Erling Haaland’s bumper 9½-year record new contract with Manchester City is a certifiable coup for the champions and a life-changing deal for the 24-year-old that provokes several intriguing questions.
The thorniest is what occurs if City are relegated should the club be found guilty of the more than 100 charges brought by the Premier League. The champions deny all the allegations but if they are unsuccessful then, depending on the severity of the verdict, one potential tariff is demotion.
If Haaland does not have a break clause to protect him fans of Championship or even League One, League Two or non-league teams could enjoy the quaint sight of the best-paid footballer ever to play in England lacing up his boots at their ground.
Except that while football can be surreal at times, picturing the blond, 6ft 4in goalscoring phenomenon trotting out at Plymouth, Lincoln, Doncaster, Altrincham or elsewhere in the pyramid seems a stretch. Career ambition and basic economics would come into play because should City be relegated Haaland would be a shoo-in to demand a transfer to an elite club, as many of his team-mates – the Ballon d’Or winner, Rodri, for one – would too.
Related here is a second question: what happens if City continue at elite level and Real Madrid, Barcelona or AN Other European aristocrat come calling? It may not happen this or next year. But Haaland is determined to improve, so barring a freak happening the goals will continue to pile up, his numbers will become ever more epoch-defining and he will, at some juncture, surely have to field an offer the suitor will hope is impossible to refuse.
Depending on the timing the player could decide he has had enough. Example: despite the riches earned the trophies accumulated and the memories created, how loyal will Haaland feel if the man he admires so much is no longer piloting City?
Of the perfectionist Pep Guardiola, the Norwegian says: “It is so nice to work with him. Not only because he is the best, but he is also the most hard working person I have ever seen. People think it is only because of this or that, but the amount of hours he puts down is motivating and inspiring to see.
“It is funny to work with him, it is hard and it is tough because he demands a lot, but that is what I want. I want people to demand a lot from me and to put pressure on me. So far so good.”
The prospect of Haaland being tempted away formed a key part of the strategic calculations of Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, Ferran Soriano, the chief executive, and Txiki Begiristain, the sporting director, when drawing up the mega-deal. They will have looked at Real’s free acquisition of Kylian Mbappé last summer, after he ran down his contract at Paris Saint-Germain, and determined that their own jewel could not go for free by refusing to renew when his previous deal ended in 2027.
Mubarak, Soriano and Begiristain knew the moment Haaland signed on again until 2034 that the bottom line became this: to prise him away would take a world-record transfer fee for the foreseeable future. The triumvirate will also have calculated how beyond Haaland’s ability to propel City to challenge for further honours, the No 9′s ability to generate millions in commercial revenue will offset the money needed to pay a lucrative new salary thought to be a basic £500,000 (€592,000) a week and any signing-on fee he may have received.
A last but less-searing question is what occurs if Haaland sustains a prolonged or career-affecting injury. This is the easiest to answer because the club will be insured against the liability of having to continue to pay his contract should the player no longer be able to perform.
Haaland’s City CV shows 111 goals in 125 games, 52 of the strikes coming in his first season, as he propelled Guardiola’s team for the ages to the treble of 2022-23, including a record 36 in the Premier League title triumph. For this campaign Haaland was voted the men’s player of the year by the Professional Footballers’ Association and Football Writers’ Association.
Haaland’s follow-up act was 27 goals in last season’s championship defence, City’s fourth in a row. This term he has 16 in the league, two behind Mohamed Salah, and 21 in 28 in all club competitions, and this in a misfiring side struggling to rediscover their imperious best.
Haaland continues to get better. It is bad news for all other clubs and the very best of tidings for City. “I am really confident that we will turn things around,” he says. “Things have been difficult as we are so used to winning games, but also it is a challenge for us. To get this feeling of hunger inside every single one of us to not look at things easier.”
Tying up a generational talent until he is an ageing man, in footballing terms, of 34 is a no-brainer for City. Haaland has just secured his family’s future for many years. What happens next fascinates. – Guardian
