Torino president tells Manchester United to pay £87m for Andrea Belotti

Torino will not sell highly-rated striker Andrea Belotti for anything less than his €100m (£87m) release clause, the Serie A club's president has confirmed.

Urbano Cairo said Torino had no intention of selling Belotti, who scored 26 goals in 35 Serie A appearances last season.

Manchester United have been heavily linked with a move for Belotti after reports suggested that the Red Devils had dropped their interest in signing Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann.

"I'm not thinking about selling Belotti. Belotti is my player, we only renewed his contract recently. Our objective is to keep him," Cairo was quoted as saying by Manchester Evening News.

"After that, there is a release clause that would make me obliged to sell him, providing someone came in with €100m from abroad.

"Let's see. I haven't talked to him yet because he is currently with the national team. We will see how things go, but our intention would be to keep him."

United are in the market for a striker after Zlatan Ibrahimovic suffered a serious knee injury towards the end of last season, ruling him out until 2018.

Manager Jose Mourinho is also reported to be considering moves for Everton striker Romelu Lukaku and Real Madrid forward Alvaro Morata.

The €100m release clause was added when Belotti signed a new contract at Torino in December last year. The 23-year-old admitted in April that he was not worth such an extravagant amount.

"To be honest, no [I don't feel I am worth it]," Belotti was reported as saying by ESPN.

"But given the way the transfer market has developed, increasingly ridiculous sums are being spent. The cost of players has gone up far too much.

"Hernan Crespo did far more than I have – I've achieved nothing yet. [Andriy] Shevchenko was also a champion both on and off the field and he was my idol. I was struck by how he was able to score goals in so many different ways."