Liverpool Confirm Patrik Farkas and a Century-Old Sibling Gap

Liverpool have given 19-year-old midfielder Patrik Farkas a professional academy contract, four years after he left for Blackburn Rovers. He was an unused substitute in a 1-0 Premier League 2 defeat at West Ham United on 14 September, the night before the club posted the news.

The deal does not add a senior midfielder for head coach Andoni Iraola. It puts two Farkas brothers on the Kirkby books at the same time, 106 years after the last brothers shared a Liverpool first-team pitch.

Patrik Farkas Rejoins on a Professional Deal

The club’s academy site said Farkas has signed a professional contract and will work with the under-21 group. He is a Hungary youth international. The note is clear about the level: he arrives at the academy after four years at Blackburn, and he had a short spell in the Reds’ youth ranks before that move.

Contract length and wages were not published. Hungarian talent writer Bence Bocsák wrote in June that talks then centred on a two-year deal to be signed on 1 July, once the Blackburn contract ended. The club waited until mid-September, after a summer trial with the youth team, before it put his name on the site.

Farkas described himself in that club interview as a technical box-to-box midfielder who can play in more than one role.

I’m a technical player, a box-to-box player who can play in multiple positions and try to make things happen. The coaches have just asked me to excite them, to get playing, be confident and show them what I can do. From there anything can happen. Work hard and take the next step from there.

Patrik Farkas, midfielder, Liverpool FC academy interview

He also said he was enjoying being back, with new faces around old friends. Academy writer Lewis Bower noted the same day that this is a second stint, that Farkas had already been on a professional deal at Blackburn, and that he had loan spells at Prescot Cables and City of Liverpool. That is non-league minutes on Merseyside, not a first-team audition at Anfield.

The academy’s own account posted the confirmation on 15 September with a still of the player in club kit.

Patrik Farkas has signed a professional contract with Liverpool FC 🔴

The Hungary youth international midfielder arrives at the Academy having spent the previous four years at Blackburn Rovers. pic.twitter.com/5TfFkDU0Hl

— The LFC Academy (@LFCAcademyX) September 15, 2026

Bocsák attached an older clip to the same news, an overhead kick for the U16s in 2022, scored in a Liverpool shirt before the first exit. The return is a boy the club already knew, not a stranger bought to patch Iraola’s engine room.

The Summer Window Had Already Closed

Premier League clubs had to finish ordinary buying by a hard stop. The league said the summer window would open on 15 June 2026 and close at 23:00 BST on 1 September. Farkas was confirmed 14 days later because he was out of contract. A free agent can still sign after deadline day. A registered player from another club cannot.

That is why the note could land in mid-September without breaking the window rules, and why it still does not read as Iraola’s first senior midfield arrival. Liverpool did not pay Blackburn a fee. They offered a professional deal to a 19-year-old they had already let leave.

FARKAS PATH BACK TO KIRKBY

1. 2021: Joins Liverpool from Hungarian side Kecskemeti TE, about 14, with younger brother Erik also taken into the academy.
2. 2022: Leaves at under-16 level for Blackburn Rovers after a short spell in the Reds’ youth ranks.
3. 3 June 2026: Erik signs a scholarship with Liverpool’s under-18s while Patrik’s Blackburn deal is running down.
4. 4 June 2026: Bocsák reports advanced talks on a free move back, aimed at 1 July.
5. 1 September 2026: The Premier League window shuts at 23:00 BST with no senior holding midfielder added.
6. 14 September 2026: Farkas is named in an under-21 matchday squad for the first time, unused in a 1-0 loss at West Ham.
7. 15 September 2026: Liverpool publish the professional contract.

The gap between the June reports and the 15 September note is the trial. He had to show the academy staff again. The coaches’ brief, in his own words, was to excite them.

Erik Farkas Is Already Scoring at Under-18 Level

The club pointed straight at the family line. Younger brother Erik is with the under-18s at Kirkby. He turned 17 earlier in September and signed that scholarship in June. Patrik said the pair have played together since he was four.

We’ve always played together, from when I was four years old. We do push each other, that’s the aim, to push each other and that’s how we get better.

Patrik Farkas, on his brother Erik, Liverpool FC academy interview

Erik already has a louder start to this season than his brother. He scored twice and assisted once in his first two under-18 games, then scored again in a 4-2 win over Burnley on 12 September, finding the net in the 73rd minute after a one-two. He also swung the corner that led to Joseph Dixon’s second-minute opener in that match.

He is still on a scholarship. A first professional contract has been talked about as the next piece of paper, not as a document already signed. Until that lands, the “brother duo” on Liverpool’s books is one newly professional under-21 midfielder and one under-18 scholar. They can share a training ground. They cannot yet share a senior teamsheet.

Who Were Liverpool’s Last First-Team Brothers?

The last brothers documented on the club site as Liverpool first-team players are John and Tom Miller, Scots who overlapped in 1919-20. Tom was the footballer. John made up the numbers.

Tom, an inside-forward signed in February 1912, is listed with 146 appearances and 56 goals across 1912-1920. He helped the club reach its first FA Cup final in 1914, lost to Burnley at the old Crystal Palace, and was one of four Liverpool players found guilty of fixing a Good Friday 1915 match with Manchester United. His ban was lifted after war service. He scored 13 goals in 25 starts in 1919-20, then moved to United in September 1920.

John signed from Hamilton Academical in 1918 and made 8 first-team appearances in 1919-20. His debut was at home to Chelsea on 18 October 1919. The club says the two Millers played in the same team on three occasions. That is the whole first-team sibling file as the club itself writes it.

BROTHER PAIRS ON LIVERPOOL’S BOOKS

Call the Farkas pair historic at academy level if you want a clean line from 1920 to Kirkby. Do not call them the next Millers until they appear together in a first-team match. The Millers did that three times. The Farkas boys have not done it once.

Billy Scott Sent His Brother to Anfield

The other sibling story from that era is a keepers’ story, and it is lopsided. Elisha Scott is on the club site as Liverpool’s man for 1913-1934, 468 appearances, with league titles in 1921-22 and 1922-23. He debuted on 1 January 1913 at Newcastle, kept a clean sheet, and the Magpies offered £1,000, which Liverpool refused. He conceded 36 league goals in the first title season and 31 in the second, when he played every match. His last appearance was against Chelsea in February 1934, after which he left for a player-manager post at Belfast Celtic.

Billy Scott, the elder brother, was Everton’s goalkeeper. He recommended Elisha to Goodison; Everton decided the teenager was too small. Billy then pointed him at Anfield. Billy later played 27 wartime matches for Liverpool, with no competitive league appearance on the senior record. He got his brother a trial. He did not get a league pairing with him.

That is the honest version of “brothers at Liverpool” from the Scott house: one all-time keeper, one wartime deputy, and a family push that Everton declined. The Farkas line is closer to that than to Tom Miller’s 56 goals. One brother has a new contract. The other is still in the under-18s.

Iraola’s Midfield Still Has the Same Names

Iraola was appointed in the summer of 2026 after three seasons at Bournemouth, where the side finished 12th, 9th, then 6th and reached Europe. His Liverpool midfield debate started immediately. Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch both like to carry the ball. Alexis Mac Allister has been the surer fit beside one of them. Trey Nyoni has been used from the bench. Wataru Endo missed a chunk of pre-season and, by Iraola’s own account after the 0-0 draw with Fulham, still had a queue of players in front of him.

After that Fulham night Iraola said the press arrived late in the first half. He also said the midfield looks better when the whole side helps it win the ball, not when the two in the middle are asked to hunt alone. Florian Wirtz has been his preferred No. 10. That is not a job description for a newly signed academy midfielder who has not yet played a Premier League 2 minute.

THE SENIOR MIDFIELD THIS DEAL DOES NOT TOUCH

• The pivot names: Szoboszlai, Gravenberch and Mac Allister are the men Iraola has actually rotated in the two-man middle.
• The spare parts: Nyoni has been trusted in minutes off the bench; Endo is training but has been behind that group.
• The 10: Wirtz is the attacking midfielder the head coach has said he prefers there.
• The summer gap: Liverpool did not add a specialist holding midfielder before 1 September, and Farkas is registered with the under-21s.

Lamine Camara’s name had been around as a ball-winning profile if Mac Allister had left. Mac Allister stayed. Camara did not arrive. The club then confirmed Farkas. Those two sentences are easy to glue together and wrong to read as one transfer plan. One is a senior shortlist that went nowhere. The other is an academy return after a trial.

Hungary Now Has Five Players on the Books

Bocsák’s useful count on announcement day was the Hungarian one. Farkas is the fifth Hungarian on Liverpool’s books, after his brother, Ármin Pécsi, Szoboszlai and Milos Kerkez. That is a real cluster. It is also mostly a first-team cluster plus two academy brothers, not a new midfield structure.

HUNGARIANS NOW AT THE CLUB

• Dominik Szoboszlai: Senior midfielder and the man who scored in the 3-1 Carabao Cup win over Tottenham on 15 September, the same date the academy post went up.
• Milos Kerkez: Senior left-sided defender already in the first-team group.
• Ármin Pécsi: Another Hungarian already on the books before this contract.
• Erik Farkas: Under-18 scholar, 17, already on the scoresheet this season.
• Patrik Farkas: Under-21 professional, 19, unused at West Ham on 14 September.

The announcement was received as academy business, which is what it is. The live argument around the club remains the senior midfield Iraola is still balancing, because that group did not change on 15 September. Farkas can cover more than one role for the under-21s and he already knows the building. The brief from the coaches is to play with confidence and make something happen. That is the whole job, for now, and it is a Kirkby job.