'Man City to re-sign Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan for major £96m push'
03/27/2025 02:21 PM
Man City may look to offer Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan short-term deals this summer with an eye on a payday of nearly £100million.
De Bruyne’s deal at City is expiring this summer and the midfielder could be set to end his decade-long stay at the Etihad, in favour of a move to the MLS this summer, Mick Brown has exclusively told Football Insider.
Gundogan is in a similar position, with the German having returned from a year in Barcelona on a short-term deal last summer.
In spite of both players looking likely to ultimately leave, their departure date will cause issues for City this summer, as they are set to be one of two English clubs, alongside Chelsea, competing in the revamped Club World Cup (CWC) in the United States.
Man City look towards $125million Club World Cup winners prize
As reported by The Athletic, the winners of the CWC will receive $125million (£96.5million) in prize money from the tournament.
Having suffered a miserable season, City have gone from favourites, to being part of the in-with-a-chance crowd to win the competition.
However, whilst many view the CWC with scepticism, seeing it as little more than a glorified pre-season set of friendlies, the prize pool is nothing to be sneered at as FIFA attempt to turn it into a money-spinning major tournament.
With City set to miss out on a big chunk of cash thanks to their underperformance in the Premier League and Champions League, any winnings in the USA will top up their accounts nicely.
However, the tournament starts on June 15 and ends on July 13. De Bruyne and Gundogan’s deals currently expire mid-way through the tournament, presenting Pep Guardiola with a unique problem to deal with.
Man City avoid overpaying on transfers with short-term De Bruyne deal
As a way to mitigate issues like City’s, both the Premier League and FIFA have agreed to create an extra summer transfer window.
This window will run from 1 June before closing on 10 June, allowing clubs to do business in that window, before it re-opens as normal on 16 June.
The issue for City is, their rivals are going to be well aware of the team’s need to strengthen ahead of the CWC, likely leading to massively inflated transfer fees, especially prior to the tournament, and that’s before agents look to take a similar approach for their player’s contracts.
The Sky Blues instead may look to forego any transfer dealings in this window and choose to extend De Bruyne and Gundogan’s deals for a matter of weeks, before allowing them to leave after the tournament, given the lack of preparation time any new arrivals would have to get up to speed with Guardiola’s demands.
Whilst not ideal, it will mean that City are able to avoid overpaying on transfer fees, whilst potentially giving their transfer budget a healthy boost going into the summer window, and ideally a more fitting send off for two of the club’s greatest recent stars.
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