OLIVER BURKE has become the most expensive Scottish player in history after his transfer from Nottingham Forest to Bundesliga club Red Bull Leipzig last night for a reported fee of between £13m and £15m.
The 19-year-old Kirkcaldy-born winger is in Gordon Strachan's Scotland squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifier against Malta and pushed for a starting place with his fourth goal of the season in a 3-1 win over Leeds.
A product of Forest's academy, Burke made his first-team debut in September 2014, before a loan spell with Bradford. He was in Forest's first team last season and earned a first Scotland cap against Denmark in March.
"Oliver Burke is an outstanding talent, only 19 years old, with an awful lot of potential that has not been completed," Leipzig sporting director Ralk Rangnick told his club's official website.
Burke posted an emotional statement on his Twitter account, thanking the Forest fans and expresssing his excitement over the next step in his career.
"The NFFC fans are nothing short of the best. HThey always have been and always will be!" he wrote.
"As fort my new club, RB Leipzig, all I can say is that they wanted me and expressed a real hunger for me to join. The technical expertise and facilities at the club are world class, as are the staff.
"I've been at Nottingham Forest since I was eight years old. It has been my second home for 11 years. The decision I have made hasn't been an easy one."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel