Savinho's £75m-plus move to Tottenham exposes City Football Group’s trading model
City Football Group agreed the near-complete sale of Savinho to Tottenham on 23 August 2026 for a fee of £75m plus £10m in add-ons, a transfer that CFG and Manchester City describe as a milestone and which represents a record sale for Manchester City, the most prominent club in the group.
Savinho has spent four years inside the CFG network after being a record signing for CFG-owned Troyes from Atletico Mineiro in 2022, although he left Troyes two years later without having played for the French club. At 18 he was loaned to PSV for the 2022-23 season and then to fellow CFG club Girona for 2023-24, where he featured in 37 league matches, scored nine goals and provided eight assists as Girona secured Champions League qualification for the first time.
Manchester City bought Savinho from Troyes for £30.8m in 2024 and he made 48 appearances under Pep Guardiola in his first season, producing 16 goal contributions in all competitions and registering eight Premier League assists that campaign — the highest at the club that season. Across his two seasons in the Premier League he scored twice and contributed 12 assists.
The fee attached to Savinho has produced a substantial financial return for CFG; the deal is reported as £75m plus £10m of potential add-ons and the club has framed the transaction as both sporting and commercial success. "It's a success story for the group," CFG's managing director of global football Brian Marwood told BBC Sport. "The idea is always 'can we get them to the pinnacle in our group', which is Manchester City. There might be some along the way that might be good assets for the group. "And Savinho has clearly been a fantastic asset - because not only has he played for Manchester City but now he is leaving for a considerable amount of money. "We have created a pathway for the boy but credit to him because he is playing in one of the best leagues in the world."
Girona's director of football Quique Carcel described the club's efforts to retain Savinho after qualification for the Champions League and why the player opted to join City's first-team plans: "Our intention from the moment that we reached the Champions League was to try to get him to stay for another year," he told BBC Sport. "But logically after making such a big impact, City, Pep and Txiki [Begiristain] were already considering having him in their first-team squad. "But there was a moment when they were deciding between the two options, because they also knew that Savio having another year at Girona playing in the Champions League was also a very good option. "But as soon as there was an interest from Pep and Txiki in him being a player that would be able to play in the [City] first team squad, then of course the player didn't have any doubts." Savinho had also been named in the La Liga team of the year during his spell in Spain.
The transfer sits within a wider City and CFG strategy of developing and selling young players: BBC Sport listed Morgan Rogers, Douglas Luiz, Cole Palmer, Liam Delap and Oscar Bobb among those developed by City and later sold on, and the club has recouped more than £250m from selling young players over the past five years. "To find a balance between recruiting players for sporting success and ones that could become more of an asset in the future is difficult," Marwood said. He cited Oleksandr Zinchenko, Taty Castellanos and Jack Harrison as examples, while the article noted that City have sometimes sold players too soon — pointing to the trajectories of Rogers and Palmer.
The report noted specific past transactions: Rogers was sold by Manchester City to Middlesbrough in February 2024 for an initial fee of £8m, and last month Chelsea paid £117m for him; Palmer was sold by City for £40m in 2023. As Savinho departs, Manchester City and CFG say they are concentrating on the next generation of prospects, identifying several young players in their network as those to watch.
CFG has highlighted a number of incoming and current prospects who form its immediate focus, naming Ryan McAidoo, an 18-year-old at City who has already made his senior debut; Japan's 16-year-old Shin Miidera at partner club Yokohama F. Marinos; 16-year-old American midfielder Cavan Sullivan, who plays for Philadelphia Union and will join Manchester City when he turns 18; and Vitor Reiss, who spent last season on loan to Girona from City. "In an ideal world you would love for them to stay with you from the beginning right through to the very end - but the reality is it's probably not going to happen," Marwood added. "The challenge is can we produce the next one? OK- Savinho's gone - but where is the next one? That's the fascination of this business, you have to look three and four years ahead. "It's important we grow this hub of young talent and hopefully find them pathways and produce a conveyor belt of talent and use our network of clubs to aid there development."
Those at CFG will watch how Savinho performs at Tottenham away from their network, while the group plans to continue developing and placing young players through its clubs, with the named prospects forming the immediate pipeline the organisation will monitor closely.