Coventry City have completed the signing of striker Sidiki Cherif from Fenerbahçe for a reported €24.5m, adding fresh firepower ahead of their first Premier League season in 25 years.
Coventry City have completed the signing of Sidiki Cherif from Fenerbahçe, with both clubs confirming the move on 19 August 2026. The 19-year-old forward has put pen to paper on a five-year contract, in a deal reported to be worth around €24.5m, potentially rising with add-ons. It is Coventry's second striker signing in the space of a few days, following the arrival of Taiwo Awoniyi from Nottingham Forest.
The move is a statement of intent from Coventry, who are back in the Premier League for the first time in 25 years and building a squad they hope can survive in the top flight under manager Frank Lampard. Cherif has been described by reporting around the deal as a powerful, physically imposing striker, and Coventry have moved fast to get him in before the season gets fully under way, with his signing arriving on the back of an extensive summer rebuild.
For Fenerbahçe, it is a quick exit for a player they only signed permanently a few months ago. Cherif joined the Turkish club on loan from Angers in February 2026, with a mandatory purchase clause of around €21m attached, meaning Fenerbahçe had already committed to buying him outright. Since then, though, his path to regular football in Istanbul narrowed sharply after the club strengthened up front with the signings of Vedat Muriqi and, more significantly, veteran striker Romelu Lukaku. With minutes hard to come by, a sale made sense for both player and club.
Cherif's recent form reflects a player still establishing himself rather than an the finished article. At Angers, where he came through the academy and made his professional debut in August 2023, he scored four goals in 36 Ligue 1 appearances. His brief stint at Fenerbahçe yielded three goals in 16 appearances in the Süper Lig since his arrival in February. It is not a prolific record, but he is still only 19, and Coventry are betting on physical development and upside rather than a ready-made goalscorer.
At Coventry, Cherif is expected to provide competition and variety alongside Awoniyi as Lampard assembles his forward options for the Premier League. Coventry's business this summer has been extensive, with Cherif reported as among their most expensive additions of the window, underlining how seriously the club are taking the step up in quality required to stay in the top flight.
Cherif is a new, largely unproven attacking option for a Coventry side about to play Premier League football for the first time in 25 years, so there's limited data yet on how he'll perform at this level. Bawler's ratings are built from what happens on the pitch — goals, chances created, chances conceded and who actually starts — so Cherif's game time and output, alongside Awoniyi's, will start feeding into Coventry's attacking numbers as the season is played rather than being assumed in advance.
A sourcing score, not a chance of completion: it grades how solid the reporting behind the move is. The stage and the evidence come from the sources listed below; the arithmetic is fixed in code, the same for every deal.