It seems borderline unfathomable Borussia Dortmund would be content with a superstar joining bitter rivals Bayern Munich.
But Liverpool-bound attacker Florian Wirtz supposedly transcends rivalry, despite not playing for either club.
Dortmund chief Hans-Joachim Watzke raised eyebrows with a strange claim about Wirtz’s transferGettyIn an interview with German publication Kicker, Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke claimed he would have preferred to see Wirtz remain in the Bundesliga, even if it meant a switch to the nation’s biggest team.
“It’s a real shame that a player like Florian Wirtz is leaving the Bundesliga,” Watzke said.
“I wouldn’t have had a problem at at all if he had gone to FC Bayern.
“That would have been better for the Bundesliga.”
Instead, Wirtz is bound for Anfield with Liverpool and Leverkusen striking an agreement for the German.
The Reds will fork out an eye-watering £116.5million for Wirtz, a fee which will break the British transfer record.
It will eclipse the £115m Chelsea sent to Brighton for Moises Caicedo in August 2023.
Naturally, it also shatters the club record £85m Liverpool paid Benfica for Darwin Nunez in 2022.
The imminent capture of Wirtz represents a major coup for Liverpool given Bayern and Manchester City vied for his signature earlier in the window.
City were the first to drop out of the race after they learned how much it would cost.
The 22-year-old is set to play his football outside of Germany for the first timeAFPBut Bayern’s withdrawal from the Wirtz sweepstakes came as somewhat of a surprise given their track record of poaching top talent from their rivals.
Over the years, Bayern have snapped up Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski from Borussia Dortmund, Leon Goretzka from Schalke and Joshua Kimmich from RB Leipzig to name four.
But not even the pull of representing the most successful club in Germany was enough to convince Wirtz to join Bayern.
The loss of one of German football’s brightest attacking talents at the age of 22 comes as a blow to not just Leverkusen, but the Bundesliga as a whole.
However, the fact Wirtz turned down Bayern after their prominent attempts to woo him has left the club ‘exposed’, according to German football expert Raphael Honigstein.
“They’ve been very, very vocal, as they often are, about trying to get him in and when they do that, then of course, they are exposed and they’ve been the target of a lot of shunning that, as you can expect, in Germany because they missed out on him,” Honigstein told talkSPORT’s Trans Euro Express.
Wirtz is regarded as one of the top playmakers in world footballBut Honigstein believes there will still be plenty of German fans who tune in to Liverpool’s matches to see how the 22-year-old will get on.
“Liverpool already had a pretty big following before [Jurgen] Klopp, it’s only grown during his time there,” Honigstein said.
“And Wirtz, I think, is going to take them even further when it comes to being the centre of attention, and indeed one of the favourite clubs of people who perhaps are looking for a big favourite club and don’t have one in Germany.
“So I think Wirtz is just going to go bigger and bigger.
“He’s not going to be on the screen as much as he would have been with Bayern, but a lot of people will tune in mostly on Sundays, I suspect, when he plays with Liverpool at 4:30.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( ‘Wouldn’t have a problem’ – Borussia Dortmund chief makes shock Florian Wirtz statement after snubbing biggest rivals )
Also on site :