Manchester City have announced the departure of right-back Issa Kaboré to Wrexham in a £2 million deal.
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The departure brings an end to a six-year association between the Blues and Kaboré during which, the Burkina Faso international never played a competitive game for the club.
According to talkSPORT, City have secured a £2 million fee for the 25-year-old, who becomes the latest player to depart the Etihad Stadium in a summer that has seen a wide array of stars move on from the north-west.
It represents the conclusion of one of the more long-standing examples of City’s loan-heavy recruitment model; Kaboré finally departs the Etihad Stadium on a permanent basis after six years spent almost entirely elsewhere.
The full-back spent the 2025/26 campaign on loan at the Racecourse Ground, where he quickly established himself as a key figure in Phil Parkinson’s side, making 32 appearances across all competitions and catching the eye with an impressive eight assists from right-back.
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Those performances were evidently enough to convince the Welsh club to make his stay permanent, and City have sanctioned his exit for a modest fee.
Why did Issa Kaboré never play for Manchester City?
Kaboré’s time on the books at City is characteristic of the loan side of the club's transfer strategy. The defender arrived from Belgian side KV Mechelen in July 2020, but never went on to make a single competitive senior appearance for the Blues across the six years that followed.
Instead, his City career amounted to a remarkable seven separate loan spells, taking in Troyes, Marseille, Luton Town, Benfica and Werder Bremen before he landed at Wrexham last September.
To be sure, his lack of senior action in Manchester did nothing to hamper his international standing, with the right-back having racked up 55 caps for Burkina Faso in the meantime.
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It was in Wales, though, that he arguably enjoyed the most settled and productive period of his club career to date, at last finding a home where he could play regularly and become one of his side's most important players.
With his contract at the Etihad Stadium due to expire in June 2027, and with a clear pathway to first-team football nowhere to be found in Manchester, a permanent parting of the ways made obvious sense for all concerned.
What does the deal mean for Manchester City?
For City, the £2 million agreement represents another piece of tidy end-of-window housekeeping. It allows the club to recoup a fee on a player who was never going to feature under Enzo Maresca and ensures that he will not leave on a free transfer at the end of his contract.
Once the formalities are wrapped up, Kaboré’s long and winding City journey will officially come to a close.
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While some will argue that there were other points in Kaboré's career where he might have commanded a higher fee, the risk-and-reward nature of the club's loan strategy means some players will inevitably need to leave on the cheap.