Seemingly destined for Manchester City and to play under Pep Guardiola, Aymeric Laporte surprised the footballing world on Monday evening by signing a new contract with Athletic Bilbao that will see him stay until 2020.
The 22-year-old defender will now have a €65m release clause in his new contract to fend off any interested parties between 2016 and 2018, which will then go up to €70m between 2018 and 2020 if no one has activated it before then.
This has been considered a huge coup by the Liga BBVA club, who, according to Marca on Wednesday, were resigned to seeing their star centre-back leave all the way up until Friday.
The Spanish newspaper have a lengthy article on the matter in their printed edition where they state the defender did indeed have a pre-agreement with the Premier League club, and Manchester City had even started the proceedings to pay his then €50m release clause.
Lawyers had been dispatched to Madrid to get things sorted, but in the end, loyalty in football (as well as a lot more money) prevailed.
Since March, Bilbao had apparently been looking at replacements for the Frenchman, with Iñigo Martinez top of their list, but when the club decided enough was enough and offered Laporte the new deal, relief swept across those in charge as the youngster accepted, even though his bags for Manchester were pretty much packed.
Laporte will now be the highest paid player in Athletic Bilbao’s history, as well as being promised a prominent leadership role at the club; things that Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez and Amorebieta were never offered.
This reluctance to move once again (he rejected Chelsea last season) has been a big blow for Manchester City, who will reportedly now focus all of their efforts on acquiring John Stones from Everton.
However, with Ronaldo Koeman now in charge and a lot of money backing the Toffees, things might be difficult down that end, too.
