Manchester City have sold Tijjani Reijnders to Saudi Pro League club Al-Qadsiah for a reported €61m, just a year after signing him from AC Milan, with the Dutch midfielder joining Brendan Rodgers' side on a contract until 2031.
Tijjani Reijnders has completed a move from Manchester City to Saudi Pro League club Al-Qadsiah, with both clubs confirming the transfer on 19 August 2026. Al-Qadsiah published their own announcement video for the signing, while Manchester City confirmed his departure on their official website. The reported fee is €61m, and the 28-year-old has signed a contract running until 2031 — a five-year deal reported by Goal.com to be worth close to $18m a year in salary.
Al-Qadsiah are backed by the Saudi oil giant Aramco and managed by Brendan Rodgers, the former Liverpool and Leicester boss, and they wanted a proven Premier League and Serie A midfielder to strengthen a squad about to play in the AFC Champions League Elite for the first time in the club's history. Reijnders arrives with real pedigree: he was voted Serie A's Player of the Season before his move to Manchester City, and Rodgers has built his reputation on possession-based sides that need a midfielder comfortable carrying the ball and dictating tempo — a profile Reijnders fits.
The move did not happen overnight. Reports on 13 August said Al-Qadsiah had agreed a fee of around €60m with City but that Reijnders himself was still weighing up the switch, with Nottingham Forest also credited with interest in keeping him in England. He put pen to paper on his Al-Qadsiah contract on 18 August, and the deal was announced by both clubs the following day.
For Manchester City, the sale is part of a wider midfield rebuild under new head coach Enzo Maresca, who succeeded Pep Guardiola and has favoured different options through the centre of the pitch. Reijnders' exit follows Rodri's move to Barcelona, with Maresca instead building his midfield around Anderson and Kovačić. Reijnders had trained apart from the first-team squad in the days before the move and was left out of City's FA Community Shield defeat to Arsenal, a clear sign he was no longer part of the plan, despite having four years left on his contract at the Etihad. The deal also triggers a sell-on clause owed to AC Milan, who sold Reijnders to City for around €55m last summer and stand to bank a further windfall from this second sale.
Reijnders made a strong start in England, scoring and setting up a goal on his Premier League debut against Wolves, but his form and game time fell away as the season went on — he started only two league matches from February onwards. In total he made 50 appearances for City across all competitions, scoring seven goals and adding eight assists, and won the FA Cup and League Cup along the way. Marking his exit, he posted on social media: "Two finals at Wembley and a season I'll always look back on. Thank you, City."
At Al-Qadsiah, Reijnders is expected to play in a more advanced, central role than the one he was given at City, with licence to get into the box and support the attack — the instincts that made him so effective at Milan. He arrives in time to feature in Al-Qadsiah's first-ever AFC Champions League Elite campaign as well as their push for domestic honours in the Saudi Pro League.
Bawler's ratings are built from what happens on the pitch — goals, chances created, chances conceded and who actually starts — so losing Reijnders' creativity from midfield changes the picture for Manchester City, while Al-Qadsiah's numbers will shift as he starts featuring in their Saudi Pro League and AFC Champions League Elite matches. Those figures will update as both teams play games with their new-look line-ups, rather than because of the transfer fee itself.
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.