Monaco want to renegotiate the purchase options for Wout Faes and Simon Adingra, with the French club now pushing to avoid the reported €7.5million fee for the Leicester City defender. L’Equipe said Monaco remain keen on Faes, but the price attached to a permanent deal is too high for now.
The same report said Sunderland are due €17m for Adingra, and Monaco are tempted to keep both players after their performances pleased the club’s management. For Faes, the likelihood of Monaco paying the full option is described as very low, with the club instead considering another loan deal or a lower transfer fee.
Faes’s case is straightforward on paper and messy in practice. Leicester signed him from Reims in 2022 for a reported £15m, and he has gone on to make 135 appearances for the club. He was loaned to Monaco in January, and during the 2025-26 season he played 14 league games, starting 13 of them. He also played every minute of two Champions League matches against Paris Saint-Germain. His final appearance for Monaco came in a 5-4 defeat to Strasbourg.
That leaves Leicester in a position they can hardly ignore. Faes has one year left on his contract, and the club are facing uncertainty surrounding pretty much all of their players and all four centre backs. There seems to be zero prospect of Faes turning up for Leicester in League One, so any outcome now depends on whether Monaco decide the Belgian is worth a revised deal.
Monaco’s hesitation is not only about Faes’s value on the pitch. L’Equipe linked it to falling TV rights and uncertainty over which European competition the club will play in next season, both of which make a clean purchase less likely. The club liked what they saw from Faes, and the defender’s spell there has done enough to keep the door open. What it has not done is convince Monaco to pay the original price.
That is the tension for Leicester. They have a player with a year left, a loan that gave Monaco reason to talk, and a market that may not meet the first asking price. If Monaco want him, they appear more likely to bargain than to pay up.
