The move in full
Manchester United have completed the signing of Carlos Baleba from Brighton & Hove Albion in a deal worth up to £70m, with the Cameroon midfielder putting pen to paper on a five-year contract.
Manchester United confirmed on Tuesday that they had signed Carlos Baleba from Brighton & Hove Albion. The move is worth £65m guaranteed plus £5m in add-ons, taking the total to up to £70m, and Brighton also secured a sell-on clause. The 22-year-old has signed a five-year contract running to June 2031, with the option of a further year, and will wear the number 20 shirt at Old Trafford. United and Brighton agreed the fee on the Friday before the announcement, and Baleba passed his medical the following day.
United had tried to sign Baleba twelve months earlier but walked away when Brighton's valuation ran above £100m, a figure the club felt was too close to the £115m Chelsea paid for Moises Caicedo in 2023. This summer Brighton's asking price came down and United returned with a lower bid that got the deal done. Director of football Jason Wilcox called Baleba "an elite midfielder with immense potential to develop further", and the club pointed to his defensive numbers from last season, saying he ranked in the top 8% of Premier League players for combined tackles and interceptions and the top 1% for second balls won. United see him as a long-term successor to the ageing Casemiro in front of the back four, with the athleticism and ball-carrying to suit Michael Carrick's more front-footed, high-pressing style.
For Brighton, it is the loss of a player they developed from a raw prospect into a Premier League regular. Baleba joined from Lille in the summer of 2023 for a reported £23.2m and went on to make 112 appearances in all competitions, scoring four goals, and was part of the squad that reached the Conference League in 2024-25. Brighton's sporting director, Mike Cave, said Baleba had "made a significant contribution during his time with us" and had developed "both as a player and person", while respecting his wish to move on at this stage of his career. The sell-on clause gives Brighton a further stake in his career if United sell him on down the line, and the fee adds to a summer in which the club has already brought in fresh faces across the squad.
Baleba's form had been anything but straightforward across the past year. He was one of the Premier League's outstanding midfielders in 2024-25, a dominant ball-winner who could turn defence into attack in a single move. His level dropped away for much of the following season, with speculation about a United move regularly cited as a factor, but he finished 2025-26 strongly, playing well enough down the stretch to convince both clubs it was the right time to do business.
Baleba arrives at United with a minor ankle injury picked up in Brighton's pre-season, which the club do not consider serious but which is expected to keep him out until around mid-September. Once fit, he is expected to sit at the base of Carrick's midfield, screening the back four and using his ball-carrying to get United up the pitch, with the likes of Bruno Fernandes and Bryan Mbeumo asked to carry more of the creative burden further forward. He becomes United's third midfield addition of the summer as Carrick, appointed permanent manager in May after his caretaker spell, continues to reshape the squad he inherited from Ruben Amorim.
