LONDON:\u00a0Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi has become the most expensive teenager in Premier League history after joining Manchester City from Lille in a five-year deal the French club said Wednesday was worth 100 million euros (\u00a385.6 million, $117 million).<\/p>\n
The fee for Bouaddi surpasses Manchester United’s \u00a358.9 million deal for Leny Yoro, also signed from Lille, in 2024.<\/p>\n
City moved for Bouaddi after selling Spain’s World Cup-winning captain Rodri to Barcelona and Tijjani Reijnders to Al-Qadsiah, with Nico Gonzalez also poised to leave the Etihad.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old rising star was one of the standout players at the recent World Cup, helping Morocco reach the quarter-finals before they were beaten by France.<\/p>\n
Bouaddi will join England’s Elliot Anderson, whose \u00a3116 million ($154 million) move to City from Nottingham Forest was announced in June during the World Cup, in a revamped midfield.<\/p>\n
He made 96 appearances for Lille after breaking into their first team at the age of 16.<\/p>\n
“This is a very special day for me and my family,” Bouaddi told City’s website.<\/p>\n
“Manchester City are, for me, the best club in the world.<\/p>\n
“It’s a dream to be here and be able to call myself a City player. I have spent most of my life working hard to become the best player I can be and reach the top of the game.<\/p>\n
“I’ve watched City for many years, and I love their style of play. City always try and play quality football and they have shown they are winners \u2013 this club feels like it’s built to win.”<\/p>\n
He added: “The squad is world class and Enzo (Maresca) is a top manager. I have plenty of improving to do, I am only 18. I am happy with the progress I have made so far, but I also know I can improve so much. This is undoubtedly the best place for me to do that.<\/p>\n
“This club demands trophies and I will give everything to make sure we are challenging for every title.”<\/p>\n
Maresca made central midfield a key area for new signings after replacing Pep Guardiola as City manager at the end of last season.<\/p>\n
“We have watched him very, very closely and throughout that process we have become increasingly convinced he is a huge talent who will thrive at City,” Hugo Viana, the club’s director of football, said of Bouaddi.<\/p>\n
Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez is also understood to remain of interest to City, but the Blues set a recent deadline for bids for the \u00a3120 million-rated Argentine that passed without a deal being done.<\/p>\n
City were thrashed 3-0 by Arsenal in the Community Shield, but they started their Premier League season with a 2-1 win at home to Bournemouth on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON:\u00a0Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi has become the most expensive teenager in Premier League history after joining Manchester City from Lille in a five-year deal the French club said Wednesday was worth 100 million euros (\u00a385.6 million, $117 million). The fee for Bouaddi surpasses Manchester United’s \u00a358.9 million deal for Leny Yoro, also signed from Lille, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5138,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions\/5138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}