I’m all right, Jack...Grealish to be England’s first £100m footballer
ENGLAND star Jack Grealish was last night close to scoring a record transfer deal with Manchester City that will net him more than £230,000 a week.
He will also become the country’s first striker worth £100million – the price Premier League champions City are poised to pay for the Aston Villa captain, who shone at this summer’s Euros 2020.
The British record fee stands at £89.3million, paid by Manchester United to Juventus in 2016, when the club signed France ace Paul Pogba.
But that looks set to be smashed by the contract Grealish is now expected to sign at City’s Etihad Stadium.
The move will be a blow to Aston Villa supporters. Grealish, 25, a Villa academy graduate, is adored by fans and has scored 32 goals in more than 200 appearances for his boyhoodWest Midlands club.
But Tottenham Hotspur fans will be praying the deal will spell the end of City’s attempts to sign their captain, Harry Kane.
Grealish had returned to training with Villa
on Monday after his holidays in Mykonos and Dubrovnik.
Meanwhile England team-mate Kane, 28, failed to report for training at Tottenham in what is believed to be a bid to force a move.
Grealish, who set up Kane’s first goal in the Euros in England’s thrilling 2-0 win against
Germany, is seen as one of the country’s most talented midfielders.
But his career has been dogged by controversy. In 2015 images emerged of him appearing to inhale “hippy crack” from a balloon and that summer he was snapped sprawled out, apparently drunk, in a Tenerife street.
He was hit by scandal again in 2016 when he was accused of inhaling the drug at a Birmingham hotel party.
In December, the footballer was banned from driving for nine months and fined £82,499 after he admitted two counts of careless driving during the first lockdown in March last year. Birmingham magistrates heard police had spotted him driving at more than 90mph on the M42 before he went on to crash his £80,000 Range Rover.
Last night it emerged 200 death threats sent to Grealish’s girlfriend Sasha Attwood during the Euros were mainly from teenage girls. Model Sasha, 25, said: “I’d go on these girls’ accounts and they’re 13 or 14. It’s so sad.”