Kevin De Bruyne has chosen his next club
Manchester City hero Kevin De Bruyne has snubbed the offer to join Aston Villa and another Premier League club, with Fabrizio Romano providing the latest on his talks with Napoli.
Man City have allowed De Bruyne to leave on a free transfer as they have opted against extending his contract. The attacking midfielder has been one of the club’s best-ever players but has struggled with injury problems in recent seasons, which prompted City’s painful decision.
City have announced that De Bruyne will get a statue outside of the Etihad to honour his incredible 10-year spell with the club, in which he helped them win plenty of silverware including one Champions League, six Premier League titles and two FA Cups.
De Bruyne will join other iconic figures such as Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Colin Bell, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee in being immortalised with a City statue.
The Belgian is now weighing up his next move as he wants to continue playing at a high level rather than hanging up his boots.
As per talkSPORT, Villa and West Ham United both made ‘ambitious plays’ to try and keep De Bruyne in the Premier League.
Both sides ‘made contact’ with De Bruyne’s camp to see if they could strike what would have been a remarkable deal.
However, Villa and West Ham were rejected as he does not want to play for another club in England’s top flight out of respect for City.
De Bruyne has received a lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia, while he is known to be keen on playing in the US.
But the 33-year-old is poised to join Napoli before potentially moving to Major League Soccer at some stage in the future.
Romano has revealed on X, formerly Twitter, that De Bruyne’s lawyers ‘are set to arrive in Naples’ to ‘finalise’ his three-year contract with the Serie A champions.
Napoli are ‘hopeful’ of getting the agreement ‘done’ in the next 24 hours.
Both Napoli sporting director Giovanni Manna and club president Aurelio De Laurentiis have confirmed that the playmaker is close to joining.
Napoli fight off Chicago Fire for Kevin De Bruyne
In a recent video on his YouTube channel, Romano said: “Napoli are really advancing on a deal to sign Kevin De Bruyne. It is a big battle with Chicago Fire.
“Chicago Fire presented a very important proposal to the player in April, that proposal is still on the table. Then Napoli improved their bid with a three-year deal.
“€6m net first season, €6m net second season, €5m net third season and then a separate signing-on fee.”
It is not guaranteed that De Bruyne will play under Antonio Conte if he moves to Napoli, though.
Conte is discussing his future with De Laurentiis and Manna amid interest from his former club Juventus.
But a move to the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium would see De Bruyne play alongside his Belgium team-mate Romelu Lukaku and his former Manchester United rival Scott McTominay.