Everton could have signed Erling Haaland for a bargain price after their former Director of Football Steve Walsh lined up a deal, but club chiefs ultimately pulled the plug
Everton could have signed Erling Haaland for a bargain price after their former Director of Football Steve Walsh lined up a deal, but club chiefs ultimately pulled the plug Everton could have signed Erling Haaland for a bargain price after their former Director of Football Steve Walsh lined up a deal, but club chiefs ultimately pulled the plug
Aaron Lennon has revealed that Everton almost signed Erling Haaland for just £2-3million, but the club’s former owner Farhad Moshiri refused to sign off on the deal.
Haaland has scored 76 goals in 82 Premier League games since joining Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund back in 2022, but the striker could have been plying his trade in England much sooner.
Steve Walsh, who was Everton’s Director of Football between 2016 and 2018, had lined up a deal for Haaland to make the move to Goodison Park and Lennon recalls meeting him at the club’s training ground.
“This is a mega story this,” Lennon told the Football Daily podcast. “I remember Erling Haaland walking in the building with Steve Walsh coming up to me in the physio room.
“Steve Walsh introduced him to me like, ‘Oh look Aaron, we’ve got Haaland. You know his Dad, Alfie? The Leeds boy. Hopefully we’re going to have him here’. And I was like, ‘Oh wow, I have not heard much of him’.
“I think he was 15 or 16-year-old and, never seen him again. I think they could have had him for two or three million and I think Moshiri didn’t sign off on that. Could you imagine? Erling Haaland would have signed for Everton.”
Walsh has also previously spoken about his attempt to bring Haaland to Merseyside, revealing the deal was one of a number of transfers he had lined up for Everton before club chiefs refused to sanction them.
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“While I was at Everton, I offered them Andrew Robertson and Harry Maguire deals, when they were at Hull, and it was worth £20 million for the pair,” Walsh told the Athletic in 2019. “Everton wouldn’t take them.
“I had a deal done for Jonny Evans too before he came to Leicester, but again they wouldn’t take him. Erling Haaland, the striker with Salzburg, I had him and his dad at the club with a deal done for €4million (£3.3m). The club wouldn’t back me.”
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