For Kevin De Bruyne, family came first.

De Bruyne has recently been linked with a move to the Saudi Professional League (SPL). Since joining Manchester City in the 2015-16 season, De Bruyne’s passing and goalscoring prowess have made him one of the Premier League’s best attacking midfielders. However, the 30-year-old, born in 1991, hasn’t been able to deceive. He’s been plagued by frequent injuries, most notably last season, when he didn’t return until January after suffering an injury in the Premier League opener in August. After his return, he showed his quality, but his fitness was questionable.

As he got older, he naturally attracted interest from SPL clubs. SPL clubs have been luring world-class players with big offers, starting with Cristiano Ronaldo recently. Al Nasr already has Ronaldo, while Al Ittihad has Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante, and others. If you look across the league, there’s also Neymar and Roberto Firmino. De Bruyne, who is in his mid-30s, is no exception.

In fact, De Bruyne made comments that seemed to hint at a move to the SPL. “If I play in Saudi Arabia for two years, I can earn a lot of money, maybe more than I earned in 15 years of soccer before that, you have to think about what that means,” he said.

Since then, news has emerged that De Bruyne has agreed to join Al Ittihad. Earlier this month, Rudi Galletti, a journalist who follows the European transfer market, broke the news of the agreement between Al Ittihad and De Bruyne, and the UK’s Daily Mail 메이저사이트 reported the same on April 20th.

It looked like De Bruyne was headed to the SPL. But then came another round of rebuttal reports. “De Bruyne is said to have agreed a £156m ($278m) three-year deal with Al Ittihad, but is likely to forgo up to £1m ($1.8bn) a week in wages to stay at City. It’s for family reasons,” the report said.

“De Bruyne discussed the move with his wife, who is reluctant to move their children,” the outlet continued. He was particularly concerned about changing schools for his oldest son, Mason Millian,” it added. Despite the big offers, he chose family.

Even Fabrizio Romano, a journalist familiar with the European transfer market, said on February 22 that “the news that De Bruyne and Al Ittihad had reached an agreement is not true.”

De Bruyne will now stay at City. He has one year left on his contract, so he will play with the club at least until next season. The City board are reportedly keen to re-sign De Bruyne and will hold talks after the US tour.