York City have accepted Hearts' latest bid for Malachi Fagan-Walcott in a deal understood to be worth £1,000,000 plus add-ons, clearing the way for the defender to leave the National League champions.
The fee would smash York's transfer record and take the club beyond the £950,000 they received for Richard Cresswell's move to Sheffield Wednesday in 1999. For Hearts, it is the move they have pushed hardest to complete for a player who has spent the past two seasons turning himself into one of York's most valuable assets.
Fagan-Walcott first arrived at York in September 2024 on a season-long loan from Cardiff City, then joined permanently on Christmas Eve 2024 after impressing enough to force the issue. He went on to make 78 appearances in all competitions for the club, scoring 14 goals and providing eight assists from defence, a return that few would have seen coming when he first walked in.
That output mattered on the pitch. He scored late in York's 2-1 win over FC Halifax Town in the 2024/25 campaign and then struck a last-minute header against Altrincham in April that helped seal the title. Across the 2025/26 campaign, he added 36 more appearances and earned a nomination for the Enterprise National League Young Player of the Season award.
The move did not happen at the first attempt. Hearts had already seen an initial bid turned down by York, and only their fourth offer was accepted. That tells its own story about how firmly York valued the 23-year-old, even with the record fee now on the table.
York's stance makes sense in the wider picture. They wanted to keep a player who had become central to their rise, but the numbers are now too big to ignore. Hearts, who finished second and will play UEFA Champions League football next season, have decided the defender is worth the wait and the price.
Fagan-Walcott has already been through several stages of a career that has taken him via Tottenham Hotspur, Dundee, Cardiff and Dunfermline Athletic, and Hearts would be the third club he has played for in the Scottish ladder. What remains is the formal completion of the transfer, which has not yet been confirmed.
