Borussia Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl has confirmed the club have received no offers for Jude Bellingham this summer and insists they will fight to keep the England sensation in 2023.
Liverpool are interested in signing the teenage Three Lions star. He is their No.1 target for next summer, but amid their current injury crisis - Jurgen Klopp is currently without Thiago Alcantara, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Curtis Jones - the Reds are keen to sign a midfielder now. The ex-Birmingham City youngster is their first choice, but the Merseysiders' acknowledge they're unlikely to prise him from the Westfalenstadion before the close of the current transfer window.
Bellingham is already one of the Bundesliga's best players and was runner-up to Barcelona midfielder Pedri in the Golden Boy vote last year - given to the best young footballer in Europe - and is up for the prestigious award again in 2022.
Bellingham made his senior debut as a 16-year-old for Championship Birmingham in August 2019 and went on to play 44 games for the club that season before completing a move to Dortmund for an initial £25million fee in July 2020.
He has continued to flourish in Germany, making 95 appearances for Dortmund to date - 18 of which have come in European competition. The midfielder helped the German giants win the DFB-Pokal in May 2021, the first major honour of his blossoming career.
Bellingham still has three years remaining on his deal and it's believed Dortmund have slapped a £115million price tag on him. And Kehl has confirmed Dortmund haven't received a bid for Bellingham as yet.
"There is no request for him," Kehl told reporters on Saturday. "There is certainly a lot of interest."
Kehl also insisted there was "nothing" on the table for Dortmund to consider and said there's a chance Bellingham will stay at the club beyond the summer of 2023. "I hope so [that he'll stay]," said Kehl when asked. "He feels very comfortable with us."
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When asked about his future in May, Bellingham said: "The only future I think about is the next game for Dortmund. I look forward to next season. I look forward to it finally starting. But yes, I will be here next season and I will be ready."
Klopp has previously insisted Liverpool will not sign a new midfielder until the right player comes along. There's every chance that could be Bellingham in 12 months' time, considering the teenager's sensational start to his professional career.
Speaking ahead of Liverpool's 2-1 defeat to Manchester United last Monday, Klopp said: "If the right player is not available then we tend to say 'ok we deal with what we have before we sign a player who is not 100 per cent the right player'.
"Now we have more injuries than we would have imagined, and now would be cool to have a new midfielder in, of course now. And then there would be another fact: we are not in charge of what we spend, we are not. That’s the situation, we get things told and then we deal with it. It was always the same, never different."
