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From quirky diets and raps to secret baby and THAT obsession with Hannah Montana – inside weird world of Erling Haaland
Manchester City have signed Haaland on a new reported £500,000 a week, nine-and-a-half-year deal
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A GOAL machine with the flowing blond locks of his Viking heritage, Erling Haaland likes to tell rivals to “stay humble”.
Now — after landing a deal that dwarfs anything seen before in British football — he may need to heed the advice himself.
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That’s because the attention that comes with such a huge contract will propel Haaland, 24, and his 21-year-old partner Isabel Haugseng Johansen into fame’s premier league.
A source close to the couple said: “They are going to be a bigger than the Beckhams. They will be the wealthiest, most famous couple in the world of football.”
Backed by Abu Dhabi petro dollars, Manchester City have signed Haaland on a new reported £500,000 a week, nine-and-a-half-year deal.
Pre-tax, that’s £260million before his lucrative endorsements and win bonuses are factored in.
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That’s around £71,000 a day, nearly £3,000 an hour and 83p per second.
The minimum wage for ordinary folk rises to £12.21 an hour in April. Haaland earns that in 15 seconds.
It takes Haaland six seconds to earn the cost of a pint and just under two and half days to make enough to afford a new Ferrari Portofino M Convertible.
City are said to have backdated the deal to the start of the season which means Haaland will pocket £3.25million in wages he is owed since then.
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Tellingly, the striker said yesterday: “Now I am City no matter what.”
For the Manchester club still awaits the verdict after being charged with 115 breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
Erling Haaland talks about his contract extension at Man City to 2034
Possible sanctions include a points deduction or even relegation from England’s top division.
‘We’re like any couple’
It means that Haaland could be turning out at Millwall’s New Den or Oxford United’s Kassam Stadium rather than Anfield or Old Trafford with his deal that stretches to 2034.
One fan tweeted: “By the time his contract ends, I’ll have grandkids, and they’ll still be watching him pad his stats against Burnley!”
The deal comes after Haaland and glamorous Isabel had their first child shortly before Christmas.
Although the couple are said to live quietly at their six-bed Cheshire mansion, they enjoy spending the wealth they have amassed.
They pair have taken lavish holidays including breaks in Marbella, where Haaland owns a £6million villa, and on a yacht in Capri, Italy.
He’s been pictured pairing a £300,000 watch with a Burberry pyjama set. In 2023 he was caught using his mobile phone at the wheel of his £300,000 Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV.
Just before Christmas, Isabel spent more than £6,000 at Selfridges. Her items included a £2,700 Gucci bag, a £1,670 backpack and a £950 Gucci hoodie in the online spree.
Details of Isabel’s spending blitz emerged after blundering Selfridges staff sent her receipt to another customer by mistake.
Isabel and Haaland first met when they both played in Byrne, Norway, at the local football youth academy.
Haaland seems to have retained at least some of the down-to-earth nature of a lad from a small town.
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During his first weeks at City he was spotted shopping at Sainsbury’s. He later mocked those who expressed surprise at seeing him in a regular supermarket by tweeting: “At M&S. Bought a bag of Percy Pig. Don’t tell anyone.”
Isabel has said: “We just want to live our lives without too much fuss. At the end of the day, we’re just like any other couple.”
Now I am City no matter what
Erling Haaland
Not every other young couple starting a family will earn £260million in the next decade, of course.
A source said: “Isabel absolutely loves sport and football — that’s how they met.
"She’s amazingly fit as well as stunningly beautiful and the brands are going to be all over her — not just sporting names but beauty too.”
Haaland plugged his monster new deal with an Instagram video for his 38.5million followers.
Fans saw him in nothing but white shorts, sitting cross-legged in the snow in a meditation pose that he has used as a goal celebration.
Ethereal music plays before the star says: “I’m here to stay.”
One fan posted: “My day is made! Thank you Erling.”
Another added: “Stay humble.”
It’s a reference to Haaland’s “stay humble” advice to Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta after City’s 98th-minute equaliser against the London club at the end of September.
Let’s be clear. The reason Haaland is being paid this obscene amount of money is because he’s worth it.
Arguably the greatest striker in the world’s best league, his goal record at City is astonishing.
He is one of the reasons why the Premier League is sold around the globe — from Laos to Uzbekistan and the Pacific islands — for £10.4billion in TV rights.
Arriving at City from Borussia Dortmund in 2022 for £51.2million, he scored 52 goals in all competitions — including a single-season record of 36 in the Premier League.
That season the team won the league, FA Cup and Champions League to land the Treble.
Last season he scored 38 goals in 45 appearances and he has 21 goals already in this campaign as he goes for a third straight Golden Boot in the Premier League.
Haaland said yesterday: “For two and a half years as a City player I have been winning loads of trophies, playing good football, having so many great moments together with the whole club and with the fans.”
The £260million deal is a defining moment for a sport which has deep roots in working-class communities in the 19th Century mill towns of Lancashire.
Players who turned out for Accrington and Preston North End when the Football League began in 1888 would scarcely believe the riches now drenching the game.
When Everton signed Nick Ross from Preston that year, he was paid £10 a month. Haaland will earn that in around 12 seconds. By the late 1960s players still earned comparatively little, despite drawing huge crowds.
When City club legend Mike Summerbee signed from Swindon Town in 1965, his wages increased from £35 to £40 per week.
Yet Haaland’s salary is relatively paltry compared to global sport’s top earners.
Baseball star Shohei Ohtani from the Los Angeles Dodgers is pocketing £57.4million a year over a ten-year contract.
Juan Soto from the New York Mets picks up £41.8million over 15 years, totalling £627million.
And Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez has a £60million-a-year deal with broadcaster DAZN for five years, while Formula 1’s Max Verstappen is earning £45million per year over six years with his team Red Bull.
For two and a half years as a City player I have been winning loads of trophies, playing good football, having so many great moments together with the whole club and with the fans
Erling Haaland
With skin like white marble and shoulder-length blond hair, Haaland is the archetypal Norseman.
Yet he was born on July 21, 2000, in Yorkshire, where his father — Norwegian international Alfie Haaland — was playing for Leeds United.
In the mid-1990s Alfie had married Gry Marita Braut — a Norwegian heptathlete — and had children Astor, a finance student, Gabrielle, a healthcare assistant and Instagram personality, and finally Erling.
Erling’s Yorkshire birth made him eligible to turn out for England’s Three Lions.
In 2000 Alfie signed for Manchester City, where he would remain for three years.
A simmering feud with hardman midfielder Roy Keane would come to a head in April 2001 when the Manchester United star brutally raked his studs into Haaland senior’s leg.
The United man was sent off for the tackle, which was revenge for Alfie accusing him of feigning an injury — which was in fact career-threatening — more than three years previously.
Keane would later write in his autobiography: “I f***ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***.”
Bad blood still lingers.
United fans goad Erling with chants of “Keano” — and Keane hasn’t spared his criticism.
The pundit told Sky Sports: “In front of goal he’s the best in the world, but his general play for such a player — it is so poor. He’s almost like a League Two player.”
‘I’m super-happy, proud’
Alfie was said to be “really p***ed off” with the comment.
When Alfie’s Premier League career ended in 2003, the family returned to his home town of Bryne in Norway.
Young Erling loved running and was a natural athlete. Aged five he is said to have broken the world standing long jump record, leaping 1.63 metres.
In front of goal he’s the best in the world, but his general play for such a player — it is so poor. He’s almost like a League Two player.”
With ten members of his extended family who were professional footballers, he was drawn to the game and proved a natural.
Joining Byrne’s football academy aged five, Haaland met Isabel, another football-mad youngster.
The new mother once said: “We were just kids, kicking a ball around without a care in the world.
“We were inseparable on the pitch. We didn’t know it back then, but those moments were the foundation of something much bigger.”
In 2016 he and two friends from Norway’s youth team released their own hip-hop song on YouTube under the name Flow Kingz.
Calling himself “Lyng”, Haaland raps in a baseball cap and hoodie while pretending to flip burgers and bouncing on a trampoline.
His lyrics include: “I even look good when I eat”.
It’s just as well his football career took off.
Signing to Molde in 2017, the club put the 6ft 3ins gangly youth on a high protein diet — including reindeer steaks — to bulk him up.
After moves to Red Bull Salzburg and Dortmund, he arrived in Manchester.
Yesterday Haaland said: “I’m super happy, proud.
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“I’m looking forward to staying here for a long time.”
The next decade will certainly bring him untold riches and, just maybe, a spell playing Championship football.
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