The English Premier League champions have used their status and transfer funds to make a bid to sign for one of the best young players in the game.
Liverpool FC moved a step closer to the signing of Florian Wirtz after beginning talks with the 22-year-old’s current club, Bayer Leverkusen.
The Premier League champion has emerged as the player’s favored destination ahead of two other interested teams, Manchester City and Bayern Munich, as work begins on structuring the deal.
The Times of London and the Athletic report that a transfer for Wirtz is in the works between Liverpool and Leverkusen, and Liverpool and the player.
Though it will take some working out, given the size of the fee, Liverpool is now in the best position of the interested teams to make it happen.
The proposed transfer fee, likely around $160 million, would be a club record transfer for Liverpool, and a Bundesliga record for an incoming fee, eclipsing Ousmane Dembélé’s 2017 transfer from Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona.
Wirtz was seen as an ideal replacement for Kevin de Bruyne at Man City, but Liverpool became the more attractive destination among the English clubs, and eventually moved ahead of Bayern Munich—a development that will also please Leverkusen fans as it means Wirtz will not be moving to a domestic rival.
With Manchester City having spent over $275 million on transfers in the past season, as well as signing star striker Erling Haaland to a new contract, a deal for Wirtz and a transfer fee of over $150 million might have been a step too far for Pep Guardiola’s side.
Premier League title winners Liverpool, meanwhile, have kept their powder dry in the transfer market throughout the past year, and have seen a couple of previous big-money targets move elsewhere, but this has now left them in a position to sign one of the best young players in the game.
