Manchester City are on course to set a new record this summer from the sales of their academy graduates.
England Under-21 goalkeeper James Trafford and Northern Ireland international Shea Charles will bank the club a guaranteed £25.5m with the potential for another £8.5m in performance-related payments; Burnley and Southampton are the respective buyers. Those two sales will form part of another impressive income generated by Txiki Begiristain and the recruitment team that shows the strength of the City academy in producing professional players with high potential.
City have recorded sizeable figures for homegrown talent since 2017, when Kelechi Iheanacho was sold to Leicester for a club record £25m (since surpassed) and Jadon Sancho pioneered a path for young talent hungry for immediate first-team football with his £8m move to Dortmund. The Blues earned another £10m from Sancho from a sell-on clause when he moved to United in 2021 and last summer enjoyed their biggest returns yet from the academy when the sales of Romeo Lavia, Gavin Bazunu, Juan Larios, Sam Edozie, Aro Muric and Darko Gyabi earned them a guaranteed £46.5m and up to £53m if extra targets are met.
Those numbers are in reach for City to surpass this summer given the fees they have already agreed for Charles and Trafford. Fellow England Under-21 stars Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Tommy Doyle have Premier League interest after impressive loans at Burnley and Sheffield United respectively last season helped those teams back up to the top flight, while promising defender Callum Doyle is similar to City's keeper in having two years of senior football under his belt.
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Academy players Dire Mebude and Carlos Borges have also commanded attention after their performances in helping City to win the Premier League 2, while there could be another significant windfall from a sell-on clause to be had if Southampton sell Romeo Lavia with top Premier League clubs circling. Not all of these players are expected to leave permanently, but there is enough interest to point to another new benchmark for City's academy this summer.
The money City will bring in just for Trafford and Charles is more than they have paid to add Mateo Kovacic to the first-team squad, showing the increasing importance of the academy in helping the club to break new revenue records.
