Kevin De Bruyne considered a number of destinations in the summer of 2024 but ultimately stayed at Man City. Last November, he said he was no longer too worried about whether Man City would extend his contract or not. Currently, the Belgian midfielder is free to negotiate with new teams as his contract at the Etihad Stadium has only 6 months left.
Among the teams that have expressed interest in the Man City maestro, San Diego FC in the US is the one that closely follows every development of the 33-year-old star. The reason San Diego FC is interested in De Bruyne is because from the 2025 season in the US professional league system, they will have a chance to step up to the professional playing field. The Southern California team needs world-class stars to lead a relatively inexperienced team.
MLS's transfer rules are more complicated than in Europe. Each team can put five players on its "watch list," which can be publicly announced on its website. If they want to publicly watch another target, they have to remove one player from the list. For a newly promoted team like San Diego FC, that number is seven.
Revealing who is on the “target” list will give teams like San Diego the freedom to negotiate with the player, in this case De Bruyne. If any team wants to negotiate with the Belgian star, they have to pay a large sum of money to buy the right to be on the “target” from San Diego FC, which is usually $50,000.
How much De Bruyne will earn is a matter of concern. Since 2007, MLS has had a rule that teams can sign players with high salaries while still complying with the salary cap. The salary cap for next season will be $5.95 million/year.
Last season, nine players earned guaranteed salaries in excess of $5 million. The unsurprising leader was Lionel Messi, with a guaranteed $20.4 million. Lorenzo Insigne came in second with $15.4 million. Rounding out the top five were Sergio Busquets ($8.8 million), Xherdan Shaqiri ($8.2 million) and Sebastian Driussi ($6.7 million).
San Diego FC has already finalized four midfielders in its roster for the new season. If De Bruyne is brought to California, the coaching and scouting teams will have to consider carefully so as not to deviate from the original plan. Usually, when signing a star player from abroad, MLS teams want that person to be a leader. De Bruyne is the conductor of Man City, so he is very suitable to lead a new team.
The past decade has seen many aging stars come to MLS to become leaders, such as Kaka (Orlando City), David Villa and Frank Lampard (New York City) and Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle Sounders). More recently, that trend has been rekindled, with the likes of Hany Mukhtar (Nashville SC), Driussi (Austin FC) and Hirving Lozano (San Diego FC).
The fact that City Football Group (Etihad's parent company) owns many clubs around the world, including New York City in the US, could be a good step for De Bruyne if he moves to the land of the stars and stripes. The Belgian star could play for San Diego FC for a season, then move to New York City to join the current Man City system.
