Red Bull 'put an end' to Leeds United transfer speculation with Max Verstappen joke

Red Bull racing have confirmed their champion driver Max Verstappen ‘will not’ be swapping tarmac for turf following their main sponsor’s recent investment into Leeds United.

Leeds announced a new ‘multi-year agreement’ with Red Bull at the end of May which would see them become the club’s front-of-shirt sponsor from next season, replacing Boxt. They also confirmed that the Austrian energy drink giant had become a minority stakeholder, bringing with it ‘new commercial revenues as well as additional capital investment’.

The involvement of Red Bull could open Leeds up to a huge network of sporting teams, with football clubs across Europe and South America part of a huge investment portfolio. The most successful investment is undoubtedly the Oracle Red Bull Formula 1 team but there will be no arrivals from the track, with the racing team’s X account jokingly ruling out a move for Verstappen.

Quoting the initial announcement from last month, the Oracle Red Bull account posted a picture of Verstappen taking part in a previous edition of the annual Monaco GP weekend charity football match, alongside the caption: “Just to put an end to the rumours… @Max33Verstappen will NOT be joining @LUFC for their 2024/25 season.”

While his quality on the pitch is not likely to be good enough for Championship football, Verstappen’s winning credentials cannot be questioned and the Dutch driver is a born winner. The 26-year-old has won all of the last three Formula 1 Drivers’ Championships and looks set to claim a fourth this year as part of a dominant Red Bull team.

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The Red Bull driver is an avid football fan, however, and has made no secret of his love for 24-time Eredivisie champions PSV Eindhoven, having seen his racing driver father sponsored by Phillips and invited to games often. The Dutchman is also good friends with compatriot Virgil van Dijk, who plays centre-back for Premier League outfit Liverpool.

While the arrival of Verstappen has been ruled out, Leeds will hope to make use of the ever-growing Red Bull network of talent. That pathway can be most clearly seen between Austria and Germany, with the likes of Dayot Upamecano, Dominik Szoboszlai and Benjamin Sesko all making the move from RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig in recent years.

"If there’s an opportunity somewhere, or we identify a talent that might benefit us, we’ll go do that," Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe recently told the Yorkshire Evening Post. “The other benefit of this is that, as minority investors in the club, they’re another set of eyes and ears — pretty darn keen and expert eyes and ears, in seeing other players in other leagues.

"Forget even about Red Bull players. They have extra eyeballs on a lot of players. As we evaluate and do the work for this window and future windows, we can say, ‘What do you think of this player?’. There’s things we can learn which we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to learn."