Kevin De Bruyne had considered being a destination in the summer of 2024 but ended up staying at Man City. Last November, he said he was no longer too worried about whether Man City would extend his contract. The Belgian midfielder is now free to negotiate with new sides as his contract at the Etihad Stadium is reduced to six months.
Among the teams expressing interest in Man City's conductor, San Diego FC in the US is closely following all developments of the 33-year-old star. The reason San Diego FC is interested in De Bruyne is because from the 2025 season in the American professional league system, they will have a chance to step up to the professional playground. The Southern California team needs world-class stars to lead a team that is quite inexperienced.
MLS transfer rules are more complicated than in Europe. Each team will have 5 players on the "nham" list, thereby being able to publicly announce on the website that that person is on the list monitored by the team. If they want to publicly track other goals, they must remove one person from the list. For a newly promoted professional team like San Diego FC, this number is 7.
Publicly announcing the name of the person on the "dream" list will help teams like San Diego be free to negotiate with players, in this case De Bruyne. If any team wants to negotiate with the Belgian star, they have to spend a large amount of money to buy the right to put them in the "view" of San Diego FC, this figure is usually 50,000 USD.
De Bruyne's salary is a matter of concern. Since 2007, MLS has had a rule that teams can still sign high-paid players in the context of still complying with the prescribed salary ceiling. The ceiling for next season will be 5.95 million USD/year.
Last season, 9 players earned guaranteed salaries exceeding 5 million USD. The leader is not too unpredictable Lionel Messi with a guaranteed amount of 20.4 million USD. Lorenzo Insigne is second with $15.4 million. Next in the Top 5 are Sergio Busquets (8.8 million), Xherdan Shaqiri (8.2 million) and Sebastian Driussi (6.7 million).
In the list of players preparing for the new season, San Diego FC has finalized 4 midfielders. If De Bruyne is brought to California, the coaching and scouting team will have to consider carefully to avoid departing from the original plan. Normally, when signing a star player abroad, MLS teams want that player to become the leader. De Bruyne is the conductor of Man City, so it is very suitable to lead a new team.
The past decade has seen many big stars come to MLS to become leaders such as Kaka (Orlando City), David Villa and Frank Lampard (New York City) or Freddie Ljungberg (Seattle Sounders). Recently, that trend has been gradually rejuvenated, through cases such as Hany Mukhtar (Nashville SC), Driussi (Austin FC) and Hirving Lozano ( San Diego FC).
The fact that City Football Group ( Etihad's parent company) has many clubs in the world, including New York City in the US, could be a favorable move for De Bruyne if he plays football in the land of the stars. The Belgian star could well play for San Diego FC for a season, then move to New York City to share the system with the current Man City.
