Harvey Elliott fee is ‘madness’, says Fulham boss

Scott Parker insists Liverpool got off lightly paying just £4.3m for Harvey Elliott.

It’s a record fee for a 16-year-old – he moved from Craven Cottage to Anfield in July 2019.

But it failed to cut any ice with the Whites head coach whose club actually receives only £1.2m now: the rest to be made up of add-ons.

Elliott, now 17, is shining on loan at Blackburn Rovers, and Parker made no bones his club are the losers in the deal settled by tribunal.

“It’s madness really,” he said. “This is a player who had been developed at this football club for a long, long time.

“I think he was our youngest-ever player. We gave him his debut.

“You don’t want to go and spend £20-30m on players. That’s why the academy for us is so important – because you want to develop these players. We had developed that player for a big club to take him.

“Harvey Elliott has the potential of being a top-class football player. Liverpool have taken him off us for minimal numbers for the potential of what Harvey is capable of.”

Parker also reckoned it was a slap in the face to academies at clubs who don’t have megabucks to lash out on new signings.

He said: “At 16 years of age, or 17, for that player to leave your club for compensation or a training fee. It just doesn’t sit too well. Harvey is a prime example of that.

“One of the main reasons I believe in academies is that a young player, a boy that has been at your football club for so long and then steps onto the arena, it’s someone that brings so much more.

“But also, there is an element that we’re not in a position to pay £15-20-30m for a big player and that’s why we have to put our focus on trying to develop these young boys to get them to that point of playing in the first team.”