Folarin Balogun's Failed Transfer Saga: Everton's Deadline Day Chaos

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 of chasing strikers, Everton believed they had finally landed their man.

By Tuesday morning, they had shaken hands with Monaco on a €45million (£39m, $52m) deal, with a further €5m in add-ons. Balogun, fresh from a standout World Cup for the United States, was supposed to be the marquee signing of a frantic window. Everton were so confident they even waved Beto off to Fiorentina in a permanent €18m move.

Then the plane landed. And everything began to unravel.

Everton’s big day

Finch Farm felt unusually buoyant on Tuesday. Deals for Balogun, Ainsley Maitland-Niles from Lyon and a loan return for Jack Grealish from Manchester City had been pushed towards the finish line. All three players went through their medicals at the training ground. Staff spoke about finally having the firepower and depth they had been missing.

Balogun had been at the top of Everton’s list all summer. Talks with his camp had dragged on for weeks, but the sense inside the club was that persistence had paid off. Had he signed, he would have joined Jordan Pickford, Jarrad Branthwaite and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall among the club’s highest earners.

Monaco were ready too. They had long planned for Balogun’s exit after three seasons in the principality and a World Cup in which he scored three times in four games. A senior figure at the club had already told The Athletic last month they believed he was ready for the “next step”.

Thiago Scuro, Monaco’s CEO, underlined that stance on Wednesday.

“We had already worked in advance to replace him, and we were fully ready to do this,” he said at a press conference.

Balogun’s trajectory at Monaco had been upward. Last season, he hit 19 goals in all competitions, including a blistering run of 10 in 10 matches. His first campaign had been more erratic — seven Ligue 1 goals and four missed penalties — and his second was interrupted by a shoulder problem. But the feeling in Monaco was clear: this was the right time to cash in.

Red flags in the medical

As deadline day wore on, Everton’s certainty began to fray.

The jet bringing Balogun from Nice was initially due to leave early on Tuesday. It was delayed. When it finally touched down around lunchtime, time was already tighter than Everton would have liked.

The club requested GPS data on the striker’s recent physical output, a standard step for major deals. The numbers triggered concern. By around 7pm, with the window already stretched to breaking point, Everton informed Monaco that an issue in Balogun’s medical might derail the transfer.

Scuro was blunt in his response.

“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.”

At that moment, a door opened elsewhere.

Chelsea, who had been in contact with Monaco for 10 days about midfielder Lamine Camara, sensed a shift. Up to that point, Monaco’s line had been consistent: Balogun could go, Camara would stay for at least one more season.

Now the financial equation looked different.

“And then of course, Chelsea saw the opportunity,” Scuro said. The London club had just agreed to sell Enzo Fernandez to Manchester City and needed midfield reinforcements. “‘OK, Monaco needs money. 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

Around 8pm, Monaco and Chelsea began formal negotiations over Camara, the 22-year-old Senegal international. Talks moved at breakneck speed. Just over an hour later, the clubs had reached agreement on a €55m (£47.2m; $63.7m) transfer.

Camara accepted a six-year contract with an option for a seventh and passed his medical. From Chelsea’s perspective, the deal was done in all but paperwork.

Back on Merseyside, Everton were scrambling. With Balogun in doubt and Beto already gone, they explored emergency alternatives. Old links were dusted off. Manchester United’s Joshua Zirkzee, who once played in a youth tournament for Everton during a trial, was sounded out. So was Aston Villa’s Tammy Abraham.

Everton made first contact with United about Zirkzee at 5pm and followed up with a formal offer at 8pm. United turned down the loan proposal, unconvinced they had time to find a replacement. Abraham, meanwhile, made it clear he wanted to stay at Villa.

Everton were running out of road.

A late twist – and a dramatic collapse

Then the story flipped again.

The concerns raised in Balogun’s medical did not kill the transfer outright. Instead, they forced a renegotiation of the deal’s structure. Everton pushed to pay less up front, with a heavier reliance on performance-related add-ons. Balogun’s personal terms stayed exactly the same.

With that adjustment, the move roared back into life. Confident the transfer was back on, Monaco informed Chelsea at 11pm that the Camara deal was off. Chelsea, having already agreed terms with the player and completed his medical, were furious. Camara, too, had set his heart on Stamford Bridge.

Inside Chelsea, Monaco’s conduct is viewed as extraordinary and deeply unprofessional.

Everton and Monaco, though, pressed ahead with Balogun. They submitted a dealsheet to the Premier League before the 11pm deadline, buying themselves an extra hour to finalise the documents.

“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. 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 (deadline day) like this.”

Balogun walked away. With Monaco never having signed Chelsea’s dealsheet for Camara, that move could not be resurrected either. One decision had torpedoed three transfers.

The collateral damage spread further. Erik Lira’s proposed move from Cruz Azul to Monaco collapsed as well, with the French club unable to free up a non-EU spot in their squad without Balogun’s exit.

Nobody won.

Fallout on all sides

Monaco ended the window without the major sale they had banked on. Everton finished it with just one senior striker, Thierno Barry. Chelsea were left seething, and Camara’s camp felt badly let down.

Diomansy Kamara, the former Fulham forward who represents Camara and Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, made his anger public. In an Instagram post, he argued African players deserve far greater respect.

“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 underwhelming 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.

The club’s official X account did little to help the mood. At 10.10pm on deadline night, with the striker situation in pieces, Everton posted about the “Toffee Doughnut”. The reaction from the fanbase was scathing.

Their owners, The Friedkin Group, had their attention pulled in multiple directions. As well as Everton, they own Roma, and Italy’s deadline day brought its own drama. Head coach Gian Piero Gasperini vetoed the sale of key midfielder Manu Kone to Chelsea, while Jamie Leweling’s move from Stuttgart collapsed late on.

Everton now intend to go back into the market for a striker in January. Until then, Barry carries the load up front, with Tyrique George a possible option through the middle if needed. Brennan Johnson and Tyler Dibling are also seen as potential solutions in attacking roles.

Monaco, Chelsea and a player in limbo

Monaco must now reset quickly. Paris Saint-Germain away awaits on Friday, a daunting fixture at the best of times.

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 that day. 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 turned his fire on the calendar. The French window shut at 8pm, three hours earlier than in England, leaving Monaco unable to line up late 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 be ready for 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, in quotes reported by Get French Football News.

Balogun back in the spotlight

Balogun now finds himself in a familiar kind of storm. At the World Cup, he became one of the tournament’s biggest talking points when his red-card suspension was controversially overturned before a knockout tie against Belgium after an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Off the pitch, he has just changed agents, leaving Eddie Bonsu of Elite Project Group for Jorge Mendes. His Monaco contract runs until summer 2028. Arsenal, who sold him to Monaco in 2023 for €40m including add-ons, inserted a 17.5 per cent sell-on clause.

For now, the Premier League door appears closed. Transfer markets in Turkey and Saudi Arabia remain open, but after a deadline day like this, every move around Balogun will be watched and weighed.

He stepped off a jet in Liverpool expecting to start a new chapter. Instead, he returns to Monaco at the centre of a saga that has left three clubs bruised and a transfer window laid bare. Where does he go from here?