Arsenal release eight academy players as Arteta completes £34.5m Hincapie signing

Arsenal have released eight academy players and confirmed the permanent signing of defender Piero Hincapie for £34.5m as Mikel Arteta begins reshaping his squad ahead of the new season.

Hincapie, 23, joins on a permanent basis after spending last season on loan from Bayer Leverkusen, during which he played a key role in Arsenal’s Premier League title-winning campaign — the club’s first in 20 years. The Ecuadorian international was swiftly secured once the loan concluded, with the club moving quickly to make the deal official.

On the same day, eight academy players departed the Emirates as their contracts expired. Sam Chapman, Harrison Dudziak, Seb Ferdinand, Cam’ron Ismail, Will Lannin-Sweet, Josh Nichols, Samuel Onyekachukwu and Alexei Rojas-Fedorushchenko have all left the club. The majority are understood to have been released after Arsenal saw no clear pathway for them into the first team.

Lannin-Sweet, a Wales under-19 international, only signed his first professional contract last summer before spending the second half of the season on loan at Dagenham and Redbridge. Ferdinand, Nichols and Onyekachukwu had each signed professional deals in 2024, with Ferdinand a regular in Premier League 2 but unable to convince the club he was ready for senior football.

Nichols has agreed a move to Croatian club Kustosija, who have just won promotion to the country’s second tier, while Chapman is set to pursue NCAA Division 1 football with Georgia Southern University in the United States.

Goalkeeper Rojas-Fedorushchenko had already announced his exit earlier in the summer after eight years at the club’s Colney training base. In a farewell message, the Colombian youth international described his time at Arsenal as “a true privilege,” adding: “Progressing through from the academy to the first team — every step of the journey has taught me about what it takes to perform as an elite athlete, on and off the pitch.”

With Hincapie the only confirmed arrival so far this summer, Arsenal supporters will be expecting further signings before the new Premier League season gets underway.