Inside Alexander Isak’s move to Liverpool, the summer’s most toxic transfer

It was shortly before Monday’s 7pm transfer deadline when Alexander Isak finally signed a six-year contract as Liverpool’s new No 9, with his proud sister and parents watching on.

An hour later, the most expensive player in the history of British football said his goodbyes at the club’s Kirkby training base with a car waiting to take him to John Lennon Airport. Tired but elated, he boarded a plush Bombardier Challenger 300 jet for the two-hour flight to Stockholm to link up with the Sweden squad ahead of the World Cup qualifiers against Slovenia and Kosovo.

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Isak had earlier told Liverpool’s LFCTV that it had “been a long journey to get here” — and he wasn’t wrong. The deal was not only drawn-out but one of the most toxic transfer sagas of recent years.

Isak at his unveiling as a Liverpool player (Nikki Dyer – LFC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Isak’s decision to effectively go on strike may have torched his legacy at St James’ Park, but it ultimately led to Newcastle United reluctantly sanctioning his sale to Liverpool. It will cost the Merseysides a flat fee of £125million ($143m), but is worth £130m to Newcastle due to solidarity payments. A month earlier, an initial bid of £110m had been instantly rejected.

The Athletic has spoken to multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, all of whom did so anonymously to protect their positions, to piece together the story of how Isak ended up on Merseyside. We can reveal how:

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Newcastle chairman and governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, attended a crunch meeting at Isak’s house in mid-August.

The saga has put strain on Newcastle manager Eddie Howe’s relationship with his long-term friends, Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards, Liverpool’s sporting director and Fenway Sports Group’s CEO of football respectively.

Liverpool’s interest in Isak stretches back to his time at AIK, the Swedish club he represented as a teenager.

Banks and financial institutions became aware that Newcastle were exploring financing a large portion of the £130m they anticipated making from Isak’s sale to ensure they quickly had access to as much of it as possible.

Some senior figures at both clubs still had doubts over whether the deal would go through right up until Sunday evening.

This is the story behind the biggest transfer in British football history, and one of its most controversial.

To understand why Isak was prepared to go to such lengths to force through a move, you have to rewind to the spring of 2024.

Isak still had four years remaining on a contract worth around £150,000 per week but discussions took place between the player’s camp and minority Newcastle owner Amanda Staveley over a new deal on improved terms. Isak’s stock had risen sharply, having scored 25 goals in all competitions in 2023-24, and he expected to be rewarded accordingly that summer.

However, Staveley left Newcastle in July 2024 and new sporting director Paul Mitchell didn’t regard a new contract for Isak as a priority. The Athletic was told that key decision-makers at the top of the club were “aligned” with that stance. Newcastle decided to wait until they had strengthened their PSR position before revisiting the issue.

Senior club figures say this was communicated to Isak’s camp. They stressed how important he was to the club’s ambitions, and explained that talks would be picked up this summer instead.

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It proved to be a significant turning point. Isak decided that in order to compete for the highest honours and to be paid accordingly, it was time for him to move on.

He went on to score 27 times in all competitions in 2024-25 as he cemented his status as arguably the most complete centre-forward in Europe. Only Mohamed Salah was more prolific in the Premier League.

There was a stunning long-range strike against Liverpool in a 3-3 draw at St James’ Park in December and he scored against Arne Slot’s side again in March’s Carabao Cup final at Wembley. Newcastle celebrated their first domestic trophy for 70 years and went on to secure Champions League qualification, but it wasn’t enough to change Isak’s mind.

Isak celebrates Newcastle’s Carabao Cup win with Callum Wilson (left) and William Osula (centre) at Wembley (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

In May, before the end of the season, he informed Newcastle of his desire to leave and reiterated that stance after the campaign had finished. By then Newcastle were prepared to make him the best-paid player in their history, but he wasn’t interested.

It was around that time Liverpool learned he was looking for a new challenge. There was no doubt that Isak was keen to join; the question was whether Newcastle would sanction his departure.

Liverpool’s data department had flagged Isak, who was at Real Sociedad, as a potential alternative to Benfica’s Darwin Nunez when they were looking for a striker in the summer of 2022. However, they ended up signing Nunez instead in a £85m deal. Two months later, Isak went to Newcastle for £63m.

The Premier League champions’ extensive dossier on Isak went back to his time at Stockholm-based AIK, and included scouting reports on him which predated his switch to Borussia Dortmund as a teenager in 2017.

The Athletic reported on July 15 that Liverpool had made an initial approach to sign Isak as they communicated their interest to do a deal for around £120m. Newcastle were adamant that he was going nowhere.

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The situation was impacted by Newcastle’s struggles to bolster their attack following the exit of Callum Wilson. They missed out to Chelsea in their pursuit of both Joao Pedro and Liam Delap, while Bryan Mbeumo rejected Newcastle’s advances as he wanted to sign for Manchester United.

When Newcastle turned their attention to Hugo Ekitike, there was bullish talk in the North East about them buying the Frenchman to play alongside Isak rather than replace him.

As the summer went on, sources close to the Newcastle hierarchy acknowledged that signing Ekitike might have been more likely to persuade them to sell Isak at the right price. Either way, their initial £70m bid was turned down and Liverpool swept in to land Ekitike for a fee potentially rising to £79m on July 21.

Some at Newcastle regarded it as a power play from Hughes, Liverpool’s sporting director, and that, with the club so reluctant to sell them Isak, Liverpool had targeted Ekitike just to thwart them.

Liverpool sources insist that the club had been in close contact with Ekitike’s camp since January and the player had spoken with Slot at the end of last season about where he would fit in at Anfield. Their view was that Newcastle were late to the party, and Liverpool knew that Ekitike favoured a move to Anfield.

Liverpool were always going to be in the market for one striker this summer, with the erratic Nunez destined to leave — he was eventually sold to Saudi Pro League club Al Hilal last month for an initial fee of £46million — but their plans changed after the death of Diogo Jota in a car crash in Spain in early July. Signing Ekitike changed nothing regarding their determination to land Isak. By mid-July, Liverpool were focused on signing both.

By the time Ekitike flew out to join his new team-mates on the pre-season tour in Hong Kong, Isak had upped the stakes.

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The striker had travelled with Newcastle to Austria for a training camp earlier in July but, according to those who saw him up close, his mood changed once Ekitike’s move to Liverpool was agreed. Then came the “minor injury” that ruled Isak out of the friendly against Celtic on July 19 and his subsequent refusal to head to Asia on tour.

Isak arriving for solo training at Newcastle on August 20 (Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

Newcastle’s players were en route to Singapore when news broke of Isak’s desire to leave. He didn’t feature in any of their pre-season friendlies and trained away from Howe’s senior squad as the stand-off continued.

Liverpool submitted a formal bid of £110m to Newcastle co-owner Jamie Reuben and PIF’s Jacobo Solis on August 1, but it was dismissed so emphatically that senior Anfield figures believed that a follow-up offer at that time would have been futile.

However, some figures at Anfield were confident they would ultimately secure Isak’s signature, and it was perhaps telling that the Premier League champions didn’t seriously pursue a Plan B. Links with Bradley Barcola, Rodrygo and Malick Fofana were all dismissed.

One senior Newcastle figure regarded that bid as “Liverpool just trying to save face after doing their best to destabilise a rival” and was adamant Isak could be reintegrated. Liverpool were baffled by suggestions that offering close to a British record fee could be described by some as derisory.

As the impasse continued, Newcastle’s search for firepower ran into further problems when Benjamin Sesko of RB Leipzig opted to sign for Manchester United.

Isak didn’t attend the Professional Footballers’ Association awards night in Manchester on August 19, despite being named in the Premier League team of the season. But with the clock ticking, he decided to go public for the first time about his frustration. In a statement on Instagram, he claimed that “promises” made to him had been broken and that the version of events in the public domain “doesn’t reflect what was really said and agreed behind closed doors.” He concluded that when “trust is lost, the relationship can’t continue.”

A blindsided Newcastle responded with an equally extraordinary statement three and a half hours later, saying “no commitment has ever been made by a club official” that Isak could leave this summer. Their statement added that “conditions of a sale this summer have not transpired” and “we do not foresee those conditions being met”, but left the door open for a rapprochement.

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Despite the late hour in Riyadh, PIF officials were involved in the wording of the statement. The “conditions” were understood to be signing two strikers, at least one of which needed to be of Champions League quality, and receiving an offer for Isak close to their valuation of around £150m.

Senior club figures doubled down in the days that followed, insisting that they would not be “bullied” into selling, particularly given the message it may send to other star players such as Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Tino Livramento. But in reality, their hopes of reintegrating him were fading fast. Howe trod a delicate line regarding Isak. He kept the player away from the squad so that he wasn’t a distraction, but didn’t overtly criticise him, and talked publicly about him being able to rejoin his team-mates once the window had closed.

Privately, however, even Howe was increasingly feeling it would be difficult for Isak to return and that keeping him against his will could be counter-productive for Newcastle’s season. In one press conference, he admitted the stand-off had become a “lose-lose situation” for the club.

Anti-Isak T-shirts on sale near St James’ Park (Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

Howe also felt bruised by seeing Edwards and Hughes, whom he had been friends with since their time together at Portsmouth two decades ago, driving the pursuit of Isak.

While acknowledging there was some friction due to the sensitivity of the deal and the stakes involved, senior figures at both clubs insist talk of a falling out has been overplayed. Anfield sources say their conscience is clear over how they conducted their pursuit of Isak and point to the fact that the issues between Newcastle and the player go back to before Liverpool made their approach.

Ultimately, there is a sense on both sides that Liverpool’s pursuit was purely down to business, a point Howe recognised when he said in a press conference on August 22 that the situation was “not personal. It’s professional.”

Emotions were certainly running high ahead of the Premier League game between the clubs at St James’ Park on August 25.

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The atmosphere was hostile, with the home fans holding Liverpool responsible for unsettling their star man and even Reuben posting “Into them” on X before kick-off. The post was later deleted after Gordon was sent off for a reckless lunge on Virgil van Dijk. Newcastle fought back from 2-0 down with 10 men to make it 2-2 before Liverpool teenager Rio Ngumoha scored a stoppage-time winner.

That was dramatic enough, yet there had been drama earlier in the day when a delegation from PIF, led by Yasir Al-Rumayyan and also including Reuben and Solis, attended a meeting at Isak’s house in Northumberland in an effort to find a solution. The message from the player was once again unequivocal: Isak had no intention of playing for Newcastle again.

Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan (left, alongside shareholder Jamie Reuben) attended a meeting at Isak’s house (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Newcastle’s public stance remained bullish — but privately, their position subtly shifted. The threat of a disaffected Isak remaining in dispute with the club, refusing to play, was increasingly felt to be unsustainable. Suddenly, a transfer to Liverpool seemed the least worst outcome, meaning two strikers were required.

Steve Nickson, Newcastle’s head of recruitment, was in charge of the club’s outgoings this summer, but he did not lead talks around Isak. As discussions resumed in the middle of last week, this was a deal conducted at ownership level and Edwards played an important part from the Liverpool end, supported by Hughes and FSG technical director Julian Ward. Isak’s agent Vlado Lemic was heavily involved in acting as a go-between to establish what was required and helping to ensure a compromise could be reached.

The direction of travel appeared increasingly clear last Thursday when Newcastle agreed a £70m deal for Stuttgart striker Nick Woltemade after having two bids rejected for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Jorgen Strand Larsen.

Even as the two clubs continued to insist no deal was imminent and no talks were taking place, Newcastle were making secret preparations in the background. Banks became aware that Newcastle were seeking ways to finance a large portion of the £130m they anticipated to make from the expected Isak sale to ensure they had access to as much of the transfer fee up front as possible.

It is common practice for a selling club — who will receive some money up front from a buying club, but the remainder over several years — to try to borrow money from a bank in order to receive the money earlier. In this case, that means Newcastle exploring the option of borrowing money, which could then be secured against the rest of the cash they will receive from Liverpool over time.

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While some figures at both clubs were by now fully anticipating a deal would be completed, others have insisted to The Athletic that there was still some nervousness that it would be formally sealed before Monday’s deadline.

Howe’s relationship with his long-term friends Hughes and Edwards has come under strain (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)

Liverpool were angered on Saturday by reports claiming the signing was complete, labelling them “false and misleading”. At one stage over the weekend, some internally regarded the signing of Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi as more likely than Isak, with sources pointing to Liverpool’s decision not to allow Harvey Elliott to leave the club until Monday as proof that they were still not 100 per cent certain Isak would be arriving.

Ultimately, however, the deal was finally agreed after 10pm on Sunday night following Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Arsenal. It is worth £130m to Newcastle due to solidarity payments and will cost Liverpool £125m (the discrepancy is explained in more depth here).

Sources at Real Sociedad say that they stand to make between €9.5m-10m from the deal, due to being owed 10 per cent of the capital gains (the difference between their £60m sale and Newcastle’s sale) and training compensation fees.

It means Liverpool have completed the most extravagant transfer window spend in the club’s history, beyond £400million, although more than half that figure will be recouped from sales. Newcastle also got their second striker on deadline day after agreeing to pay Brentford £55million for Yoane Wissa.

Liverpool sent a car to collect Isak from the North East on Monday morning and drive him to their Kirkby training base. He did the first part of his medical there before the second part was conducted off-site nearby. Most of his new team-mates had already gone away on international duty but there was a warm embrace from Jeremie Frimpong, who is doing rehab in the gym following a hamstring injury.

Having not played since last season and training on his own, Isak’s first task is to get up to speed physically, but his time away with Sweden should help and he is hoping to be ready to make his debut against Burnley on September 14.

Isak training with his Sweden team-mates on Tuesday (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)

With Isak added to an attacking department which already boasts Ekitike, Salah, Cody Gakpo, Federico Chiesa, Florian Wirtz and Ngumoha, Slot has an embarrassment of riches.

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“I want to create history, I want to win trophies,” Isak added in his Liverpool interview. “That’s ultimately the biggest motivation for me and I feel like this is the perfect place for me to grow even further and to take my game to the next level.”

He described it as being a “long, tricky summer”. Ultimately, he got his way, Newcastle got a record fee, and Liverpool got their No 9.

Additional reporting: Chris Waugh, Adam Crafton, Guillermo Rai

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Demetrius Robinson)

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