FC Porto announces the signature of Jan Bednarek from Southampton on the four -year agreement

Jan Bednarek, the 29 -year -old international central defender, was officially announced on Monday under the name of new signature of FC Porto. The dragons paid 7.5 million euros in Southampton, the defender signing a contract valid until June 2029.

Jan Bednarek arrives at FC Porto in Southampton, a club he represented since 2017, with a loan to Aston Villa between the two, in the first half of the 2022/2023 season.

Last season, the Polish center center, which has 69 caps and a goal for the senior team of his country, made 34 official appearances, scoring two goals, in a year during which he could not prevent the relegation of Southampton to the championship.

The relegation of the English club helped to provoke this offer, which accelerated during the weekend, the FC Porto paying 7.5 million euros, a little more than the amount that Southampton paid in 2017, to sign Bednarek by Lech Poznan.

Jan Bednarek is the seventh signature of FC Porto for 2024/2025, after Gabri Veiga, João Costa, Dominik Prpic, Borja Sainz, Victor Froholdt and Alberto Costa.

Jan Bednarek is 29 years old, 1.90 meters high, 69 caps for the Polish national team and nearly two hundred games at the highest level of English football. It will now strengthen the defense of FC Porto after having signed a valid contract for the next four seasons, until 2029.

The small town of Słupca, in the heart of Poland, was the birthplace of the Bednarek brothers in the 90s. Jan, who is four years younger than the goalkeeper of Sparta Rotterdam Filip, began playing football near his home in Sokół Kleczew before moving to the periphery of Poznan.

A season at MSP Szamotuły was sufficient to attract the interest of Lech Poznan, who recruited the powerful services of the central defender when he was still a teenager. His first team debut, which earned him a Polish championship medal in 2014/15, were followed by a loan spell in Gornik Leczna and dozens of international appearances for young people.

In the summer of 2016, he returned to his original club and had an excellent season in Ekstraklasa – so good that he ended up moving to English football and became the biggest sale of Lech ever, going beyond that of Robert Lewandowski in Borussia Dortmund.

Upon his arrival in Southampton, his first experience abroad, he made half a dozen appearances for those under 23 of the saints before making his debut (and scoring) against the Chelsea champions.

This match was followed by 183 more in the best British league, and in the last edition, only three players managed to intercept more balls than Jan Bednarek, who equaled the 56 of Virgil Van Dijk, his predecessor in Southampton and current Liverpool captain.

The new number five of Porto arrives in the city of Invicta after eight seasons in England, during which he also played in two World Cups (2018 and 2022), two European Championships (2020 and 2024) and four editions of the League of Nations (2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024) for Poland.

Instruction FC Porto:

“FC Porto has reached an agreement with Southampton Football Club for the final acquisition of sports registration rights and 100% of Jan Bednarek’s economic rights for a fixed sum of 7.5 million euros. The parties and FC Porto declare that it will have intermediation services of 3% of the amount of the transaction.”