It’s been widely reported Erling Haaland will leave Borussia Dortmund next summer after the German club blocked his exit in the last window. Manchester City are among the clubs credited with an interest in the striker.
On November 17th, AS reported the Citizens are always willing to pay more for the 21-year-old’s signature. Later that month, Sky Deutschland stated that Pep Guardiola’s side are the ‘hottest candidate’ to acquire the BVB star’s services.
Mino Raiola was involved in taking the Norway international to Dortmund in January 2020 and the super-agent, who acts as Haaland’s advisor, will again play a major role in deciding where the player moves next.
Sport1 have published the second part of an interview with Raiola, in which Haaland’s next destination was discussed.
“He can and will take the next step. Bayern, Real, Barcelona, City – these are the big clubs he can go to. City have won the championship five times in recent years, significantly more than United. When we moved to Dortmund, we all knew that this step would come,” he said.
Raiola was asked when the player could take the next step. Responding to that, the agent explained: “Maybe this [2022] summer, maybe the summer after. But there is a great chance that Erling will leave this summer. We will see.”
Manchester City lost Sergio Agüero at the end of last season and are yet to replace the Argentine. The English champions are most likely to invest on a new striker next summer. Raiola’s latest comments would come as encouragement, if they intend to invest on Haaland.
Meanwhile, Raiola also detailed the arguments that favour the exciting striker leaving BVB for a new club.
“He is someone who wants to develop, who is looking for new challenges. And of course it is also a question of the alternative. You only switch when you have a better alternative,” he stressed.
“I don’t know [if a player like Haaland can pick his next club]. We have to look. It’s going to be a very strange summer. We play football for a month and a half, then everything stops and we go to Qatar for the World Cup. That is strange.”
When asked if he will hold talks with BVB in the winter to discuss Haaland’s future, Raiola said: “We always did it that way. We will tell BVB what our idea is and BVB will tell us their ideas. But no decision will be made in winter.”
Meanwhile, there’s also been repeat claims of Haaland having a release clause of €75-90m, which will be activated after this season. Raiola, however, refused to either confirm or deny it.
“Listen, whatever is in a contract, is in a contract. That stays between me and the player. There are only two parties that are allowed to say something to the outside world: the club and the player. I never talk about details,” he added.
“We and Dortmund know exactly what has to happen. We have structured it very clearly. Contract or not: We always have very open communication with Watzke, Zorc and now Kehl. We treat each other honestly.
“That is much more important than anything that is on paper. Paper is only there if something goes wrong, then you need it. But not otherwise.”
