Folarin Balogun's Everton Transfer Saga: A Deadline Day Drama
Folarin Balogun stepped off a private jet at Liverpool John Lennon Airport on Tuesday lunchtime looking like Everton’s new No 9 in all but name. The fee was agreed, the medical was booked, the contract terms were settled. After a summer spent chasing a striker, Everton believed they had finally landed their man.
By Monday night, they had shaken hands with Monaco on a €45million (£39m, $52m) deal, with a further €5m in add-ons. The club were so confident that they waved Beto off to Fiorentina in a permanent €18m move. The long search for a centre-forward seemed over.
It was anything but.
Optimism at Finch Farm
Finch Farm crackled with rare deadline-day optimism. Balogun, Ainsley Maitland-Niles from Lyon and Jack Grealish on loan from Manchester City all arrived for medicals on Tuesday. Staff and players could see the outline of a very different Everton taking shape.
Balogun was the jewel. Top of their list all summer, the United States international had looked out of reach after a World Cup in which he scored three times in four matches. At Monaco, he had just come off his best season: 19 goals in all competitions, including a blistering run of 10 in 10. In Ligue 1, he had grown through a difficult first year — seven goals and four missed penalties — and a second season interrupted by a shoulder problem.
Monaco, for their part, were ready. They had long accepted he would leave this summer. “We had already worked in advance to replace him, and we were fully ready to do this,” said CEO Thiago Scuro on Wednesday.
Had Balogun signed, he would have joined Jordan Pickford, Jarrad Branthwaite and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall at the top end of Everton’s wage bill. The club were prepared to back him as the striker to drag them into a new era.
Then the first warning light flickered.
The medical that changed everything
Balogun’s private jet from Nice was supposed to leave early on Tuesday morning. It didn’t. The departure was pushed back, and he eventually landed around lunchtime. Not a crisis in itself, but on a frantic deadline day, every delay tightens the clock.
Everton’s medical team requested GPS data, standard practice in major deals. What they saw unsettled them. By around 7pm, they had flagged an issue to Monaco. In their view, it was serious enough to threaten the transfer.
Monaco were stunned.
“Around 7pm we were contacted by Everton, raising questions on the medical of Balogun, which for our medical staff, and for the personal medical staff of the player, made totally no sense,” Scuro said. “The explanations were not enough to justify or bring concerns of the future of the player, which there is not.”
That crack in the door was all Chelsea needed.
Chelsea smell an opening
Chelsea had been circling Monaco midfielder Lamine Camara for 10 days. Monaco’s stance had been firm: Balogun could go, Camara would stay. Then came Everton’s doubts, the renegotiation, and a shift in Monaco’s financial calculations.
“And then of course, Chelsea saw the opportunity,” Scuro said. With Enzo Fernandez bound for Manchester City, Chelsea accelerated. “‘OK, Monaco needs money. Balogun is struggling there. Let’s go. Let’s try’.”
Around 8pm, Monaco and Chelsea opened talks on Camara. Just over an hour later, they had an agreement: €55m (£47.2m; $63.7m). Camara accepted a six-year contract with an option for a seventh and completed his medical. From Chelsea’s side, it looked done.
At Everton, panic spread.
With Balogun in doubt, they scrambled for alternatives. Joshua Zirkzee at Manchester United, once a youth trialist at Everton, and Aston Villa’s Tammy Abraham were quickly sounded out. Everton contacted United about Zirkzee at 5pm and followed up with a first offer at 8pm. Villa made clear Abraham wanted to stay. United rejected the Zirkzee loan proposal, saying there was no time to replace him.
The clock was running down. Then the story twisted again.
A deal revived — and destroyed
The issues in Balogun’s medical did not kill the deal outright. Instead, Everton and Monaco reworked the structure: less money up front, more performance-related add-ons. Balogun’s personal terms stayed the same.
With that compromise, the move sparked back into life. Confident the transfer was back on, Monaco informed Chelsea at 11pm that the Camara deal was off. Chelsea were furious. Camara, who had already agreed terms and undergone a medical, now believed he was heading to London. At Stamford Bridge, Monaco’s conduct is viewed as extraordinary and deeply unprofessional.
Everton and Monaco, meanwhile, raced the clock. They submitted a dealsheet to the Premier League before the 11pm deadline, triggering the league’s one-hour extension to finalise paperwork.
“The Premier League has a mechanism in which you can request one extra hour to finish the paperwork,” Scuro explained. “This was done. Five minutes to close the transfer window for us to finish all the paperwork between Monaco and Everton and Balogun. I signed the contract, Everton signed the contract.
“At the last moment, the player decided not to sign.”
Balogun’s reasoning, according to Scuro, cut to the heart of the saga.
“Basically, Balogun’s allegation is that I’m not feeling well because of the way the club treated me. I’m not feeling well because Everton’s medical department raised doubts about my future or my health. I have nothing, so I’m not comfortable to sign a long contract here. And that’s the way we finish our transfer window.
“It’s the first time in my career that I saw a last day like this.”
Because Monaco had never signed Chelsea’s dealsheet for Camara, there was no way back for that transfer either. One player’s change of heart had wiped out three clubs’ plans and dragged others down with them.
Erik Lira’s proposed move from Cruz Azul to Monaco collapsed too, blocked by the failure to free up a non-EU squad spot with Balogun’s sale.
Nobody won.
Fallout on three fronts
Monaco kept a player they had planned to sell and missed out on the funds. Everton ended the window with one senior striker, Thierno Barry. Chelsea were left seething, with Camara and his camp bitterly disappointed.
Diomansy Kamara, the former Fulham forward who represents Camara and Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, took to Instagram to condemn how his client had been treated and to make a wider point about African players.
“We need to move away from this way of thinking in which an African player can sometimes be made to feel like a mere commodity: we buy him, set his price, negotiate his future, and too often, his own wishes seem to come second,” he wrote. “A transfer should not be merely a matter between two clubs and numbers.
“Behind every contract, there is a person, a career, dreams, and life choices. Clubs may sometimes have the final say — that is a reality of professional football. But one question remains: what about the player’s career and his own wishes? The player must be heard and respected in the decisions that determine his future.”
At Everton, the anger took a different form. A flat window ended with fan favourite Iliman Ndiaye leaving for Manchester City and a proposed sale of academy product Harrison Armstrong to Nottingham Forest only halted by a fierce supporter backlash. When the club’s official X account posted about a “Toffee Doughnut” at 10.10pm on deadline day, the reaction from fans was scathing.
Off the pitch, their owners, The Friedkin Group — who also control Roma — were firefighting in Italy too. Head coach Gian Piero Gasperini vetoed the sale of Manu Kone to Chelsea, while Jamie Leweling’s move from Stuttgart fell apart late on.
Everton will now try again for a striker in January. Until then, Barry shoulders the burden, with Tyrique George a possible option through the middle and Brennan Johnson and Tyler Dibling also viewed as alternatives.
Monaco pick up the pieces
Monaco must quickly turn from boardroom chaos to the pitch, with Paris Saint-Germain away on Friday. Scuro, visibly drained at Wednesday’s press conference, insisted he did not want to “create a war” with Chelsea or Everton.
According to French Football News, Camara returned to training on Wednesday. Balogun did not. “For Balogun, I only spoke to him by phone,” Scuro said. “His arguments are clear. He’s coming back. I think he took the decision. There is not a big reason for him to be affected too much because it’s his decision.
“On Lamine, I really respect and understand. Because the player might have got excited during the day by conversations with the coach, by everything that a club like Chelsea can propose and promise to a player.”
Scuro also railed against France’s transfer deadline, which shuts at 8pm, earlier than England’s. “Maybe we should start discussing following other countries that stay one day more, two days more,” he said.
Monaco head coach Filipe Luis expects Camara to play at the Parc des Princes. “He is 100% able to play, and he needs to play. His head needs to be where he loves, on the pitch,” he said, in quotes reported by Get French Football News.
Balogun’s situation is more delicate. His profile soared at the World Cup when his red-card suspension was controversially overturned before the knockout tie against Belgium after an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump. He has just switched agents, leaving Eddie Bonsu’s Elite Project Group for Jorge Mendes, and his Monaco contract runs until summer 2028. Arsenal, who sold him to Monaco in 2023 for €40m after add-ons, hold a 17.5 per cent sell-on clause.
For now, the Premier League door has slammed shut. Markets in Turkey and Saudi Arabia remain open, and his name will inevitably feature in those conversations.
After a deadline day that left three major clubs bruised and two players emotionally whiplashed, the next move in Balogun’s career is no longer a simple football decision. It is a question of trust, image and where he wants to rebuild after saying no at the very last second.
