Liverpool Retain Joshua Abe Amid £50k-a-Week Offer
Liverpool’s academy has produced plenty of stories in recent years, but this one turns heads even by modern standards: a 16-year-old winger, barely tested above under-18 level, turning down a professional offer worth up to £50,000 per week from a Premier League rival to stay at Anfield.
Joshua Abe, who turns 16 on Friday, has already become a quiet victory for Liverpool’s recruitment and development structure before he has kicked a ball for the senior side.
A huge call at 16
In early June, Liverpool secured Abe on scholarship terms, with a pre-contract in place for a three-year professional deal that will activate on his 17th birthday next year, as reported by The Athletic. It was more than a routine bit of academy housekeeping.
Several top-flight clubs moved aggressively for the teenager. One went as far as putting a professional package on the table that could have taken him up to £50,000 a week. For a player whose only taste of football above under-18 level came as a substitute appearance for Rob Page’s under-19s in the UEFA Youth League against Zilina in February, the numbers are staggering.
That figure carries real weight at Liverpool. Capology lists Wataru Endo, a 33-year-old Japan captain with a long senior career behind him, on the same weekly wage. To see that kind of money dangled in front of a schoolboy and rejected tells you plenty about how Liverpool sold their project – and how Abe views his own path.
Klopp’s heir and a new generation
Abe’s decision arrives at a time of transition at Anfield. With senior players away on post-World Cup breaks, the club’s tour of the United States under new head coach Andoni Iraola is expected to feature a strong academy contingent. Abe is set to be among them.
The Athletic’s Andy Jones highlighted the winger as one of the youngsters who could benefit most from the gaps in the squad this summer. Liverpool have already underlined their belief in him by assigning a first-team squad number for the 2026/27 campaign, a clear internal signal of where they think his trajectory lies.
That number on the back of a shirt matters. It tells a 16-year-old that the club are not merely protecting an asset; they are planning for him.
Beating the market
This is where the story stretches beyond one talented teenager. Liverpool have effectively won a transfer battle without a transfer fee. They have kept a player so highly rated that a rival club was willing to pay senior, established-pro money for his potential alone.
In a Premier League where the richest sides routinely scour each other’s academies for the next big thing, holding on to Abe feels like a genuine coup. If he develops as Liverpool hope, the same clubs who tried to prise him away this summer will almost certainly be back at the door in a few years’ time – only then the conversation will be about eight-figure fees, not scholarship forms.
The next steps
For now, the picture is simpler. Abe is expected to taste first-team life in pre-season, training and travelling with Iraola’s squad in the United States. Those weeks should be invaluable: the tempo, the physicality, the daily standards. For a teenager, that environment can accelerate development far quicker than any single under-18 fixture.
After that, the pathway looks more familiar. More minutes in the academy sides, a likely promotion into the under-21s in the coming months, and the long, unforgiving grind of turning promise into end product.
Liverpool will be wary of inflating expectations around a player at this age. Yet the facts alone are hard to ignore: a Premier League club offering £50,000 a week, a first-team squad number already earmarked, and a place on a senior tour before his 17th birthday.
For Joshua Abe, the choice is made. He has bet on Liverpool, and Liverpool have very clearly bet on him. Now comes the only part that really counts – whether he can play his way into a club that rarely leaves room for passengers.
