€100m wonderkid! Chelsea and Man Utd told 'next Varane' price

Tom Weber

9 Mar 2024 13:44 GMT
4 min read

Mauricio Pochettino, Erik ten Hag — © IMAGO

Lille have put a €100 million price tag on Leny Yoro, according to a report.

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The French wonderkid has quickly emerged as one of Europe's most sought-after talents. A starter in Ligue 1 since age 17, the precocious centre-back has attracted the attention of pretty much every elite team on the continent.

In addition to Premier League heavyweights such as Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool, the likes of Real Madrid and PSG reportedly view Yoro as a 'priority target' ahead of the summer transfer window. Besides his impressive performances, the thing that makes the 18-year-old so attractive is the fact that he is out of contract next year, meaning that Lille will have to sell or risk losing the youngster for nothing.

Despite this, it seems that the high-flying Ligue 1 side have no intention of making things easy for Yoro's suitors. It seems Lille are ready to take the gamble that comes with setting a sky-high asking price.

Lille want €100m

According to MARCA, Real Madrid and all the other interested parties have been quoted a price of €100m by Paulo Fonseca's side. Los Blancos view Yoro as something of a next Raphael Varane, whom they also plucked from France as a teenager, in his case from RC Lens.

However, given that Real Madrid are working on the arrivals of Alphonso Davies and Kylian Mbappe, they have absolutely no intention of breaking the bank on Yoro, instead preferring to play the waiting game.

This is a risk, though, as free-spending PSG want to make Yoro one of the faces of the post-Mbappe era, while Premier League interest can't be discounted either. But the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd face a similar headache to Real.

Both have major Financial Fair Play issues and given that they nevertheless plan to spend big in the summer, there are doubts about whether they should pay that much for a teenager when there are more established options out there, which in turn increases the risk of Lille losing Yoro for nothing in 2025.