‘We said no’: Director admits Leeds United made £43m bid for his star man

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Leeds United offered up to £43 million to bring Cody Gakpo to the Premier League during the final few days of the summer transfer window, PSV Eindhoven’s CEO Marcel Brands tells Voetbal International. 

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Leeds United are certainly not the only club to have chanced their arm with some rather, well, let’s say ambitious bonuses when attempting to strike a transfer agreement over the summer months. Bayern Munich, of course, offered to pay Liverpool a couple of million more if Sadio Mane was to win the Ballon D’Or in each of his three contracted seasons at the Allianz Arena. 

Wolves, meanwhile, offered Bordeaux a further £1 million on the proviso that they would qualify for the Champions League. With just one win in seven games, the Championship looks more likely at the moment. 

Bordeaux, as you might imagine, responded with a resounding ‘no’. As did PSV, when Leeds offered a similarly pie-in-the-sky package for a player who has picked up where he left off in 2022/22, showing Jesse Marsch what he’s missing with 10 goals and nine assists from just 13 games. 

Leeds United missed out on PSV Eindhoven talisman Cody Gakpo

“(Leeds’ offer for Gakpo) was £30 million plus £13 (million in bonuses),” explains Brands, the former Everton director, insisting that only a minor fraction of those bonuses could be described as ‘realistic’. 

“For example, we would get six million if they qualified for the Champions League. This was the best offer and we all said no to that.

“I can say with my hand on my heart that there has been no offer for Cody to which the management or the supervisory board said: ‘we must do this’.

“We did state that if there were certain offers, we had to sell. Not only from a financial point of view, but also because agreements were made with (Gakpo’s) camp.”

The explosive Dutch international, who was also a target for the likes of Southampton and Manchester United, admitted in July that Leeds had held talks with his representatives.