Folarin Balogun Hits Liverpool Airport, Then Turns Back

Folarin Balogun flew into Liverpool John Lennon Airport on 1 September to join Everton, then left Finch Farm without signing. Monaco and Everton had already put names on a deal worth an initial €45 million (£39 million, $52 million) plus €5 million in add-ons. The United States striker still walked.

Michael Edwards first had this player on a Liverpool list in late 2020, when the cost was supposed to be nothing. The jet that finally brought Balogun to Merseyside was going to Goodison’s training ground, not Anfield, and even that move died in a medical room.

A Private Jet Into Liverpool John Lennon Airport

The plane came from Nice. It had been due out early on deadline day and slipped to lunchtime, which was the first small snag on a day that then fell apart. At Finch Farm he joined Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Jack Grealish in the medical rooms. Everton thought it had the striker it had wanted all summer.

David Moyes’s staff had talked to Balogun’s camp for weeks. Only in the last days did Monaco, after three seasons and a World Cup in which he scored three goals in four matches, agree to sell. A senior figure there had already said he was ready for the next step. Beto was allowed to complete an €18 million move to Fiorentina on that basis.

Balogun is 25. His Monaco contract runs to summer 2028. He changed agent in the weeks before the window shut, leaving Eddie Bonsu for Jorge Mendes. None of that put him in a red shirt. It put him in a private terminal on the wrong side of Stanley Park, then back on the road.

Why the Everton Medical Stopped the Signing

Everton asked for GPS training data, which clubs do as standard, and did not like what they saw. Around 7pm the club called Monaco with questions from the medical. Thiago Scuro, Monaco’s chief executive, told a press conference at La Turbie the next day that those questions made no sense to Monaco’s doctors or to Balogun’s own physician.

DEADLINE NIGHT AT FINCH FARM

1. 31 August 2026: Everton and Monaco agree an initial €45 million plus €5 million in add-ons, with personal terms still being closed.
2. 1 September, lunchtime: Balogun lands at Liverpool John Lennon Airport from Nice and goes to Finch Farm.
3. About 7pm: Everton flags a medical issue. Talks between the two medical staffs run for two to three hours.
4. About 8pm: Chelsea, watching the fee wobble, reopen a bid for Lamine Camara. A €55 million (£47.2 million) deal is sketched, with a six-year contract plus an option.
5. Late evening: Everton reworks the Balogun structure, less money up front, more add-ons, same personal terms, and both clubs sign. A deal sheet goes to the Premier League near 23:00 BST, buying an extra hour.
6. After the clubs sign: Balogun refuses. He leaves Finch Farm. Chelsea’s Camara paper is never completed on Monaco’s side.

Scuro said Everton later accepted there was no health problem and even sweetened the payment schedule. The player still would not put his name on it.

I signed the contract. Everton signed the contract. But at the last moment, the player decided not to sign.

Thiago Scuro, Monaco chief executive, press conference at La Turbie

In Scuro’s account, Balogun’s line was that he did not feel well about how he had been treated, that Everton’s medical staff had raised doubts about his future, and that he was not comfortable signing a long contract there. Filipe Luis, Monaco’s head coach, later said Balogun had played through knee pain at the World Cup, which is the detail that makes Everton’s caution less mysterious. The clubs still reached a revised deal. The trust did not.

The Premier League window closed at 23:00 BST on 1 September. France’s window had already shut at 8pm, so Monaco could not replace him that night. Scuro called it the first deadline day of his career that looked like this.

The 2020 Free Transfer That Never Happened

Liverpool’s website, in December 2020, carried a media-watch note on a free transfer swoop for Balogun while he was 19 and in the last months of an Arsenal deal. He had scored 25 times in 19 games for the under-18s in 2018-19. Mikel Arteta had given him a first-team taste, two Europa League goals among five appearances, and said that month he wanted to keep him. “He told me he wants to stay at the club,” Arteta said.

Balogun signed a four-year Arsenal contract in April 2021. The cheap door shut. Loans at Middlesbrough and Reims followed, then a 2023 sale to Monaco worth €40 million after add-ons, with Arsenal keeping a 17.5 per cent sell-on. Edwards was the man who ran Liverpool’s recruitment in that 2020 period. He is now Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive of football. The long chase for Folarin Balogun never became a bid on 1 September. Rumours that Liverpool phoned Monaco to wreck Chelsea’s Camara deal were stretched past the evidence. Anfield was not in the room at Finch Farm.

That is the gag the rumor mill missed. The only time Balogun has landed in Liverpool as a senior professional, he was there to sign for Everton.

Barcola Arrived After Salah Left for Turkey

The summer copy that framed Balogun as an emergency for Andoni Iraola also undersold what Liverpool actually did. Mohamed Salah joined Trabzonspor on a free on 1 July, the first Liverpool season since 2015 without Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino, a trio that scored 488 club goals (Salah 257, Mane 120, Firmino 111). Ibrahima Konate left for Real Madrid on a free in the same free exits that stripped the spine, and Andy Robertson went to Tottenham. Arne Slot’s contract was ended on 30 May. Iraola signed a two-year deal on 4 June.

The attack is not a three-man rump. Bradley Barcola arrived from Paris Saint-Germain as the second most expensive signing in the club’s history. Victor Munoz came in. Cody Gakpo, with 50 Liverpool goals, is still there. Federico Chiesa is still there too, even if a lower-back problem kept him out of the Champions League 25 and Iraola only expected him back around the September international break. Rio Ngumoha, 18, remains the academy winger who can play outside the 25 as an under-21.

LIVERPOOL’S FORWARD OPTIONS AFTER THE WINDOW

The thin spot is the one the Balogun rumor was always circling. Isak cost £125 million from Newcastle in 2025, a British record, after 54 Premier League goals in 86 games there, then scored 4 in 22 appearances in a broken first Liverpool season. Ekitike, signed for £79 million, was the one true success among that £320 million cluster with Florian Wirtz (£100 million, potentially £116 million) until the Achilles. Iraola has not named a return date. He said Ekitike would “go later” than the first international break. Liverpool still put him on the European list. Until he is back, Iraola has one senior centre-forward who can start every week.

Homegrown Status Is Built Into the Fee

Premier League interest in Balogun was never only about the World Cup run. He was born in Brooklyn, raised in east London, and trained at Arsenal from childhood, so he meets the league’s Home Grown Player test in full: three seasons, or 36 months, at an FA or FAW club before his 21st birthday, nationality irrelevant. A 25-man list may hold no more than 17 players who fail that test. Under-21s sit outside it.

WHAT HOMEGROWN ACTUALLY MEANS

• The test: Registration with an English or Welsh affiliated club for three whole seasons or 36 months before turning 21.
• The cap: No more than 17 non-homegrown names in the 25.
• The Balogun case: Arsenal from boyhood counts, even though he plays for the United States.

That is why Aston Villa, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Sunderland were all on the same list in June, and why a Monaco asking price around €50 million found listeners in England. He would have occupied a homegrown slot at Everton. He would do the same at Liverpool. He is still the profile Edwards’s department has always liked: English-trained, still in his mid-20s, a sell-on already sitting with Arsenal if the next fee lands.

Monaco Will Play Him in Ligue 1 Until January

On 9 September the immediate future was closed. Balogun stays at Monaco at least until January. He can play in Ligue 1. He cannot play in the Conference League, because he was left off that squad when a sale still looked likely. He returned to team training in early September, was not ready for Strasbourg, and was being aimed at Lens, the last club game before the first international break.

Last season he voted MVP of the season by Monaco supporters, with 62 per cent of the app vote, after 19 goals and 3 assists. A spring burst of 10 goals in 10 matches included a chipped finish against Marseille. His first year in the principality had been bumpier: 7 Ligue 1 goals and 4 missed penalties, then a shoulder injury in year two. Luis now has to put a player who just rejected a Premier League contract back into a domestic eleven that had already planned to replace him.

The United States still needs him. Mauricio Pochettino said he would call “Flo” after giving him space, because “he’s an important player for us” and was one at the World Cup. The home tournament started with a brace from the Monaco striker in a 4-1 win over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in front of 70,492, the first time a U.S. man had scored twice in a World Cup match since 1930. The first came at 31 minutes from a Christian Pulisic cutback. The second, at 45+8, was a left-foot finish into the top corner. “I visualized my debut in the World Cup scoring, but the reality did surpass that,” Balogun said. “A very dreamy night.” Pulisic’s verdict was shorter: “The kid’s insane.” “He’s lethal right now.”

WHAT WE KNOW

• The hold: Monaco has parked him until the winter window, for Ligue 1 only.
• The knee: Luis said he played through pain at the World Cup, which sat behind Everton’s scan questions.
• The contract: Summer 2028, so a sale remains Monaco’s to make.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• January bidders: No club is on record with a live offer now that the summer paper is dead.
• Liverpool’s 2026 position: Tracking in 2020 is documented; a bid this summer is not.
• The scan itself: Everton flagged an issue, then signed a revised deal; the player still walked.

Pochettino can wait a few days. Iraola cannot invent a second Isak before Ekitike runs again.

Three Clubs Paid for One Walk-Out

Chelsea supporters treated the collapse as a lucky escape because it also killed the Camara sale they no longer trusted. That reading is too neat. The night left almost everyone short.

WHO GOT STUCK

• Everton: One senior centre-forward, Thierno Barry, after Beto’s €18 million exit, with a January striker now the plan.
• Monaco: No €45 million fee, a wage bill Scuro still needed to cut by about 20 per cent for the DNCG, and no non-EU slot for Cruz Azul captain Erik Lira, whose move was conditional on Balogun leaving.
• Chelsea: A €55 million Camara deal agreed on the hoof, then yanked when Everton revived, with no signed deal sheet to fall back on.

Scuro said he did not want a war with either English club. He also said Monaco had already prepared a replacement and that the financial plan was working until 7pm. Aleksandr Golovin was then floated as a possible sale to Russian clubs while that window lasted. Balogun, omitted from Europe, has to score his way back into a dressing room that watched him pack for Merseyside and unpack the same week.

When the winter window opens, Monaco can still sell a striker tied down until 2028. Liverpool will still be asking whether Isak can carry the middle on his own. The jet already came to John Lennon once. It just taxied to the other club, and then it left.