Declan Rice has finally completed his £105 million move from West Ham United to Arsenal.
The England midfielder had been the subject of two previous bids by the Gunners – and one by treble winners Manchester City – that were all turned down by West Ham.
But Arsenal made Rice, 24, their key target of the summer and returned with a third and final offer of £100 million, plus a further £5 million in add-ons, that was accepted.
The deal beats Arsenal's previous record transfer – £72 million forked out to Lille for Nicolas Pepe in 2019 – and moves Rice ahead of Three Lions teammate Jack Grealish (who moved from Aston Villa to Manchester City for £100 million in 2021) as the most expensive English player of all time.
Speaking to the Arsenal website following the confirmation of his move, Rice said he was determined to take his game to another level with the Gunners.
"In football, amazing opportunities arise. Big clubs, like Arsenal, have come for me and it's really hard to turn down," Rice said.
"You only ever get one career and I really believe in what [manager] Mikel [Arteta] is building here and the squad he's building. I'm really looking forward to the future with Arsenal.
"With Mikel and how he works, the squad, how young everyone is, the energy around the club and also the challenge of getting Arsenal back to where they belong, that means a lot to me."
He becomes Arsenal's third signing of the summer after German forward Kai Havertz's £65 million move across London from rivals Chelsea as they look to improve on last year's second-place finish behind champions Manchester City, despite topping the table for much of the campaign.
On Friday, the Gunners completed a £34 million deal for 22-year-old Ajax central defender Jurrien Timber, with a further £4 million payable in add-ons for the Dutch international.
“He is a player with tremendous ability, who has been performing at a high level in the Premier League and for England for a number of seasons now,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said in a statement.
Rice joined West Ham at youth level in 2015, making his senior debut after coming on as a late substitute against Burnley on the final day of the 2016/17 season.
He would become a first-team regular the following campaign and would go on to make 245 appearances for the Hammers, scoring 15 goals, winning the club's player of the year award three times and taking over as captain at the start of the 2022/23 season after Mark Noble's retirement.
Rice was at the heart of the West Ham team that finished sixth and then seventh in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 Premier League campaigns, although last season turned into a struggle against relegation before they eventually finished 14th, six points clear of the bottom three.
He helped them reach the Europa League semi-finals in 2022 when they lost to eventual winners Eintracht Frankfurt but then captained West Ham to their first trophy in more than 40 years last month, when they defeated Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League final.
In an open letter to West Ham fans, Rice said the club “will always be in my heart” but that it was his ambition “to play at the very highest level of the game”.
“I want you to know how tough a decision it has been for me to leave an environment that I have loved and cherished so much,” he added.
West Ham joint-chairman David Sullivan said that he would “personally thank Declan for everything he has done” for the club and was sad to see him leave.
“I would like to make it clear to our supporters that we did not want to sell Declan. We wanted to build our team around him and made a series of improved, long-term contract offers to secure his future,” said Sullivan in a statement.
“However, once Declan made it clear that he wished to move on and seek a new challenge, the club felt it would not be right to stand in his way, acting in the best interests of West Ham United.”
Although born in south-west London, Rice was eligible to play for Ireland due to his Cork grandparents and was part of the Irish youth set-up from Under-16 level through to the Under-21s before committing his future to England.
He is now one of the first names on manager Gareth Southgate's teamsheet, having made 43 caps since making his senior debut as a 63rd-minute substitute against the Czech Republic at Wembley Stadium in 2019.
He played all seven games as England finished as runners-up having lost to Italy on penalties in the Euro 2020 finals and then started all five games at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar when they reached quarter-finals, before being beaten 2-1 by France.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
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- 600-seat auditorium
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Brief scores:
Newcastle United 1
Perez 23'
Wolverhampton Rovers 2
Jota 17', Doherty 90' 4
Red cards: Yedlin 57'
Man of the Match: Diogo Jota (Wolves)
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Sting & Shaggy
44/876
(Interscope)
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The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
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Red flags
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- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
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Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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What sanctions would be reimposed?
Under ‘snapback’, measures imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council in six resolutions would be restored, including:
- An arms embargo
- A ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing
- A ban on launches and other activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic missile technology transfer and technical assistance
- A targeted global asset freeze and travel ban on Iranian individuals and entities
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The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
