‘My Greatest Wish’—Agent Talks Up Huge Florian Wirtz Transfer

The German talent has only just started to settle at Liverpool.

Could Florian Wirtz be destined to leave Liverpool? | Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

One of German football’s most influential agents has revealed he directly contacted Real Madrid to offer Florian Wirtz to Los Blancos prior to last summer’s Liverpool transfer. What’s more, it remains his personal ambition to make that move a reality.

Wirtz completed a £116 million ($157.3 million) from Bayer Leverkusen to Anfield in late June, having also been heavily linked with Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the preceding months.

Volker Struth, who does not directly serve as Wirtz’s agent—that job belongs to the player’s father—but is believed to have some involvement in his affairs, tried to broker a switch to Madrid.

“During the period when a move to Liverpool or Bayern was being discussed, I called Xabi Alonso and told him: ‘You have to take the lad from Leverkusen with you to Real,’” Struth told Bild’s Phrasenmäher podcast.

He claimed that Alonso, who had managed Wirtz in Germany, was on board but referred Struth to Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez instead. “So I actually sent him a message: ‘Dear Florentino, I’ve told you many times before: I have a player here whom I would highly recommend.’

“‘Florian Wirtz makes every team in the world better,’” the agent concluded.

---

Real Madrid Couldn’t Afford Wirtz

Real Madrid mainly spent on defenders last summer. | Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images

Struth strongly hinted that Wirtz was beyond Real Madrid’s financial means in 2025.

Liverpool committed to a British record fee for Wirtz—surpassed in a matter of weeks when the Reds paid even more for Alexander Isak. That amount would also have amounted to a club record for Real Madrid, whose biggest transfer outlay to date saw Jude Bellingham arrive for up to £115 million.

Instead, money was spread across multiple targets, resulting in Dean Huijsen, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Álvaro Carreras and Franco Mastantuono being recruited.

“It simply wasn’t the right time due to the squad and the budget,” Struth claimed. “Even Real Madrid’s coffers aren’t always overflowing. But my wish remains that Florian will play there one day.

“My greatest wish, of course, would have been to have Florian at Real Madrid to see—and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I also think he would be in very good hands there. He’s doing quite well in Liverpool now. [But] he’s a very young player and who knows what might happen in his career.”

---

Could Real Madrid Target Wirtz in the Future?

There is a history of German players at Real Madrid. | Oscar J. Barroso/Europa Press/Getty Images

Wirtz is starting to find his feet at Liverpool after a challenging start to life at Anfield, but it might concern fans that an agent with ties to both Wirtz and Real Madrid—Struth represented Toni Kroos—is so openly flirting with a transfer to the Bernabéu.

Wirtz turns 23 in May and has a contract with Liverpool until 2030. When that deal has two years left to run—the time to start discussing a renewal or a sale—he will have just turned 25 and could reasonably be considering whether Liverpool is the club he wants to give his peak years to.

Real Madrid have a strong history of German players, from Paul Breitner in the 1970s, to Bernd Schuster in the 1980s, Bodo Illgner in the 1990s and Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira, Antonio Rüdiger and the aforementioned Kroos since the turn of the 21st century.

---