantly recognise, that is slightly less than the £89m their club paid to sign Paul Pogba from Juventus last summer.

Impressively, Ajax have sold nine players for more than the price of Sulejmani including Daley Blind's 2014 move to Old Trafford.

Manchester United did, of course, sign Ibrahimovic for free, but the £367,640 a week they pay the Swede means the financials of that deal are well beyond the £7.3m Ajax paid for him in 2001.