Schalke have announced they won't be signing permanently Manchester City defender Ko Itakura.
The Japan international has spent the past season on-loan with S04.
S04 sports director Rouven Schröder explained: "No one was in doubt that Ko was one of our most prominent players on the field this season. We would have liked to have had him in our Bundesliga squad, but that was not possible due to financial reasons.
"At this time, when a lot of decisions still have to be made about the squad's planning, we could not exercise the call option. The financial expenses were too great and would have exceeded our carefully planned budgets."
Itakura has a deal with City to 2023 and is interesting promoted pair Bournemouth and Fulham.
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