Manchester City Breaks Transfer Record for Ayyoub Bouaddi

Manchester City’s spending spree after Pep Guardiola’s departure has just gone up another level. Elliot Anderson arrived for €135 million earlier in the window. Now the Premier League champions have dropped another €100m on Lille sensation Ayyoub Bouaddi, rewriting the record books for teenage transfers.

City will pay €95m up front with a further €5m in add-ons for the 18-year-old, who has signed a five-year deal running to 2031. Fresh from lighting up the World Cup with Morocco this summer, Bouaddi arrives as the most expensive U18 footballer in history by a huge margin.

The midfielder did not hide what the move means to him in the club’s announcement.

“Manchester City are, for me, the best Club in the world. 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,” he said.

City’s midfield is being rebuilt on the fly. Just last week, they sanctioned the sale of 2024 Ballon d’Or winner Rodri to Barcelona in a deal worth €76.5m including add-ons. That exit created a glaring vacancy at the heart of their side. Bouaddi is the first blockbuster answer.

His current market value sits at around €80m, but this is a summer where asking prices have routinely been blown apart. In reality, it always felt like a nine-figure offer would be required to prise him out of Lille and away from a queue of elite suitors.

City have paid it. And in doing so, they have not just nudged a record. They have obliterated it.

A record shattered

Before Bouaddi, the benchmark for U18 transfers belonged to another Lille graduate. Manchester United’s move for Leny Yoro in 2024/25 came in at €62m, a fee that looked eye-watering for a teenager at the time. That deal now drops to second, left in the slipstream of City’s €100m gamble.

Behind them sits Real Madrid’s Brazilian pipeline. Endrick’s switch to the Bernabéu ranks third among the most expensive U18 deals, with Chelsea’s Estêvão in fourth. Madrid feature heavily on this list, having paid €45m each for Franco Mastantuono, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo when they were 18, a long-term strategy that has already reshaped their attack.

Further down, Tottenham’s €41.4m move for Archie Gray from Leeds slots into eighth place, underlining how aggressively Spurs have started to target elite youth. Alessandro Bastoni’s transfer to Inter occupies ninth.

Wolves’ €40m outlay on Fábio Silva completes the current top 10, a reminder of how long clubs have been willing to stretch for perceived future stars. That fee finally pushes Luke Shaw’s 2014 move from Southampton to Manchester United — €37.5m for a teenage left-back back then — out of the elite bracket after 12 years.

Bouaddi now sits above them all. An 18-year-old, a World Cup breakout, and the new face of a Manchester City side trying to redraw itself after the Guardiola era. The numbers are staggering. The expectation will be even bigger.