Brazilian forward Savio (19), on loan at La Liga title contenders Girona FC from Ligue 2’s ESTAC Troyes, will join Manchester City next summer, reports Fabrizio Romano.
🚨🔵🇧🇷 EXCLUSIVE: Manchester City agree deal to sign Sávio from parent club Girona in the summer.
Documents to be signed in the next days.
Despite bids from German and English clubs, Sávio will join #MCFC.
He’s now 100% focused on Girona to end the season in the best way. pic.twitter.com/oCDNy5d6Eo
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) February 5, 2024
The South American starlet, who can play on either flank or as an attacking midfielder, has five goals and seven assists in 23 La Liga appearances for the Blanquivermells this season and has played a huge part in Girona’s improbable rise to second place, where they currently sit just two points behind leaders Real Madrid CF.
Despite signing for Troyes in the summer of 2022, Savio has never featured for them, instead being loaned first to PSV Eindhoven and then Girona, the latter another club in the City Football Group stable.
Football regulators do not regulate, so clubs turn into pawns of ownership groups. Maybe City Football Group will eventually make Troyes successful. Maybe they won’t. Either way, fans are entirely powerless and must accept their club is now just an extension of a business model.
— Colin Millar (@Millar_Colin) February 5, 2024
Multi-club ownership groups are controversial in football, and Troyes, who paid a club-record fee for the player, will be wondering what they have gotten out of the deal and indeed what they are gaining from being part of CFG in the long term. The club is languishing in 15th position in the French second tier and it’s hard to escape the feeling that they are being used as a pawn in a significant multi-club operation.
GFFN | Jack McArdle
