NEW YORK -- New York City FC confirmed its interest in signing Christian Pulisic to play in Major League Soccer, but admits AC Milan is not interested in selling the top American player.
ESPN reported last month that Milan had rejected an approach from NYCFC for the attacker. Pulisic's current contract runs through June 2027, with a club option to extend that deal by a year.
"If you ask any of my 29 counterparts across the league if they would be interested in having Christian Pulisic on their team, I'm pretty sure you'd get 29 yesses," NYCFC president Brad Sims said Thursday at a Major League Soccer event to promote the resumption of the league's season.
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"Would MLS from a league standpoint love to have Christian Pulisic here? I think the answer to that would be yes," Sims added. "If AC Milan doesn't want to give him up, then it's dead in the water.
"And so I think ultimately we're believers that Christian wants to play in MLS, wants to be back home and at whatever the point in time that is, we would think and hope that New York City FC would be very high on his list of teams that he would want to play for."
An attacking midfielder from Hershey, Pennsylvania, Pulisic turns 28 in September. He joined AC Milan three years ago after playing for Borussia Dortmund from 2016-19 and Chelsea from 2019-23.
Pulisic has 33 goals in 90 international appearances but is coming off a disappointing World Cup in which he failed to score and had one assist. Because of injuries, he missed one of the five U.S. games and came out of two others early. Pulisic left last week's round of 16 loss to Belgium after fracturing his right leg.
"I felt really good this summer with the guys and I thought my level was high," he said after the game. "It's disappointing I didn't quite have the moments I was hoping to and to try to help us to get over this next step of beating a really good team."
Pulisic scored 10 goals in his first 15 appearances for AC Milan last season, but ended his club season in career-worst scoreless streak, failing to get a goal in 19 games after Dec. 28.
Also at Thursday's event, Sims announced that the delayed opening of New York City FC's Etihad Park has been scheduled for July 17 next summer, the start of the team's 2027-28 season as MLS shifts to a calendar in alignment with most European leagues.
"This is 12, 13 years in the making," Sims said. "A lot of people put in so much hard work, time and effort vetting out dozens and dozens of sites around the five boroughs: starts, stops, good news, bad news."
Gotham FC of the National Women's Soccer League said this month it will play its home games at Etihad Park starting in 2028.
When NYCFC broke ground in December 2024 for the 25,000-seat venue adjacent to the New York Mets' Citi Field, NYCFC said the stadium would open for the 2027 season, but last February announced a delay. In the league's truncated transition season of 2027, NYCFC will continue to play most home games at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.
Since taking the field in 2015, NYCFC has played home games primarily at those venues along with some at the home of the rival New York Red Bulls in Harrison, New Jersey, and Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.