LEVERKUSEN, Germany (AP) — Bayer Leverkusen has replaced former captain Jonathan Tah with Jarell Quansah from Liverpool in a club-record signing for a defender.
The 22-year-old Quansah signed a contract through June 2030 and will wear Tah’s former No. 4 shirt, the Bundesliga club said Wednesday.
The reported fee of more than 30 million euros ($35.3 million) rising to 40 million ($47 million) with bonuses corresponds roughly with what Liverpool agreed to pay Leverkusen for Netherlands right back Jeremie Frimpong in May.
Liverpool reportedly secured a buy-back option for Quansah for more than 60 million euros ($70.6 million) after he has spent two seasons at Leverkusen.
Leverkusen also sold star player Florian Wirtz to Liverpool last month for a Bundesliga-record fee.
Tah switched to league rival Bayern Munich once the season concluded after declining to extend his contract. He had spent a decade at Leverkusen and was a key part of the team which won the Bundesliga and German Cup unbeaten in 2023-24.
Quansah won the Under-21 European Championship with England last week. But he was unable to establish himself as a regular starter at Liverpool ahead of Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté.
“One of the most promising English central defenders. He’s fast, agile, a good footballer,” Leverkusen sporting director Simon Rolfes said of Quansah.
“He has already made an impressive impact in a Liverpool defense dominated by world-class players. With Jarell, our defense gains significant dynamism, pace and toughness in tackling, and he’s another very important building block."
Rolfes is overseeing huge changes at Leverkusen following coach Xabi Alonso’s departure for Real Madrid.
Wirtz, Tah and Frimpong have all left, and Rolfes has been signing promising young players to make up for their departures.
Leverkusen last week signed Abdoulaye Faye for a reported fee of 3 million euros ($3.5 million) from Swedish team BK Häcken, with the 20-year-old Senegalese defender expected to go on loan for the upcoming season.
Previously, Leverkusen announced the signings of France youth international Axel Tape on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain’s under-19 team, 19-year-old Ibrahim Maza from Hertha Berlin, and 21-year-old defender Tim Oermann from relegated Bochum. Oermann was promptly loaned to Austrian champion Sturm Graz for the season.
Leverkusen also signed Netherlands goalkeeper Mark Flekken from Brentford, while former Manchester United coach Erik ten Hag was appointed as Alonso’s replacement.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
England's Jarell Quansah controls the ball during a quarter final soccer match between Spain and England at the European U-21 Championship at the Anton Malatinsky Stadium, in Trnava, Slovakia, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed back deadlines for Iran to cut a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz, but his latest deadline for Tuesday came with his most perilous threat yet: “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
Trump's previous deadline was weeks ago, but it was postponed several times as the Republican president oscillated between heated threats, announced delays and proclamations that the negotiations were going well, sometimes in the same statement.
That was true in Trump's Truth Social post ahead of his Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline. After threatening a “whole civilization," Trump said that Iran's new leaders were more reasonable and “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing, but it was unclear if a deal would be reached by the deadline, which Trump has suggested was final. Trump raised the ante on his threats from Monday.
“They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything," he wrote.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the U.S. that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his spokesperson. Trump, speaking with reporters, said he's “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes with such attacks.
So how did Trump's deadline delays and threats escalate over the last weeks?
On March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social that if Iran doesn't “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS.”
Iran had until the evening of March 23.
Then 12 hours before the deadline, Trump took to Truth Social to share the good news: that both countries had productive conversations toward concluding the conflict.
“I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD,” he wrote, adding that was subject to the success of the discussions.
That pushed the deadline out to the end of that week.
Before the deadline, on March 26, Trump doubled down on his threats on Truth Social: “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”
But later that day, he extended the deadline for another 10 days, to April 6 at 8 p.m., and said on Truth Social that negotiations were “going very well.”
On March 30, Trump put out a mixed statement: celebrating progress in the talks with Iran while also expanding his threatened bombing if a deal wasn't “shortly reached,” adding that “it probably will be."
“We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!),” he wrote.
It's unclear how soon “shortly reached” meant for Trump, but a deal was not made as the deadline loomed.
“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday, "Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”
As the deadline approached, his posts had doubled down on his threats until Sunday, when Trump pushed the deadline again in an expletive-filled post.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——-in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Trump said on Truth Social, followed by another post that specified 8 p.m. as the deadline.
Trump then suggested on Monday that Tuesday's deadline would be final, saying he'd already given Iran enough extensions.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night.”
By Tuesday morning, Trump had sent his statement saying “a whole civilization will die tonight,” to which he added that “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” he told The Associated Press.
The talks were ongoing as the Tuesday night deadline ticked closer.
President Donald Trump speaks to the crowd during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
