For midfielder Moises Caicedo, Liverpool and Brighton have reached an agreement on a British record transfer fee of £111 million.

It is uncertain whether Chelsea will now match that sum after Brighton rejected a string of their offers.

Caicedo’s asking price was over £100 million, and according to Brighton, no one would pay that amount.

However, Liverpool has already taken care of that, allowing the 21-year-old Ecuadorian international to visit a doctor.

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Last month, Liverpool lost midfielders Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to the Saudi Pro League, but in June, they paid £35 million to buy Alexis Mac Allister, a teammate of Caicedo’s from Brighton.

Former Reds captain Henderson, 33, signed with Al-Ettifaq for £12 million with add-ons, while Brazilian forward Fabinho, 29, joined Al-Ittihad for £40 million.

Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool, said on Friday: “I got told I can confirm a deal with [Brighton] is agreed.

What changed was that we are a club with limited resources, so things like Henderson and Fabinho happening in the summer and other unexpected events happened.

To be very honest, “We didn’t think about that before the summer. When it happened, we gave it a shot, and obviously, the club was really stretched there.”

Klopp stated that he “didn’t know” if Caicedo was scheduled to have a medical on Merseyside on Friday and added that he was unsure if this would be the Reds’ final transaction of the summer window.

The price agreed upon for Caicedo is higher than the £107 million Chelsea spent earlier this year on Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernandez. The sell-on clause in Caicedo’s contract would benefit the Seagulls as well if Liverpool were to move him.

Caicedo made his Premier League debut in April 2022 after moving from Ecuadorian club Independiente del Valle to Brighton for £4 million in February 2021.

Earlier this year, during the January transfer window, he requested to leave Brighton. After that, Caicedo turned down several offers from Arsenal before agreeing to a new deal with the Seagulls that will keep him there until 2027 in March.

After his team’s fifth-place finish in the Premier League and failure to make the Champions League last season, Klopp has been considering a number of options to rebuild his team.

The amount they are willing to pay for Caicedo, however, is unexpected given that the club had stated in April that they would not pursue a deal for England midfielder Jude Bellingham due to the financial commitment.

Later, the 20-year-old signed a contract with Real Madrid worth up to 133.9 million euros (£115 million).

Romeo Lavia, a 19-year-old midfielder for Southampton, was also on Klopp’s list of potential moves, but the Saints have turned down three offers from the Reds, who are thought to value the Belgian at £50 million.

Billy Hogan, the chief executive of the Reds, reportedly worked discreetly behind the scenes to secure this agreement while all the attention was on Chelsea’s attempts to get Caicedo.

Hogan’s strategy helped Liverpool land Caicedo, who Brighton sought because they thought he may develop into one of the best players in the world.

With Chelsea out-negotiated and out-manoeuvred, it may have given Klopp access to one of the Premier League’s most intriguing players, though at a price that reflects that.

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Will Klopp’s Ferrari be Caicedo?
Klopp has already discussed the enormous quantities of money associated with transfers and the potential consequences for the future of football.

In 2016, after Manchester United re-signed France midfielder Paul Pogba for a then-record £89 million, the German questioned the wisdom of investing £100 million on a single player.

Because the game is about teamwork, Klopp declared, “The day this is football, I’m not in a job any more.”

“Other teams can spend more money to acquire elite players. I intend to approach it differently.

“I even would have done it differently if I had the money.”

During his press conference prior to Sunday’s match against Chelsea, Klopp was questioned about those remarks and responded, “Everything changed. Do I enjoy it? No. Did I recognize my error? Yes.

“I’m not blaming anyone; the market is the only factor. In the end, it is our responsibility as a club to ensure that we employ all available means to procure the greatest player.

“We are not in a fantasy world, and we cannot simply point at a player and command them to enter. Occasionally, one door shuts and another one opens.

“I expressed my opinions that day, but I now see that I was mistaken. That’s simple to admit.

The discussion of high-value deals was compared by Klopp to “a five-year-old asking for a Ferrari for Christmas” in April.

We cannot sign six players for a total of £100 million in one summer, he stated.

“We try everything to get what we need and want, but there are times when you have to accept that this or that is not possible for us – you step aside and do different things,” the author said.

Due to Klopp’s dire need for reinforcements and Arsenal’s £105 million purchase of England midfielder Declan Rice, Liverpool has joined the list of teams willing to spend more than £100 million to get a star player.

football transfers that cost the most
Player Transfer Charge
1. Neymar Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain (2017) 222 million euros (£200 million)
2. Kylian Mbappe moved from Monaco to Paris St. Germain for 180 million euros in 2017.
Philippe Coutinho, third(2018) £142m Liverpool to Barcelona
Ousmane Dembele (4)Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona, 2017; original cost: £96.8 million
5. Joao Felix Benfica will cost Atletico Madrid 126 million euros (£113 million) in 2019.
6. Enzo Fernandez Benfica to Chelsea 2023 121 million euros (£107 million)
7. Antoine Griezmann, 120 million euros (£107 million), Atletico Madrid to Barcelona (2019).
8. Declan Rice, £105 million from West Ham to Arsenal
Jack Grealish 8.Aston Villa will pay Manchester City £100 million in 2021.
10. Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid to Juventus 112 million euros ($99.2 million)
conversions of currencies at the moment of transfer
Caicedo’s £111 million transfer fee that Liverpool and Brighton agreed upon is excluded because the deal has not yet been finalized.