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Revealed: Liverpool wrapped up Naby Keita deal quicker than Barcelona

Revealed: Liverpool wrapped up Naby Keita deal quicker than Barcelona

  • Kaustubh Pandey
RB Leipzig CEO Oliver Mintzlaff has revealed that Catalan giants Barcelona were also after Naby Keita, before the midfielder agreed a deal with Liverpool.

Keita, currently 22, will join the Anfield based side next summer after Liverpool agreed to meet the midfielder’s 48 million euros release clause this past summer as Leipzig had ended up blocking an immediate because they needed Keita for their debut Champions League campaign.

Mintzlaff was talking to Sport Bild about the deal recently and said that the Catalan giants just didn’t try hard enough.

He said: "That's right, even more so because Barcelona were also interested in Naby Keita.
"This was confirmed to us by Barcelona, but obviously they didn't try as hard as Liverpool."

Mintzlaff also told that Keita wanted to move this past summer, but the club didn’t want that to happen. He said: "He wanted the transfer this summer. But [Leipzig sporting director] Ralf Rangnick told the team that we will not sell any players [at that time]," he said.