Manchester City Signs Ayyoub Bouaddi for €95million
Manchester City have struck a deal with Lille to sign Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi in a move that reshapes the heart of Pep Guardiola’s team.
City will pay an initial €95million (£81.4m; $110m), with a further €5m (£4.3m; $5.8m) in performance-related add-ons. Bouaddi will sign on at the Etihad Stadium until 2031, with an option for an extra year, tying one of Europe’s most coveted young midfielders to the club for the long term.
This is not a luxury signing. It’s a response to upheaval.
Rodri has been sold to Barcelona for an initial €60m (£51.2m; $68.8m), ending the era of City’s metronome in midfield. Bernardo Silva has also left at the end of his contract. Tijjani Reijnders has moved to Al Qadsiah, and Newcastle United are in talks to sign Nico Gonzalez, as reported by The Athletic.
The champions are tearing up a familiar blueprint and drawing a new one around a teenager.
City have already spent big to reload. Elliot Anderson arrived earlier in the summer from Nottingham Forest in a £116m ($153m) deal. Now Bouaddi joins as the next major piece of a rebuilt engine room.
The pursuit has been long and deliberate. The Athletic revealed in July that City were pushing hard to convince the 18-year-old, who was weighing up whether to stay in France. The scale of the fee, and the length of the contract, underline how convinced City are that he is worth centring a new cycle around.
Bouaddi’s rise has been fast and unapologetic. He became Lille’s youngest-ever player at 16 years and three days, debuting in a Conference League tie in September 2023 after progressing through the club’s academy. By the 2025-26 campaign, his third full senior season, he was a fixture: 42 appearances in all competitions, one assist, and a key role in a side that finished third in Ligue 1 and qualified for the Champions League.
His story in Lille began with Luis Carlos, who brought him to the club in 2021 and is now football advisor at Paris Saint-Germain. The judgment then looks even sharper now.
On the international stage, Bouaddi’s profile exploded this summer. Having switched allegiance from France — where he represented the country from under-16 to under-21 level — he made his senior debut for Morocco in May. He then starred at the World Cup, starting five of Morocco’s six matches on their run to the quarterfinals.
One performance, in particular, caught the eye. Against Brazil in the group stage, Bouaddi had more touches than any of his team-mates in a 1-1 draw, dictating the tempo against one of the game’s traditional giants. For a teenager, on that stage, it was a statement.
Now he walks into a different kind of pressure. City are not signing him to hide him. They are signing him to help redefine a midfield that has lost its anchor and one of its creative brains in the same summer.
The fee, the contract, the timing — all of it points to the same question: is this the beginning of Manchester City’s next great midfield, built around an 18-year-old from Lille and a World Cup quarterfinalist for Morocco?
