Liverpool Secure Josh Abe Amid £50k-a-Week Interest
Liverpool did not just win a contract battle this summer. They won a statement of intent.
At the heart of it is Josh Abe, a winger who turns 16 on Friday and has played only one game above under-18 level. Yet one Premier League rival was ready to throw up to £50,000 per week at him to prise him away from Kirkby, according to The Athletic.
He said no.
Instead, in early June Liverpool tied him down on scholarship terms, with a pre-contract agreement in place for a three-year professional deal that will kick in on his 17th birthday next year. For an academy player, that is serious backing. For a club of Liverpool’s stature, it is a clear sign they believe this is no ordinary teenager.
A 16-year-old on Endo money
To grasp how aggressive the external interest was, you only need one comparison. That £50,000-a-week figure is the same wage Wataru Endo, a 33-year-old Japan captain with a long senior career behind him, currently earns at Liverpool, as reported by Capology.
A boy with one appearance above under-18 level – a substitute outing for Rob Page’s under-19 side in the UEFA Youth League against Zilina in February – was being courted on the financial terms of a seasoned international. That is not normal academy noise. That is a full-on raid.
The pressure came from “a host of Premier League clubs”, The Athletic’s Andy Jones reported, with one willing to go to that extraordinary number. Liverpool, though, held their nerve and sold a different vision: pathway over pay packet.
Abe chose the football.
First-team number, first-team tour
Liverpool have not just kept him; they have elevated him.
Abe has been handed a first-team squad number for the 2026/27 campaign, another clear marker of how highly he is regarded inside the club. Those numbers are not given out on a whim. They are breadcrumbs on a route the club expects a player to follow.
The winger is also set to join Andoni Iraola’s first-team squad for their tour of the United States. For a player still technically school age, that is a huge step. Pre-season tours are where managers test youngsters under senior scrutiny, where staff see who shrinks and who asks for the ball again after losing it.
With several senior players away on post-World Cup breaks, opportunity opens up. Abe has been flagged as one of the youngsters who could benefit most from that gap. A few sharp cameos, a flash of pace on the flank, a brave run at a full-back, and suddenly the coaches see something they want to keep closer.
A quiet coup at Kirkby
Strip away the numbers and the noise and this is what remains: Liverpool have won a quiet coup in their own academy.
Clubs across the league are scouring rivals’ youth systems for the next breakout star, armed with big wages and promises of fast-tracked status. When a teenager with Abe’s reputation is being offered £50,000 per week before he has even turned 16, that is the market Liverpool are fighting in.
Keeping him underlines that their pitch still lands. The promise of a clear pathway, elite coaching, and a patient build through the under-18s, into the under-21s, and then, if he earns it, the senior side.
The plan now is simple enough. Abe is expected to taste first-team football in pre-season, soak up the environment, then continue his development back in the academy, with a likely step into the under-21s over the coming months. No shortcuts, no wild proclamations.
Caution remains essential. At his age, careers can bend sharply in either direction. But the signs are hard to ignore: a ferocious market chasing him, Liverpool fighting to keep him, and a pathway already sketched out in squad numbers and summer tours.
If he matches the club’s faith with his own progress, this tug-of-war over a 16-year-old winger might be remembered as the moment Liverpool quietly protected a key piece of their future.
