Haaland to sign £500k-a-week Manchester City deal
The striker’s contract with the Bundesliga club runs out in 2024 but he has a release clause that would allow him to leave for a fee of about £63 million.
Norway star Erling Haaland is expected to join Manchester City in the summer after being offered a salary package that would make him the Premier League’s highest-paid player, according to his present club Borussia Dortmund.
The striker’s contract with the Bundesliga club runs out in 2024 but he has a release clause that would allow him to leave for a fee of about £63 million.
The financial incentives that City’s Abu Dhabi owners are able to offer seem to have been the decisive factor, with talk of wages in excess of £500,000 per week.
City officials including Txiki Begiristain, the director of football, are understood to have held talks with representatives of the prolific 21-year-old Norway striker in February and were confident of persuading him to choose them over his dream of playing for Real Madrid.
Matthias Sammer, the former Germany and Dortmund midfielder who is now a consultant for his former club, confirmed during a German TV broadcast that the Premier League leaders were the frontrunners in the race to sign Haaland.
“Those numbers, I suffered whiplash, I passed out,” Sammer said. “My wife had to help me up. I cannot count that far.”
The overall financial package could be worth upwards of £170 million, depending on the length of the contract, signing-on fee and the agent fees payable to Mino Raiola, Haaland’s representative.
Haaland made it clear in January that he intends to leave Dortmund after being prompted by the German club’s hierarchy to make a decision on his future. It has long been his dream to wear the white shirt of Real but, as revealed by The Times, the Spanish giants are more likely to make a move for Kylian Mbappé.
Mbappé’s contract at Paris Saint-Germain expires this summer and he is the No 1 transfer target for Real, who would like to sign him now and follow up with Haaland next season. PSG, however, are not resigned yet to losing the 23-year-old French World Cup-winner and have offered him a substantial wage increase to try to persuade him to stay and lead another assault on the Champions League.
Haaland wants to be the first choice at the club he chooses to join, and he will not be if Mbappé is also at Real.
City believes that strengthens their hand in persuading Haaland to link up with Pep Guardiola’s side. They are even prepared to say that he can leave them after four or five years and fulfil his ambition of playing for Real then.
Haaland, who has scored 80 goals in 80 games since joining Dortmund in January 2020, returned to action at the weekend after being sidelined since January with a hamstring injury.
He is just the kind of out-and-out striker that many feel Guardiola has lacked since Sergio Agüero left the club last summer.
The 6ft 4in Norwegian would open up new tactical options for City — a club for whom his father, Alf-Inge, played from 2000-03 — with his speed and strength. A move to the Premier League might force him to change his game slightly, but if he is provided with passes and crosses, Haaland can be the perfect poacher inside the box, while also contributing to attacking plays with lay-off passes or by holding and protecting the ball.
