Usain Bolt's former teammate reveals staggering amount he wanted for football contract

Usain Bolt is arguably the greatest track athlete of all time. But upon retiring in 2017, he wasn't satisfied with having conquered just one sport.

The Jamaican sprint king is the only person ever to have won three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 100m and 200m. And despite having hung up his spikes seven years ago, he still holds the world records in both his primary disciplines.

But Bolt was just 30 years old when he retired and he still felt he had plenty to offer in the sporting world. A lifelong football fan, the 6ft 5ins superstar attempted to transition to soccer.

"It's a personal goal, I don't care what people really think about it," the Jamaican superstar said at the time. "It's a dream, it's another chapter of my life that I really want to do. If you have a dream or something you really want to do, you want try to see where it could go."

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Bolt's true dream was to play for his beloved Manchester United. But while the Red Devils didn't represent a realistic option for the former sprinter, he did receive a trial at a Champions League club.

Borussia Dortmund invited Bolt for a two-day trial in 2018. "If he wants to make at the highest level, he still has a lot of work to do,” BVB coach Peter Stoger said. "At his age, there is not that much room for development."

Although Dortmund decided against offering him a contract, that wasn't the end of Bolt's foray into football.

He'd trained with South African side Mamelodi Sundowns two months earlier and – after an eight-week trial in which he scored two goals on his debut – Australian club Central Coast Mariners actually offered Bolt a contract.

But Bolt's wage demands proved too expensive for the Aussie outfit and in 2019 he called time on his brief football career.

“You live and you learn," he said. "It was a good experience – I really enjoyed just being in a team. I’m now moving into different businesses."

And now one of Bolt's former teammates has revealed just how much the Olympic icon was demanding.

"They wanted to sign him because they could have gotten a certain amount back through shirt sales," former Fulham, Aston Villa and Central Coast striker Ross McCormack told Open Goal Sport. "But he salary cap in the league was AUS$3.6 million when I was at Melbourne City the year before. Then it got slashed to AUS$1.8 million. He asked for AUS$3 million a year."