Midfielder Ilkay Gündogan is moving from Manchester City to FC Barcelona on a free transfer. This was officially announced by the Spanish champions on Monday.
Gündogan has signed a contract with Barça until 2025 with an option for another year. The release clause is 400 million euros. According to media reports, he earns ten million euros net per season. Gündogan’s working paper in Manchester expired at the end of last season.
In a statement on the club’s website, FC Barcelona praised Gündogan as an “attacking midfielder who reads the game perfectly and knows where the goal is.” The German is “one of the world’s best midfielders of the last ten years”.
City would have liked to have kept Gündogan, but the 32-year-old has now decided to move to Camp Nou. Gündogan had been associated with the Catalans for a long time, also about a possible return to Borussia Dortmund there were rumours.
Gündogan said goodbye to City with emotional words. “After seven years a wonderful time ends”, he wrote on Twitter: “You have made all my dreams come true. I will always carry you in my heart. Once a blue, always a blue! Thank you.” He switched from BVB to City in 2016 for 27 million euros.
“Ever since I was a kid I’ve dreamed of wearing this shirt one day,” Gundogan wrote in a post for the Players’ Tribune. He wants to “help bring Barca back to where they belong”.
The German international played a total of 304 competitive games (60 goals) for the English team in seven years.