Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure has claimed he is open to "new challenges" and will not stay at a club simply to collect wages.
Reports last week suggested Toure could be part of a summer clear-out at the Etihad Stadium as the club look to reshape the squad after an underwhelming season.
That was denied by manager Manuel Pellegrini, who insisted Toure would “continue playing here because he is a very important player”.
But Pellegrini did acknowledge Toure’s form this season has been disappointing and speculation linking the Ivory Coast international with a move away has not subsided.
Now the 31-year-old has given an interview suggesting he could be open to a move.
Toure, who is reportedly City's highest earner on £220,000 (Dh1.2 million) per week, told Foot Mercato: "No amount of wages will make me stay at a club if I feel that I no longer belong there or if no challenge exists for me.
“It would be unjust on my part. There comes a moment where numbers don’t stop us, it goes beyond that, even if the English press seem more interested in the numbers than the sport itself.
“For the future, I don’t know more than you do, because I will always go where I am offered new challenges. That is in my nature.”
Despite those remarks, Toure insisted he remained fully committed to City on the field.
The two-time Premier League winner added: "When I arrived at City, Pellegrini was not the coach. Just like the players, managers arrive and leave. As I have said before, I owe it to the City fans to fight until the end of my career at this club.
“My decisions will not be affected by changes in management, but more by the challenges that will be offered to me.”
Toure has been linked with Inter Milan, whose manager, the former City coach Roberto Mancini, has spoken openly and regularly of his admiration for the player.
Toure says the feeling is mutual.
He said: “Mancini is a mentor for me, and a coach out of the ordinary. It is no secret that I loved when he was my boss, as I like to play for City today.”
Toure is one of a number of players to have faced criticism for City’s disappointing campaign.
City have collapsed in the Premier League title race – slumping from joint-top in Janauary to fourth – and failed in the knockout competitions.
Toure said: “When things are not necessarily going well in a club, the key players take the fall.
“I am not the only one to have been attacked even if there is tendency to be harsher with me. Football is my passion, my job and that gives me two good reasons to do as well as I can.”
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Gothia Cup 2025
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116 pitches
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if you go
The flights
Air Astana flies direct from Dubai to Almaty from Dh2,440 per person return, and to Astana (via Almaty) from Dh2,930 return, both including taxes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Almaty cost from Dh1,944 per night including taxes; and in Astana the new Ritz-Carlton Astana (www.marriott) costs from Dh1,325; alternatively, the new St Regis Astana costs from Dh1,458 per night including taxes.
When to visit
March-May and September-November
Visas
Citizens of many countries, including the UAE do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan for up to 30 days. Contact the nearest Kazakhstan embassy or consulate.
Ultra processed foods
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars;
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