Kyle Walker and his wife Annie Kilner have been dreaming of an escape route from what they describe as their “nightmare” for some time.
With her marriage in tatters after the footballer’s ex-lover Lauryn Goodman revealed that her second baby was also his, it will come as no surprise to most that Annie would love to transport herself somewhere else; in fact, anywhere.
It has now emerged that the family will be moving. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola sensationally revealed on Saturday afternoon that his 34-year-old star defender and captain has asked for permission to talk about moving abroad before the next transfer window closes at the end of the month.
Explaining why he had excluded him from the Premier League giants’ FA Cup clash against Salford on Saturday, Pep, who has been staunchly loyal to Kyle despite his colorful off-field activity, said: “Two days ago , Kyle asked to explore options.” play abroad”, explaining that the star had approached Txiki Begiristain, Manchester City’s director of football, to make the request.
‘That’s why I prefer to play (with a player) whose mind is here. But he’s said he wants to explore her mind and heart… Honestly? “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
One person who seems to know is Lauryn, 33, because a few hours after Pep’s outburst appeared on Sunday in The Sun, the leading tabloid with which she has close contacts, which said that she was also planning to leave Britain. with an eye on Dubai.
The story sparked a lot of discussion, as I assume Lauryn intended, within the Walker group. The reason? There has been speculation over the past six months that, after seven years at Manchester City, Kyle would follow fellow England stars Jordan Henderson and Ivan Toney to Saudi Arabia (despite Henderson returning after just six months).
Manchester City captain Kyle Walker, pictured with his wife Annie in 2019, has asked for permission to talk about moving abroad before the transfer window closes at the end of the month.
The Saudi Pro League was reportedly a tempting option for Kyle. After all, the money is astonishingly good – Cristiano Ronaldo is widely said to earn an annual salary of £173 million playing for Saudi side Al Nassr.
So there was much hilarity in the Walker camp when Lauryn announced she wanted to move to popular Middle Eastern tourist destination Dubai, only for Kyle to announce on Sunday that his football move was actually to Europe.
A friend of Kyle and Annie tells me: ‘Kyle is looking at a couple of teams in Europe, he won’t go to Saudi Arabia despite all the talk about him going. There has been much speculation that he was headed there. There were even rumors that Annie was looking for schools there for her four children.
‘You have to wonder if Lauryn was planning to move to Dubai because she thought Kyle and Annie were also going to the Middle East. He has a way of convincing them, especially Annie, but it hasn’t worked because they have no intention of going there.
It wasn’t long ago that Lauryn went to Cheshire and posed as outside real estate agents to make Annie think she was moving there. She thinks Lauryn is a sell-out trader and thinks that’s harassment.
The move would mean Lauryn would have to pull four-year-old Kairo out of the school he has just started. He may also find it difficult to stay away from his younger sister Chloe, who he became close to again after their fight last year.
But more importantly, if she goes to Dubai, Kyle won’t live nearby. Friends of the Walkers say AC Milan is feasible, as the Italian city is a favorite for footballers raising young families. The club are reportedly willing to offer the star a two-and-a-half-year deal.
Just hours after the announcement, a story appeared in The Sun on Sunday saying that Lauren Goodman, with whom Kyle had two children, was also planning to leave Britain.
It is still unknown how seriously Lauryn is about leaving the £2.4million house in Sussex that Kyle bought for her and her two children, Kairo, four, and Kinara, 18 months, to live in she.
Another potential club is German side Bayern Munich, which would allow him to link up with England captain Harry Kane.
It is still unknown how seriously Lauryn is about leaving the £2.4million house in Sussex that Kyle bought for her and her two children, Kairo and Kinara, 18 months, to live in. Last week, he applied for permission to rent. remove the property.
Sources close to Kyle tell me he is likely to accept the request, which would free her to start a new life abroad.
“Kyle will continue to take the same fair position he took in court regarding his financial responsibilities to Kairo and Kinara,” a source close to the Walkers said.
Those who know her say Lauryn ‘has a way’ of threatening to move when things don’t go her way and she has mentioned moving to Dubai on previous occasions.
“This isn’t the first time Lauryn has threatened to move there,” says a source. “There were times in the past when she felt like she was on the losing end and, fed up with everything, she said she was going to go there.”
The unfortunate sequence of events that culminated in one of the biggest scandals in football history began in 2019 when, while on a break from Annie, Kyle left Lauryn pregnant with Kairo. He and Annie got back together soon after and married.
But in the winter of 2022, Lauryn became pregnant with Kyle’s baby again, and the following summer, their only daughter was born.
On December 27 of last year, she messaged Annie with a happy bombshell, writing: “Hi, I’m Lauryn, I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.”
Annie kicked Kyle out of her £4million Cheshire mansion two weeks later. And in July it emerged that Lauryn had made some generous demands on him as part of her support agreement, leading Judge Hess to accuse her of treating him like an “open checkbook.”
One example was an artificial grass pitch valued at £32,000 for Kinara, who at the time of the hearing had just turned one year old.
But Kyle and Annie appear to have put their problems behind them and enjoyed a “wonderful” family Christmas together at her house after she allowed him to return last summer.
And now friends believe a fresh start abroad with their four children Roman, 12, Riaan, eight, Reign, six, and Rezon, six months, is just what they need.
One of them tells me: ‘A change is as good as a break and it would be better for them to leave and start again abroad, so they can create new memories and try to leave some of the terrible times behind them.
“It’s very appealing and actually understandable why Kyle decided to ask permission to consider traveling abroad. Obviously, they just hope Lauryn doesn’t follow them there.