Raheem Sterling to Manchester City: Uefa lift FFP restrictions to leave City primed for £100m moves for Paul Pogba and Liverpool midfielder
City are also considering bids for Fabian Delph and Kevin De Bruyne but Uefa will keep a close eye on their spending
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Your support makes all the difference.Uefa's decision to ease the Financial Fair Play restrictions on Manchester City could see the club splash out more than £100m this summer on the likes of Raheem Sterling, Paul Pogba and Fabian Delph.
Uefa fined City £49m and restricted their Champions League squad to just 21 players last season after they were seen to have overspent in the transfer market, but having met the European governing body’s financial targets, those punishments have now been lifted.
City have already seen two bids for Liverpool midfielder Sterling rejected – the second of which came to potentially record-breaking £40m – and it’s expected that the club will make a third and final bid close to the £50m that the Reds are demanding, which would be the most any club has ever paid for an English player.
But their hopes of signing Paul Pogba have been given a boost now that they can compete with Barcelona for the Juventus midfielder. Pogba’s performances for Juventus since he arrived from Manchester United in 2012 have led to a number of clubs eyeing him up for a transfer, and despite the Italian league champions determined not to sell, the club have confirmed that they will be powerless to prevent him leaving should the right offer be made.
City are also confident that they can tie-up a move for former Chelsea midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, who will meet with Wolfsburg on Monday to discuss his future. The Bundesliga club hope to tie him down to a new contract having seen him score 16 goals and make an incredible 29 assists last season, but De Bruyne could look to secure a move back to the Premier League in order to show Chelsea what they missed out on.
With the spending set to increase significantly at the Etihad, the Telegraph are reporting that City are planning on an £8m bid for Aston Villa’s Delph, whose performances last season led to him breaking into the England squad. Delph signed a new deal with Villa in January this year, but City could look to try and persuade him to join by offering wages up to £100,000-a-week.
However, the spending will still have to within Uefa’s regulations, and a statement released by them marked out that the easing of the FFP sanctions is conditional to “strict monitoring” of their financial spending.
“The lifting of restrictions is subject to ongoing additional controls and audits," read a Uefa statement. “The club remains under strict monitoring and has still to meet break-even targets and is therefore subject to some limitations in 2016."
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