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Exclusive: Tottenham Hotspur have £25m bid for Fulham prodigy Ryan Sessegnon rejected
Tottenham Hotspur have had a bid worth up to £25 million for the 17-year-old Fulham prodigy Ryan Sessegnon rejected.
The England Under-19s international is one of the hottest properties in English football and is in the Fulham squad to face Leeds United at Elland Road tonight having signed his first professional deal in June with his childhood club. The size of the fee on offer reflects the expanding market and also the value placed on young English talent.
Spurs are also understood to be interested in Ryan’s twin brother Steven who made his first team debut in the EFL Cup against Wycombe in August. Both players signed their professional deals having turned 17 – the earliest age at which they could do so – on May 18. Both the boys, who grew up in Roehampton in south-west London, are happy at Fulham and have put no pressure on the club to sell them.
The fee offered would be close to the £25.5 million Manchester United paid in August 2004 for an 18-year-old Wayne Rooney, still the most ever paid for an English teenage footballer.
Under the ownership of American billionaire Shahid Khan, and the stewardship of his son, the chairman Tony, the club are ambitious for promotion to the Premier League. They have refused to countenance the sale of midfielder Tom Cairney this summer and for the time being seem willing to reject an extraordinary amount of money for two products of the club’s outstanding academy.
There has been interest throughout the big Premier League clubs in the progress of Ryan in particular who played a full part in his team’s Championship season last time around, which ended in play-off defeat to Reading. As a left-sided English player he has a considerable value in the transfer market and the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Spurs all registered an interest before eventually he committed himself to the club long term.
The player has had a successful summer with England Under-19s who won their European championships in Georgia.