Parma turned down a bigger offer for Giovanni Leoni from Newcastle United prior to the teenage centre back’s high profile switch to Liverpool, the Serie A club’s CEO has revealed.
Liverpool completed an initial £26 million ($34.9 million), potentially rising to £30 million, deal for Leoni in mid-August. The youngster is yet to make his Premier League debut but the Reds opted to keep him in the squad, rather than find a quickfire loan.
Leoni’s only matchday selection so far has been as an unused substitute in the 3–2 win over Newcastle, ironically the club that was willing to pay Parma a bigger fee.
“I’ve always said we wanted to keep him, and he’s always said he’d be happy to stay here. We even turned down an offer from Newcastle, which was more advantageous than the one Liverpool eventually made,” Parma chief Federico Cherubini told local newspaper Gazzetta di Parma.
“When the Reds came forward, our plans changed: both because the offer was very attractive and because the player made it clear he was very happy to take advantage of this opportunity.”
Parma took a chance on Leoni last summer after watching him make just 12 appearances in Italy’s second tier and have now been handsomely rewarded for that show of faith.
“On the one hand, it’s disappointing to lose such a promising young player, but on the other, we’re proud to have believed in him in unsuspecting times, when he’d only played a few games in Serie B,” Cherubini explained.
Missing out on targets was a recurring theme for Newcastle over the course of the transfer window, watching the likes of Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Šeško, Liam Delap, João Pedro, Mohammed Kudus, Hugo Ekitiké and now, it seems, Leoni prefer to head elsewhere instead.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as CEO Confirms Newcastle Offered ‘More’ for Liverpool Summer Signing.