Giroud has signed a one-year contract extension with Lille, keeping him at the club for another season as he moves toward his 40th birthday in September. The deal extends a late-career run that already brought four Europa League goals and helped Lille finish third and reach the Champions League.
Olivier Giroud Stays With Lille
Olivier Giroud said the extension fits the club he joined last season from LAFC. “I identify with Lille’s vision, a club with values I share, one that works hard and stands out from the rest through its approach and results,” he said. “I always want more, and I’m determined to keep going and do even better this year.”
The new agreement locks him in for one more year, with Lille set to keep a veteran striker who has already delivered goals in Europe and added experience to a squad that climbed into the Champions League places. For Giroud, the deal keeps his career moving inside a league he rejoined in 2025 after leaving LAFC.
Davide Ancelotti And Lille
Bruno Genesio had already praised Giroud’s leadership before being replaced by Davide Ancelotti, and the forward sounded comfortable with the change. “I don’t know Davide Ancelotti personally, but the fact that he’s a young coach is great,” he said. “He’s a coach with fresh ideas. I’m convinced he has a lot to offer the club, and I’m looking forward to working with him.”
That matters because Giroud had already described Lille as “most certainly” the final club of his career. A one-year extension does not erase that view; it simply pushes the finish line back by another season and gives Lille another year with a striker who has kept producing late in his career.
Giroud’s Long Route Back
His path to this point runs through Arsenal, Chelsea, Milan and LAFC before Lille. He joined Arsenal from Montpellier in the summer of 2012 for a reported fee of about £12m, scored 105 goals and provided 38 assists in 253 appearances, and won three FA Cups and three Community Shields. He also won the FIFA Puskas Award in 2017 for his scorpion kick against Crystal Palace.
Giroud left Arsenal in January 2018 and moved to Chelsea in the final days of that window in a deal that helped Arsenal sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Chelsea paid around £15m, and he went on to score 39 goals and register 14 assists in 119 appearances. His best spell there came in 2020-21, when he helped Chelsea win the Champions League and finished as the club’s top scorer in that European campaign with six goals, including all four in a 4-0 group-stage win at Sevilla.
After Milan in July 2021, he spent three seasons there and won Serie A in 2021-22 before moving to Los Angeles FC, where he signed through 2025 with an option for 2026. Giroud has retired from international football as France’s all-time leading goalscorer with 57 goals in 137 games across a 13-year career, and his club record now stands at more than 300 goals and 800 appearances. Saliba Watches Mbappe Overtake Giroud With Two Goals
The extension gives Lille another season of the same calculation: a striker nearing 40, still productive, and still willing to keep going. Giroud has already said the club may be his last, and this new deal is the clearest sign that the end of his career is drawing closer, not arriving yet.
