How much Preston are really set to pay for Graham Alexander, Bradford City raid revealed | OneFootball

Preston North End's financial outlay to Bradford City for the appointment of Graham Alexander has been revealed

Preston North End confirmed the first managerial casualty of the 2026/27 Championship campaign by relieving Paul Heckingbottom of his duties, although a replacement is set to be sealed with the impending appointment of Graham Alexander.

An iconic figure throughout his playing days at Deepdale, Alexander made more than 350 appearances across two separate spells with Preston before hanging up his boots and turning to management - yet his return to the Lancashire club is now impending ahead of an official unveiling at some stage today.

This comes after Heckingbottom led North End to a sluggish start to the season, losing six of his opening seven league matches and leaving the club rooted to second-from-bottom in the Championship prior to being axed in the wake of a tame 1-0 defeat at home to newly-promoted Lincoln City earlier this month.

Preston haven't wasted much time during the three-week international break, however, and after stand-in figure Jason Euell returned with a 2-2 draw against QPR, the Lilywhites would swiftly set their sights on Alexander.

They're now set to land their, gaining permission to sanction the raid from Bradford City before successfully thrashing out a deal, and the amount of money that Preston will be parting with in order to bring Alexander back to the club has been revealed in a new update.

How much Preston have paid to poach Graham Alexander from Bradford City revealed

Preston have pushed hard to secure a replacement for Heckingbottom and Bradford will be in receipt of a solid cash windfall after giving the green-light to Alexander's exit from Valley Parade, with the Lilywhites having been linked with the likes of Leighton Baines and Robbie Keane before settling on the ex-Scotland international.

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Bradford have, of course, been dealt a huge blow with Alexander's decision to try his hand at Championship level. The Bantams have enjoyed a stunning trajectory in recent seasons, achieving automatic promotion from League Two in May of last year before instantly upsetting the odds to reach the League One play-offs with a fourth-placed finish - and Alexander has left the West Yorkshire outfit at the summit of the third-tier table with five wins from seven outings.

Ultimately, the League One high-flyers were powerless to prevent the 54-year-old from departing when Preston requested permission to discuss his potential appointment on Wednesday afternoon and would 'reluctantly' agree to that proposal.

However, the blow may just be softened a touch as the Bantams prepare to receive a record-breaking figure for Alexander's exit.

According to a report from the Telegraph and Argus, Preston have shelled out £500,000 to lure the chief across the Pennines and, given his contract at City was poised to run for a further two years, the sum in question represents the largest amount of money the club have ever received for a manager.

That is, of course, a statement of how much Preston believe in Alexander's ability to arrest the current slide, though he'll have no easy task in leading the Lilywhites up the league table following such a disma1l run in the early stages of the new campaign.

Bradford City could seal Paul Heckingbottom, Preston North End twist

It would be an ironic turn of fate if the two clubs were essentially set to swap managers, but that could just happen after a report on Friday afternoon from Alan Nixon of The Sun detailed Bradford's interest in appointing Heckingbottom.

No stranger to the Yorkshire area, Heckingbottom has previously managed the likes of Barnsley, Leeds United and Sheffield United, and he reportedly finds himself very much on the shortlist as Bradford mull over potential candidates to replace the outgoing Alexander.

That's despite fresh revelations that the Bantams are not expected to hire a new manager until after this Saturday's trip to Reading, though Heckingbottom remains in the frame and the legendary status that assistant Stuart McCall enjoys at City - having made close to 250 appearances throughout the 1980s - should only help any forthcoming proceedings on that front.

Preston North End need to get it right after sealing Graham Alexander from Bradford City

Alexander, in truth, would have surely liked to be completing an emotional homecoming at Preston under better circumstances, yet his decision to leave a table-topping side with every chance of playing second-tier football for a club already staring down the barrel of relegation underlines his determination to stop the rot and get it right.

A mixed summer window and a couple of years marred by real regression, however, will ensure that's no straight-forward task, and his immediate priority will simply be to steer Preston away from a relegation dogfight.

Alexander's body of work at Bradford should give some confidence to the Deepdale faithful, and while introductory fixtures against Millwall, Birmingham City and Wrexham represent little in the way of ease, he is capable of gaining immediate buy-in from fans and players alike and hitting the ground running.