Kevin De Bruyne’s wife Michelle has opened up on her family’s struggles in Naples and desire to move back home to Belgium one day. 

De Bruyne, 35, joined Napoli in the summer of 2025 after leaving Manchester City following a legendary ten-year spell. 

But things haven’t gone to plan in Italy, with De Bruyne struggling for fitness in his first season, while he also clashed with former boss Antonio Conte.

The situation hasn’t improved much this time around under Max Allegri as Napoli currently sit 10th in Serie A, and reports broke earlier this season that the Belgian midfielder was involved in a dressing room bust-up with team-mates.

And De Bruyne’s wife Michele, who he married in 2017, reflected on the turbulence in an interview with Belgian magazine NINA back in September.

‘Of course, we think about the future together,’ he said. ‘And increasingly often, we say to each other: “We are going to live here in Limburg. The sooner we get here, the better”.’ 

Kevin De Bruyne’s wife Michelle has opened up on her family’s struggles living in Naples

De Bruyne moved to Napoli in the summer of 2025 after a glittering 10 years at Manchester City

Limburg is a province in Belgium, and although Michelle insisted that she thought Naples was a beautiful place to live with great weather and food, she spoke about the toll that life in Italy has had on her partner and their three children, Mason, Rome and Suri.

‘Kevin leads a very restricted life in Napoli,’ she added. ‘It’s not much fun for him. Besides, we can’t do anything together as a family in the city. That’s the other side of the coin, isn’t it?

‘In Manchester, it was different. Where we lived, people had seen us so often that it wasn’t special anymore. We could walk out the door there without a single photo being taken. In Naples, that is impossible.’ 

She later added: ‘At a certain point, football is no longer the priority. You have achieved everything, done everything. Why would you then turn your children’s lives upside down?’

De Bruyne, who is one of the highest paid players in Italy, signed a two-year contract when he arrived at Napoli but it wasn’t certain that he would make it into the second part of that deal in the summer.

Reflecting on his first year ahead of the World Cup, De Bruyne insisted he was ‘happy’ that Conte had departed. 

‘Obviously it was difficult for me because Conte has a very different vision of football to mine,’ De Bruyne said. 

‘In truth, I never had the opportunity to play in my preferred position. In any case, I always tried to give my all for the team. We played very defensively. If you try to win every game by a one-goal margin with a 4-5-1 formation, you play a certain type of football.

De Bruyne signed a two-year deal at Napoli and is unlikely to extend his time in Italy 

‘At the start of the season, we sat back even deeper. Our centre-forward scored just 10 goals, so you know the statistics are not going to be great…’

He later added: ‘For me, yes (I’m happy Conte has gone). As far as I am concerned, he was not obliged to stay. There were promises made last summer on the way that we would be playing, but at the end of the day not much of it happened.

‘I found that a pity. Football needs to be enjoyable, and unfortunately, I found that aspect lacking.

‘There’s no point beating around the bush, we have different visions of football. I never got to play in my position under Conte.’