Angel Di Maria, Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba all represent the biggest buys in the club’s history.
But the MEN say Woodward found Neymar to be one huge deal too far, despite personally visiting Barcelona in 2015 to watch him in action.
It is said he was wary of a repeat of the Lucas Moura situation in 2012.
Then at Sao Paulo, the player had the choice of moving to United or PSG.
And he ended up choosing the Ligue 1 giants - much to the anger of Sir Alex Ferguson.
GETTY
Neymar: Manchester United chief Ed Woodward was too scared of PSG
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Ferguson admitted he wanted Moura at United when writing in his autobiography.
"Right towards the end of my time at United we were pursuing Lucas Moura, the immensely talented right winger who, at the time, was playing in his native Brazil for Sao Paulo," Ferguson wrote in his 2015 book Leading.
"We offered £24million for him, which was upped to £30m and again to £35m, but Paris Saint-Germain signed him for £45m.
“David [Gill] and I were just not prepared to go to those sorts of levels."