Wolves open to selling Max Kilman despite rejecting Napoli offer
- €35m Napoli bid for Max Kilman rejected
- Wolves could still sell centre-back this summer
- Premier League side dealing with FFP 'problems'
Wolves are open to selling defender Max Kilman this summer despite rejecting an offer from Serie A champions Napoli, 90min understands.
Napoli could soon lose starting centre-back Kim Min-jae to Bayern Munich, with the late-blooming Kilman emerging on the radar at Estadio Diego Armando Maradona after becoming an important part of the Wolves back-line since breaking through in 2021.
Sources have confirmed to 90min that a bid of €35m (£30m) was put forward by Napoli for the 26-year-old, who has never been capped at full international level but was formerly an England futsal player.
Wolves turned it down, but they are still open to the idea of cashing in on a player they plucked from non-league football in 2018. Kilman himself is also not against the idea of leaving Molineux - Chris Smalling and Fikayo Tomori have set a strong precedent for English centre-backs doing well in Italy.
Although €35m wasn’t enough to prompt a sale, an improved €40m (£34m) offer could be.
Wolves have already sold Ruben Neves for big money so far this summer, allowing the Portugal midfielder to join Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia for a fee in the region of £45m.
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The West Midlands club are having to contend with what manager Julen Lopetegui described shortly before the end of the Premier League season as ‘problems’ with Financial Fair Play.
"There are some Financial Fair Play problems I didn't know before," Lopetegui explained at the time following a meeting with chairman Jeff Shi.
"I hope we will solve this issue. It's very difficult to compete in the Premier League without investment. Despite the club investing this year it has been a very hard year so we have to learn the lesson and do our homework to try to improve the team."
Wolves recorded losses of more than £40m in their most recent set of accounts for 2021/22, with Premier League rules outlawing losses in excess of £105m over a three-year period. The club was profitable to the tune of £21m in 2020/21, but had posted sizeable losses over £36m for 2019/20. The 2022/23 figures are not publicly available, but more big losses in those accounts would mean counting the pennies carefully across the coming season to avoid exceeding the limit.
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