Folarin Balogun's Transfer Drama: Everton's Missed Opportunity

Folarin Balogun’s private jet dropped out of the Liverpool sky on Tuesday lunchtime and, for a few hours, Everton thought the chase was finally over.

They had their striker. Or so they believed.

The night before, Everton had shaken hands with Monaco on a €45million (£39m, $52m) deal, plus €5m in add-ons, for the United States international. After a summer spent scouring the market for a centre-forward, this was the marquee signing. Medical, paperwork, signatures. Routine stuff.

So routine, in fact, that Everton felt confident enough to wave goodbye to Beto, sanctioning his €18m move to Fiorentina. One out, one in. The squad rebalanced. The plan, at last, coming together.

What followed was anything but routine.

Optimism at Finch Farm

At Finch Farm on Tuesday, the mood was bright. Everton had lined up Balogun, Ainsley Maitland-Niles from Lyon and a loan return for Jack Grealish from Manchester City. All three underwent medicals at the training ground. Staff could see the window taking shape in front of them.

Balogun sat at the top of their list. He had been there all summer. Talks with his camp had dragged on for weeks, but only in the final days did Monaco’s stance soften enough for Everton to sense a deal.

Had he signed, Balogun would have walked into the dressing room as one of the club’s best-paid players, alongside Jordan Pickford, Jarrad Branthwaite and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. A statement arrival.

Monaco were ready. They had always expected this summer to be the moment Balogun moved on. Three years at the club, a World Cup where he scored three goals in four games, and a breakout campaign last season with 19 goals in all competitions, including a blistering run of 10 in 10. His first year had been uneven — seven Ligue 1 goals and four missed penalties — and his second disrupted by a shoulder injury, but the trajectory was clear.

“We had already worked in advance to replace him, and we were fully ready to do this,” Monaco CEO Thiago Scuro said on Wednesday, speaking at a press conference.

The club were prepared. Everton thought they were too.

Early warning signs

Then the first cracks appeared.

Balogun’s jet from Nice, originally scheduled to leave early on Tuesday, was delayed and did not touch down until lunchtime. No drama on its own, but enough to fray nerves on a day when every hour matters.

Everton asked for GPS data on the player, standard practice in major transfers. What they saw raised concerns. The club flagged the issue, and by around 7pm they informed Monaco that Balogun’s medical had thrown up something they believed could jeopardise the move.

Scuro was 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,” he said. “The explanations were not enough to justify or bring concerns of the future of the player, which there is not.”

That moment changed everything — not just for Balogun and Everton, but for Chelsea, Lamine Camara and even Cruz Azul’s Erik Lira.

Chelsea had been circling Camara, Monaco’s 22-year-old Senegal international midfielder, for 10 days. Monaco’s line had been firm: Balogun could go, Camara would stay.

The medical row cracked that door open.

“And then of course, Chelsea saw the opportunity,” Scuro said. With Enzo Fernandez on his way to Manchester City, Chelsea needed a midfielder. “Balogun is struggling there. Let’s go. Let’s try. And this is the game. It’s fair to play this game. There is no problem. Chelsea came and called us. ‘Oh, maybe I can be here for the solution’. And at that moment, we had to open the door for the discussion.”

Chelsea move in for Camara

By around 8pm, Monaco and Chelsea were locked in negotiations over Camara. The talks moved quickly. Just over an hour later, a deal was in place: €55m (£47.2m; $63.7m) for a player Monaco had not intended to lose.

Camara agreed a six-year contract with an option for a seventh. He completed his medical. Chelsea believed they had their man.

Everton, meanwhile, scrambled.

With the Balogun move wobbling, they began sounding out alternatives. Joshua Zirkzee, now at Manchester United but once a trialist in Everton’s youth ranks, came under consideration. So did Aston Villa’s Tammy Abraham.

Everton contacted United about Zirkzee at 5pm and followed up with a first offer at 8pm. United rejected the loan proposal, arguing there was not enough time to find a replacement. Abraham, for his part, wanted to stay at Villa.

The clock kept ticking.

A late twist — and a collapse

Then the story flipped again.

After the issues raised in Balogun’s medical, Everton and Monaco restructured the deal. Less money up front, more performance-related add-ons. The player’s personal terms stayed the same. The move, once on the brink, looked alive again.

Believing Balogun was back on track for Goodison Park, Monaco informed Chelsea at 11pm that the Camara transfer was off. Chelsea, who had their agreement, their medical and a player now set on Stamford Bridge, were furious. Inside the club, Monaco’s conduct was viewed as extraordinary and deeply unprofessional.

Camara, too, had his heart set on the move.

Everton and Monaco, working against the deadline, submitted a dealsheet before 11pm, triggering the Premier League’s mechanism that grants an extra hour to complete paperwork. Scuro explained the process.

“The Premier League has a mechanism in which you can request one extra hour to finish the paperwork,” he said. “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. And 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.”

With Monaco never having signed Chelsea’s dealsheet for Camara, that move could not be resurrected. The dominoes stopped mid-fall.

The collapse of Balogun’s switch also killed Monaco’s plan to bring in Erik Lira from Cruz Azul. Without Balogun’s departure, Monaco could not free up a non-EU spot in their squad. One cancelled deal became three.

Nobody won.

Monaco failed to cash in on a major asset and missed out on Lira. Everton ended the window with just one senior striker, Thierno Barry. Chelsea were left seething, and Camara’s camp were left nursing a sense of injustice.

“A mere commodity”

Diomansy Kamara, the former Fulham striker who represents Camara and Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, made his anger public. On Instagram, he accused clubs of treating African players as tradeable objects.

“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.”

For Everton, the chaos capped an already bruising window. Fan favourite Iliman Ndiaye left for Manchester City. A proposed sale of homegrown talent Harrison Armstrong to Nottingham Forest was abandoned after a furious backlash from supporters.

Then, at 10.10pm on deadline day, as deals unravelled and the search for a striker disintegrated, the club’s official X account posted about the “Toffee Doughnut”. The timing drew ridicule from a fanbase that had just watched the window implode.

The Friedkin Group, Everton’s owners and also proprietors of Roma, were juggling drama on two fronts. In Italy, Roma head coach Gian Piero Gasperini vetoed the sale of key midfielder Manu Kone to Chelsea, while Jamie Leweling’s move from Stuttgart collapsed.

Picking up the pieces

Everton now intend to revisit the striker market in January. Until then, the burden falls on Barry. Tyrique George could be pushed into a central role if needed, with Brennan Johnson and Tyler Dibling seen as other attacking options.

Monaco, still digesting the wreckage of deadline day, must turn around and face Paris Saint-Germain away on Friday. At Wednesday’s press conference, Scuro looked drained.

He insisted he did not want to “create a war” with Chelsea or Everton. According to French Football News, Camara was back in training on Wednesday. Balogun was 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 the French transfer window closing at 8pm, earlier than in England, which left Monaco with no chance to line up replacements.

“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 against PSG. “He is 100% able to play, and he needs to play. His head needs to be where he loves, on the pitch,” he said, as reported by Get French Football News.

Balogun back in the spotlight

Balogun now finds himself in an awkward spotlight. He has already lived through one global storm — at the World Cup, his red-card suspension was controversially overturned before the knockout tie against Belgium following an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump.

He recently changed agent, switching to Jorge Mendes from Eddie Bonsu of Elite Project Group. His Monaco contract runs until summer 2028, having joined from Arsenal in 2023 for €40m including add-ons. Arsenal hold a 17.5 per cent sell-on clause.

The Premier League door, for now, has slammed shut. Markets in Turkey and Saudi Arabia remain open, but after a deadline day like this, every move around Balogun will be watched and weighed.

The jet landed. The contracts were signed by the clubs. The window closed.

And the striker who was supposed to fix Everton’s attack chose not to put pen to paper. Where does his next flight go from here?