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Argentine youngster Claudio Echeverri will join Manchester City at the end of 2024, after they paid €5m more than his release clause to sign him from River Plate.

That’s according to La Pagina Millonaria, who cover the player’s transfer to the Etihad today and the transfer plan being put in place.

They explain that while Echeverri has been sold to Manchester City and that’s relatively bad news, the good news is that he will only travel to England in January 2025.

The agreement between the two sides is such that, rather than him only playing for the next six months then heading to the Etihad, Echeverri will instead move at the end of this year.

At that point he will join Manchester City on a six-year deal, with the total agreement for his transfer coming to €30m. That’s made up of an initial payment of €19m, with the rest coming from objectives, which are yet to be revealed.

The figure will, though, exceed the €25m release clause that the player had in his contract, with Manchester City paying €5m more as something of a good will gesture to River Plate.

Their intention had been to get the player to sign a new contract at the club and raise his release clause, but Manchester City have instead agreed to pay more and leave Echeverri in Argentina for another 12 months.

Another possibility that is being evaluated is that they then send Echeverri to Girona, who are a part of the City Football Group, although that won’t happen until December 2024 at the earliest, the point when the youngster will leave River for Europe.