Ademola Lookman was one of the most sought-after wingers in Europe for a number of transfer windows ever since he rose to prominence to Charlton’s senior squad having worked his way through their U18 side. Since he burst onto the scene for the English Championship side, he’s had quite a travelled career between loan spells and permanent stints at Everton, RB Leipzig, Fulham, Leicester City, and Atalanta, and Atlético Madrid where he currently resides – getting set to take on Tottenham in the Champions League
Round of 16.
Bayern Munich were one from a laundry list of clubs throughout Europe that had expressed interest in the Nigerian international, and their interest has spanned throughout the course of different windows. However, per information from Sport Bild’s Christian Falk and Bild’s Julian Agardi (via @iMiaSanMia), the German Rekordmeister actually had an agreement in place to sign Lookman from Atalanta between the player himself and his management, which is the ROOF agency. That agency also represents Konrad Laimer, Serge Gnabry, and Leon Goretzka.
Lookman was ready to make the move to Munich and very much wanted to join the Bundesliga champions, but finances ultimately prevented a move from happening in the end. Atalanta did not want to allow a move to occur under the offer that Bayern had presented at the time of a loan with an option to buy for a package of worth roughly 28 million euros. At the time, the Serie A outfit felt that fee was not considerable enough and they also preferred a permanent sale of the player, which they wound up getting with his move to Atlético Madrid for a fee of 35 million euros.
From the top down, Bayern board member for sport Max Eberl was only granted limited resources to try to get Lookman on loan, as it had become a policy at a certain point in the transfer window to only try to get loan deals done. In the case of Lookman with Atalanta strongly preferring a permanent sale, Eberl was always up against it to try to get a loan move with an option to buy over the line.
