Everton, Newcastle United and Liverpool will have to pay a staggering sum to sign Kalidou Koulibaly with Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis telling Corriere dello Sport that he would laugh in the face of £55 million bids.
Arguably the finest defender in world football could be joined at Anfield by his most convincing challenger this summer.
Le10 Sport claimed in May that Premier League leaders Liverpool interested in linking Koulibaly up with Virgil van Dijk at Anfield, potentially creating the finest centre-half partnership we have seen this side of the century.
Jurgen Klopp’s Reds are not the only club on English shores interested in the towering Senegal international, however.
Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti would love to be reunited with Koulibaly at Everton, according to Gazzetta dello Sport in February, while Newcastle have apparently offered a one-time Rafa Benitez signing a £200,000-a-week contract at St James Park (Le10 Sport).
But, as De Laurentiis points out, Koulibaly is going nowhere unless someone is willing to make him the most expensive defender of all time.
“If (a club) with £90 million showed up, I would think about it [selling Koulibaly],” De Laurentiis explains in typically bullish fashion, as translated by Football London.
“I wouldn’t even consider an offer of £55 million.”
The smart money, then, is on Koulibaly staying at Napoli for another year.
Newcastle could only afford him if their Saudi Arabian takeover goes through and there appears to have been little movement on that front for a while.
Klopp, meanwhile, told Sky that big-money deals for the likes of Kai Havertz and Timo Werner aren’t going to happen in an age of austerity.
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