Erling Haaland contract: Man City pushing to remove clauses & agree new deal
Manchester City remain keen on persuading Erling Haaland to agree a new contract at the club this summer, 90min understands.
The 22-year-old arrived at the Etihad Stadium last summer in a bargain deal worth just over £50m, thanks to a release clause in his contract at Borussia Dortmund.
Haaland has more than paid back the fee with a series of stunning performances during his debut campaign, and has registered an incredible 52 goals in all competitions at a rate of one goal per game.
36 of those goals came in City's successful Premier League title defence - a record for most goals scored in a single season - en route to collecting the Golden Boot, Player of the Season and Young Player of the Season awards.
As well scooping those individual accolades, Haaland has helped City to the brink of a famous treble - Saturday's UEFA Champions League final against Inter on Saturday the missing piece of the jigsaw after the FA Cup final win over Manchester United last weekend.
90min revealed in March that City were keen to reward Haaland with a new contract, not only to reward his outstanding performances but also to remove a number of clauses that were inserted into the deal - with one in particular believed to stipulate that the Norwegian can leave should a certain figure be offered to City.
Not all of the clauses in Haaland's contract are active - there's one that is believed to involve the future of Pep Guardiola as manager - but 90min understands that City remain keen on negotiating a new deal to prevent them becoming live in the future. The player's representatives, however, do not see the need to remove them at this time.
Indeed, Haaland's agent, Rafaela Pimenta, explained to Spanish publication AS last year why the clauses are crucial to her client's contract.
READ MORE ABOUT ERLING HAALAND'S FUTURE & GOALSCORING RECORDS HERE
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“When a player goes to a club, I do all I can to create a situation where the key is in their hands," Pimenta said. "If tomorrow you don’t want to be there anymore because you don’t like it, or if they don’t pay you well, or if your wide wants to live in Paris, well, you go, no? I don’t like it when the player has no freedom to decide. I have done all the contracts in this agency in 25 years. All of them. There wasn’t a single time when a player said ‘I want to go’ and they could not do it.
“For me, Haaland is worth a billion, no one is going to pay that, but it’s the potential that he has when he arrives at a club. He brings with him fans, goals, results, professionalism, digital content, notoriety, sponsors...if you put all that together, his value includes a lot of things.
“But the price of a footballer, in reality, is set by a club. I know that no one is going to pay 700m for one player, but it’s very clear that Erling’s value when he arrives at a club is immense, it’s at least a billion.”
Pimenta added to the mystery of a potential release clause in a recent interview with Mundo Deportivo and has previously spoken about a move to Real Madrid amid links to the Santiago Bernabeu.
The Spaniards are unexpectedly searching for a new centre forward after Karim Benzema opted to end his 14-year stay in the Spanish capital in favour of a move to Saudi Arabia, and Haaland is a known long-term target for the club alongside Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane.
Kane is expected to be the striker Real make a move for now, with Haaland's future at City likely secure in the short-term given the success of his first season in Manchester.
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