An agent who worked on Newcastle United’s pursuit of Hugo Ekitiké has revealed a deal had been agreed to take the striker to St James’ Park before Liverpool’s late hijack.
When it became clear Alexander Isak wanted to leave this summer, Newcastle opted to reignite their longstanding pursuit of Ekitiké, but Liverpool had other plans. After failing with an initial approach for Isak, the Reds soon made it clear they planned to sign Ekitiké as their alternative target.
A deal was swiftly agreed to bring the Frenchman to Anfield, where Isak would ultimately end up as well, and agent Ali Barat has confessed the Reds were just hours away from missing out on Ekitiké’s signature.
“I was working on behalf of Eintracht Frankfurt to bring him to Newcastle,” Barat told Tuttosport. “I stayed in Germany for 10 days. We agreed everything with the German club and the player, then Liverpool called him and he chose Anfield.”
Ekitiké was not the only player to snub other lucrative approaches in favour of a move. Florian Wirtz was widely expected to take his talents to Bayern Munich but rejected their advances in favour of a £116 million ($156.6 million) switch to Anfield.
Bayern honorary president Uli Hoeneß appeared on Doppelpass at the weekend to reflect on his side’s transfer dealings. As he accused Newcastle of using “Monopoly money” to beat them to the signing of Nick Woltemade, Hoeneß aimed a barb in Liverpool’s direction over the Wirtz deal as well.
“We’re very satisfied at FC Bayern,”” Hoeneß began. “We are the real winners of the summer transfer window. We have a strong team and didn’t need to strengthen it much.
“Of course, we would have liked to have Florian Wirtz, but we’d never have bought him for €150 million.”
READ THE LATEST TRANSFER NEWS AND RUMORS FROM WORLD SOCCER
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Hugo Ekitike: Agent Reveals How Liverpool Hijacked Newcastle Transfer.