Manchester City have agreed to sign Moroccan midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for just over 100 million euros, a fee that makes the 18-year-old the most expensive teenage signing in Premier League history. The deal, worth about 1.1 billion Swedish kronor, underlines how far clubs are willing to stretch for players still in the early stages of their careers.
Bouaddi, a Morocco international who has already featured at the World Cup, has signed a five-year contract at the Etihad. City moved for him after reshaping their midfield, having sold Spain’s Rodri to Barcelona and Tijjani Reijnders to the Saudi club al-Qadsiah.
The transfer resets a benchmark that had stood since 2024, when Manchester United paid the equivalent of around 760 million kronor to bring defender Leny Yoro to Old Trafford, also from Lille. The French club’s academy and recruitment model has once again produced a teenager commanding a fee at the very top of the market.
Record fees for young players have become a defining feature of the modern game, with clubs increasingly prepared to pay a premium for potential and long-term resale value. Bouaddi’s price tag pushes that logic to a new high in England, and City’s spending may not stop there. The club is also pursuing Chelsea’s Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernandez.
For Bouaddi, the move represents an extraordinary leap, from a promising talent in Ligue 1 to one of the headline names of the summer market. For City, it is a calculated bet that a player still in his teens can anchor the squad for years to come, and that the record fee will look modest in hindsight.
