Manchester City to make major saving on La Liga starlet

Manchester City are set to sign Real Valladolid starlet Juma Bah before long according to all reports. Amid high frustration from the local crowd with owner Ronaldo Nazario, the deal to take Bah to England will only add to their ire, with La Pucela set to miss out on what might have been their record sale.

A number of sides reportedly were looking into the Sierra Leonean central defender, with Newcastle United the other major name revealed with Manchester City. According to Fabrizio Romano amongst others, a deal is set to be formalised to take Bah to England this week, with a loan move to RC Lens to follow until the end of the season.

🚨🔵 Exclusive story from last night, set to be confirmed: Juma Bah will become new Manchester City player.

The plan is to loan the 18 year old centre back to RC Lens, verbal agreement done as revealed.

City anticipate Inter and Fenerbahçe as they’ve agreed terms with Bah. ✅🇸🇱 pic.twitter.com/tbWchHLJUt

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) January 21, 2025

Quite aside from the loss of Bah for their survival hopes, a crucial error from the club appears to be doing them out of money. According to Diario de Valladolid, Los Pucelanos had been hoping to beat their record sale of €12m from Mohamed Salisu’s move to Southampton, and have offers on the table for around that amount from Inter and Fenerbahce.

Doing those deals would represent sound business from Valladolid, who paid €40k for his loan from AIK Freetong, and a further €125k for his permanent transfer. Bah is still on a youth contract though, rather than a B-team contract or a senior contract. That makes him one of the lowest-paid players in the first division, earning around just €2.5k per week.

That is one of the reasons that Valladolid have not been able to sign him to a better deal, with agent Patrick Mork communicating to the club that City will be accepting a sanction from UEFA in terms of compensation. Due to the length of time on his deal, and the fact it is a youth contract, mean the compensation will only be worth around €6m.

Had he been on a B-team contract, that sanction would have been €15m, and were Bah a senior player, then it would have cost City €30m to break Bah’s contract with La Pucela. Their decision to get him to sign a junior deal when he joined might have benefitted them in the short-term financially, but looks as if it will cost them somewhere between the €6m difference in transfer fee or €24m difference in UEFA sanction Bah would have gone for.