Kyle Walker and his wife Annie Kilner have been dreaming of an escape route from what they describe as their ‘nightmare’ for some time now.
With their marriage in tatters after the embattled footballer’s former mistress Lauryn Goodman revealed her second baby was also his, it will come as little surprise to most that Annie would just love to transport herself somewhere else – anywhere, in fact.
Now it has emerged that the family will be relocating. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola sensationally revealed on Saturday afternoon that his 34-year-old star defender and captain has asked for permission to discuss moving abroad before the next transfer window shuts at the end of the month.
Explaining why he had dropped him from the Premier League giants’ FA Cup clash with Salford on Saturday, Pep, who has been staunchly loyal to Kyle despite his colourful off-pitch activity, said: ‘Two days ago, Kyle asked to explore the options to play abroad,’ explaining that the star had approached Txiki Begiristain – Manchester City’s director of football – to put in the request.
‘For that reason I prefer to play [a player] whose mind is here. But he has said he wants to explore in his mind and his heart… Honestly? I don’t know what is going to happen.’
One person who appears to have known is Lauryn, 33, because just a few hours after Pep’s outburst a story appeared in The Sun on Sunday, the red-top tabloid where she has close connections, to say she was planning to quit Britain too, with her sights set on Dubai.
The story prompted much discussion – as I guess Lauryn wanted it to – within the Walker camp. The reason? There’s been speculation during the last six months that, after seven years at Manchester City, Kyle would follow the likes of his fellow England stars Jordan Henderson and Ivan Toney to Saudi Arabia (even though Henderson returned after only six months).
Manchester City captain Kyle Walker, pictured with wife Annie in 2019, has asked for permission to discuss moving abroad before the transfer window shuts at the end of the month
The Saudi Pro League was reportedly a tempting option for Kyle. After all, the money is jaw-droppingly good – Cristiano Ronaldo is widely reported to be earning an annual salary of £173million 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 East 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 be going to Saudi despite all of the talk that he is. There has been a lot of speculation that he was heading there. There were even rumours that Annie was looking at schools there for their four children.
‘You have to wonder whether Lauryn was planning a move to Dubai because she thought that Kyle and Annie were off to the Middle East too. She has form for winding them up, particularly Annie, but it hasn’t worked as they have no intention of going there.
‘It wasn’t long ago that Lauryn went to Cheshire and got herself papped outside estate agents to make Annie think she would be moving there. She thinks Lauryn is a total wind-up merchant and believes it is harassment.’
The move would mean that Lauryn would have to take Kairo, four, out of the school he only recently started. She may also find it a wrench to move away from her younger sister Chloe, whom she has again grown close to following their fall-out last year.
But more to the point, if she does go to Dubai, Kyle won’t be living anywhere near. Friends of the Walkers say that AC Milan is feasible, with the Italian city being a favourite for footballers raising young families. The club is reportedly poised to offer the star a two-and-a-half-year deal.
Just a few hours after the announcement, a story appeared in The Sun on Sunday to say Lauren Goodman, who Kyle fathered two children with, was planning to quit Britain too
It is yet unknown just how serious Lauryn is about leaving the £2.4million house in Sussex which Kyle bought for her and their two children, Kairo, four, and 18-month-old Kinara, to live in
Another potential club is German side Bayern Munich, which would see him link up with England captain Harry Kane.
It is yet unknown just how serious Lauryn is about leaving the £2.4million house in Sussex which Kyle bought for her and their two children, Kairo and 18-month-old Kinara, to live in. Last week, she did request permission to rent out the property.
Sources close to Kyle tell me that he is likely to agree to the request which would leave her free to start a new life abroad.
‘Kyle will continue to adopt the same fair position he took in court regarding his financial responsibilities towards Kairo and Kinara,’ a source close to the Walkers said.
Those who know her say that Lauryn ‘has form’ for threatening to relocate when things aren’t going her way and has mentioned moving to Dubai on previous occasions.
‘This isn’t the first time Lauryn has threatened to move there,’ says one source. ‘There have been times in the past when she has felt she is on the losing side and, fed up of everything, she will say she is going off there.’
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The sorry sequence of events that has culminated in one of football’s biggest-ever scandals began in 2019 when, while on a break from Annie, Kyle got Lauryn pregnant with Kairo. He and Annie got back together shortly afterwards and married.
But in the winter of 2022 Lauryn was once again pregnant with Kyle’s baby and the following summer, his only daughter was born.
On December 27 last year she messaged Annie with a breezy bombshell, writing: ‘Hey it’s Lauryn, I just wanted to quickly tell you that Kyle is the father of our daughter.’
Annie threw Kyle out of their £4million Cheshire mansion two weeks later. And in July it emerged that Lauryn had made some lavish demands from him as part of her maintenance agreement, which prompted Judge Hess to accuse her of treating him like an ‘open-ended cheque book’.
One example was a £32,000 astroturf pitch for Kinara, who at the time of the hearing had just turned one.
But Kyle and Annie appear to have successfully put their troubles behind them and enjoyed a ‘wonderful’ family Christmas together at their home after she allowed him to move back in last summer.
And now friends believe that a new start abroad with their four sons Roman, 12, Riaan, eight, Reign, six, and Rezon, six months, is just what they need.
One tells me: ‘A change is as good as a rest and it would be the best thing for them to go off and start again abroad, so they can make new memories and try to leave some of the awful times behind.
‘It is so appealing and is actually understandable why Kyle decided to request the permission to look at going overseas. Obviously though, they just hope Lauryn doesn’t follow them there.’