Liverpool Secures Joshua Abe Despite £50k-a-Week Offer

Liverpool have won a fight they simply could not afford to lose.

Joshua Abe, a winger who doesn’t turn 16 until Friday, has already been at the centre of a Premier League tug-of-war. One top-flight rival put a professional contract worth up to £50,000 per week on the table this summer. For a player with just a single appearance above under-18 level, that is staggering money.

He turned it down.

Instead, Liverpool tied him down on scholarship terms in early June, with a pre-contract agreement in place for a three-year professional deal that will kick in on his 17th birthday next year, as reported by The Athletic. For an academy department under constant scrutiny in the post-Jürgen Klopp era, this is a statement win.

A 15-year-old in first-team plans

Abe is not just another highly rated teenager tucked away at Kirkby. He is already being pulled into the senior orbit.

The winger is set to travel with Andoni Iraola’s first-team squad on their tour of the United States, a rare opportunity for a player so young. With several senior players still on post-World Cup breaks, the door has opened for academy prospects. Abe is one of those being pushed through it.

The Athletic’s Andy Jones highlighted him as a youngster who could benefit most from that gap in the squad. He detailed how the teenager attracted “significant interest” from several Premier League clubs, one of whom put forward that extraordinary £50,000-per-week offer before Abe chose Liverpool’s scholarship route.

The club have gone further still. Abe has already been handed a first-team squad number for the 2026/27 campaign, a clear internal signal of where they believe his trajectory is heading and how firmly they want him anchored to Merseyside.

Perspective on a huge call

Strip away the hype and the numbers are still eye-catching.

Abe has played above under-18 level just once – a substitute appearance for Rob Page’s under-19 side in the UEFA Youth League against Zilina in February. That’s the sum total of his experience beyond his own age group.

Yet a Premier League club was prepared to pay him in line with established senior professionals. For context, Capology lists Wataru Endo, a 33-year-old Japan captain with years of top-level football behind him, on around £50,000 per week at Liverpool.

That comparison underlines the scale of the gamble another club was ready to take, and the scale of the coup Liverpool have pulled off by keeping him.

Clubs do not throw that kind of money at 15-year-olds on a whim. They do it because they think they’re getting in early on something special. Liverpool, crucially, convinced Abe that his best path runs through their academy, not through a fast-track payday elsewhere.

Pre-season window, long-term view

Now comes the delicate part.

Abe is expected to get some first-team exposure during pre-season, a taste of the environment rather than a coronation. Those sessions, those minutes, those flights and hotels with senior pros – they can accelerate a teenager’s development as much as any under-18 match.

Once the tour is over, the plan will be more measured. He will continue to grow in the academy ranks, with the possibility of stepping more regularly into the under-21 side over the coming months. Liverpool know the dangers of rushing a talent at this age. They have seen careers warp under the weight of early expectation.

So the language around Abe inside the club remains careful. No grand declarations. No proclamations about “the next” anyone. Just a clear, structured pathway and enough faith to fend off the biggest predators in their own league.

Yet even with that caution, the signs are hard to ignore. A 15-year-old who rejects a £50,000-per-week offer, secures a long-term agreement at Liverpool, earns a first-team squad number for a future season and boards the plane with Iraola’s squad to America?

If his development matches the conviction shown on both sides of this deal, Anfield may be watching the early steps of a player who will define more than just an academy cycle.