Reported £58m-a-year demands force Liverpool out of Erling Haaland race

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Erling Haaland has some fairly incredible demands, according to reports. They’re such that Liverpool will have to look in a ‘secondary’ transfer market.

By now, you’ve likely seen reports linking Erling Haaland with Real Madrid. Los Blancos rate him highly, like everyone else, and we’re sure they’re interested.

Spanish outlet AS have tried to put into figures exactly what it will take to sign Haaland, though. It’s a lot.

For starters, there’s an £83m transfer fee to Borussia Dortmund. Then there are the player’s wage demands at around £21m per year net. That’ll cost clubs around £42m per year, then, with taxes.

Assuming clubs pay the transfer fee over five years, you’re looking at roughly £62m a year total in order to sign Haaland. And that’s before you consider payments to agent Mino Raiola, who took £11m in the deal from RB Salzburg to Dortmund.

Erling Haaland demands reach incredible level

Signing Haaland means you get one of the world’s best strikers. If he develops properly, we could be looking at one of the all-time greats.

Could be. This is a massive risk for any club that values money as it could be that Haaland never quite reaches that best-in-the-world level. It appears he will but it’s not a guarantee.

We just can’t imagine Liverpool will go near these figures for Haaland, though. Really, we can’t imagine it for any player, even one who’s a complete guarantee.

Instead, demands like this force Liverpool into a ‘secondary’ transfer market. They won’t compete for Haaland and likely not someone like Kylian Mbappe. The money involved is just too ridiculous and risky for what they need.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some brilliant players to go after when the Reds look to sign their next generation of strikers. Haaland and Mbappe may be the best of the up-and-coming bunch but the likes of Alexander Isak and Jonathan David are enormously promising in their own right.

They’d also cost an absolute fraction of Halaand’s reported demands. While Liverpool could certainly do with a signing like Haaland in the transfer market, these demands are a reminder of what it takes.

And what it takes Liverpool almost certainly do not have.