After the departure of some important top performers, Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart can give its supporters good news on Wednesday.
The Japanese Hiroki Ito has decided to stay at VfB Stuttgart and extended the working paper, which was initially valid until 2026, by another year. This means that the transfer speculation about the defensive player has finally ended a few days before the end of the change period.
Most recently, Ajax Amsterdam is said to have advertised the services of the 24-year-old to the former Stuttgarter Sven Mislintat. Under Mislintat’s direction as sporting director at VfB, Ito moved from the Japanese club Júbilo Iwata to the country two years ago, where he has since become a permanent fixture in the squad.
According to “Bild”, the player’s salary should also have been revised upwards as a result of the contract extension. In addition, it was recently said that a new exit clause should be written in Ito’s new working paper, which amounts to 30 million euros. It is not known whether this was actually anchored.
VfB Stuttgart happy about contract extension
In the past few days, VfB had initially sold their captain Wataru Endo to Liverpool for 20 million euros, then central defender Konstantinos Mavropanos also switched to West Ham United for 20 million euros.
Meanwhile, VfB sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth was happy to be able to keep an important top performer in the state: “Hiroki Ito credibly embodies our claim to further develop the team in terms of quality. He is an intelligent, technically and athletically strong player and is one of the best in his position in the league. Hiroki has undergone an extraordinary development under the VfB umbrella in recent years and is now one of the pillars of our sporting concept.”
Ito himself emphasized that he felt very comfortable in Stuttgart. “Above all, the home games with our fans and the extraordinary atmosphere in the stadium are something very special for me. I’m very happy about my development at VfB. When I came to Stuttgart from the second Japanese division in 2021, I wouldn’t have believed it , that I will play so many games and make it into the national team a year later.”
The left foot can now look back on ten international matches for Japan.